Parameter Page load time 1

[marckssg]

Hi,

I'm running Crystal Reports Server XI on a Windows 2000 machine, with the 5 user licence, reporting off a Postgres database, using the Advanced DHTML viewer, with the CMS database using MSDE.

The problem I'm having is with reports that require Parameters, the intial page is taking upwards of over 2 minutes to load, even on what appear to be simple pages such as;

Parameter 1 - Choices are Saturday or Wednesday,
Parameter 2 - Date

Once the parameters are selected the report then runs in what I'd consider to be an acceptable length of time, normally 1 to 2 minutes.

There are some pages that are more complicated with a structure similar to this;

Parameter 1 - Date Selection
Parameter 2 - Drop down list with 12 options including an "ALL"
Parameter 3 - Drop down list 2 options
Parameter 4 - Drop down list 3 options
Parameter 5 - Drop down list 30 options including an "All".



Cheers

Marc

 

[lbass]

Just wanted to a add a comment. This is not related to CR Server, but I have noted the same extremely long load time for the parameter page in CR XI when the parameters are created within a command. Loading parameter pages when the parameters are developed in the usual way does not take a noticeably long time.

-LB

 

[VibrantIce]

We are experiencing this, too. Ours is version XI as well. My previous thread has additional details on the report. It works perfectly fine in the designer. It's just on the server where it is messed up. This is SOO painful!

 

[BobSuruncle]

With Dynamic Parameters, you're actually creating a Business View and an LIst OF Values object (LOV). If you created the Dynamic Parameters by hand in CR, the Business View gets created when you publish the report to Enterprise (ie Crystal Reports Server or the full Business Objects Enterprise XI).
For this reason, it's best to create the Business Views first, before creating the reports.
When you've created the Business View in the BV designer, and then created the LOV object to use this BV, you'll notice that you can schedule the LOV to run on a recurring schedule. Depending upon how "Dynamic" you need you parameter to be, you could schedule the LOV to run Daily, Hourly, etc.
Now, an instance gets created, and when you go to the schedule page in InfoView, the reults of the instance are used to populate the values for the parameters.

This should result in less time to load the page, as the heavy lifting is already complete.


Bob Suruncle

 

[synapsevampire]

Nice explanation, *Bob*!

-k

 

[marckssg]

The key piece of information I ommitted was that we are using static parameters, will that still mean a business view is being created?

Cheers

Marc

 

[synapsevampire]

No.

I thought that I'd posted on this already.

I have reports with many more parameters in CR XI, so I would be suspicious of a buglet or install problem.

Does the MSDE exist on the same machine? If not, there may be some connectivity concerns there.

Also years ago I discovered some bugs when a datetime parameter was the first of many parameters on Windows XP machines, so you may have discovered something similar only with W2K.

I would knock the number of active parameters down to 1 and start addign them back in, and also try changing the order.

-k

 

[Turkbear]

Hi,
I have found (with 10 and XI ) that parameters with many default values specified ( more than, say, 20 or so )can cause the report to be slow to load..





To Paraphrase:"The Help you get is proportional to the Help you give.."

 

[synapsevampire]

Turk: Even with the Service Pack installed on CR XI?

I never had it happen in CE 10 and I had 100's of default values in some instances.

-k

 

[Turkbear]

Hi,
Have not tested extensively with XI, since we ask our developers to avoid them in most cases..We provide direct database look-up tables for parameter values ( we use all custom code for our user interface )..In V10 however, it was an issue for us, especially is the report had 5 or more parameters.





To Paraphrase:"The Help you get is proportional to the Help you give.."

 

[synapsevampire]

Interesting, thanks for the feedback, Turk.

In CE 8.5 this happened to me in certain instances, you might try mixing up the order of the parameters, worked for us...

-k

 

[marckssg]

Hi,

Thanks for all the replys, synapsevampire I did search for related postings before starting a new topic, but there are times when I don't find this website the easiest to locate older postings, although the replies are normally 1st class!

I've gone right back to basics with the report, only one test text parameter in it with no default value or drop down included and it still runs like a dog when trying to open the parameter page.

The MSDE is located on the same machine as Crystal Server.

Despite assurances the machine is dedicated to Crystal Server I think my next port of call will be to make sure no-ones hijacked my server to roll out there own project on the cheap! Although I can't understand if this is the problem why the rest of Crystal Server seems to run ok, I'd have thought processing and navigating through instances that can be 500 pages long is more intensive work than opening up one page with a text box on it!

Thanks for all the posts and advice given.

Cheers

Marc

 

[synapsevampire]

An interesting one...

Try changing viewers to the Active X viewer and see if that resolves.

Also try changing the browser version/configuration, perhaps soemthing there is amiss...

-k

 

[VibrantIce]

It looks like my problem was that JRE wasn't installed. Now that it's installed (manually), the parameters come up quickly. My reports still don't run ("Missing prompting unit" error), but at least the params don't take forever.

 

[synapsevampire]

Ahhh, it makes sense now, a configuration issue.

Here's a whitepaper on your current error:

http://support.businessobjects.com/library/kbase/articles/c2019042.asp

-k