Various CE 8.5 issues 1

[rhinok]

Good morning,

I'm preparing to upgrade my CE8 Pro installation by evaluating (read, working out the bugs) CE8.5 on my test machine. As part of this process I've run into some interesting issues:[ol][li]New features of CE 8.5 such as schedule to destination and format worked in ePortfolio until I applied the CR8.5 Upgrade patch (on the same machine). Once the patch was applied I received a variety of error messages such as 'Object or method not supported' when I tried to access any of the new features. After two days of various testing and talking to Crystal Decisions I was able to resolve the issue by uninstalling my Crystal Enterprise Report Plugins(I had two, one registered to the Seagate Software directory and one registered to the Crystal Decisions directory) and reinstalling the plugin from the appropriate CD directory.[/li]

[li]In testing SMTP delivery I found that I am able to mail to multiple email addresses (separated by a semicolon) in the To: address line only. Multiple addresses in the C.C.: address line cause the instance to fail with the following error message :"address error. CrystalEnterprise.Smtp: (501)"[/li]

[li]When I attempt schedule reports in certain formats such as Word or RTF and email that report via SMTP the instance fails with the following error message: "write error. CrystalEnterprise.Smtp: SMTP_E_TCPSOCKET_SEND(3) I am able to successfully email other formats such as Excel, Crystal and Acrobat[/li]

[li]I have not yet been able to successfully schedule a report to the Printer. I receive the following error message when I attempt to do so: &quot;Request cancelled by the user. File C:\Program Files\Seagate Software\Shared\Temp\procSched\<APSName>.report\~ce8c428fe3003ac2.rpt. except I didn't cancel the job...[/li][/ol]Has anybody else experienced issues such as the ones I've listed and, if so, have you been able to resolve them?

 

[synapsevampire]

I just tested CE 8.5 for about 2 months, and I didn't experience everything that you are.

Since a patch seemed to muck up the works, I'd suggest rolling it back, or perhaps more successfully, uninstalling CE and reinstalling it.

Most of these errors are too critical to make sense, rhinok, it must be some sort of corruption. The multiple CC line I may not have tried, but I definitely emailed Word and RTF.

You will find that a datetime parameter in the Active-X control will cause clients to hang if they're running XP and it's either the first parameter, or they try to back up to a datetime parameter (providing they don't have Crystal Reports installed). It's supposed to be fixed and released soon.

There were a few other lil anomalies, but I think that you're experiencing too many *unique* problems.

-k

http://www.informeddatadecisions.com

kai@informeddatadecisions.com

 

[rhinok]

Unfortunately, I can't roll the CR8.5 Upgrade patch back since CR won't work with CE8.5 without it.

I agree with you, however, that there is probably corruption. While a clean install is my next route, its not really something I relish having to do on my production box. The reason I'm going through this pain now is so that I can avoid it when it when I upgrade the production server.

As always, thanks for your input SV!

 

[synapsevampire]

I had to reinstall twice due to APS corruption once, and then a bad UFL.

Just look on the bright side...er, uuuummmm, there's always version 9!

<trying to hold a straight face>

-k

http://www.informeddatadecisions.com

kai@informeddatadecisions.com

 

[Nuffsaid]

Hi Guys,

Here’s one I’ve come across that really bothers my users. A report is scheduled in eportfolio and the instance returns successfully in CR format. The user opens the instance, using any one of the viewers, and exports to Excel. Once the report is exported, the user opens the spreadsheet to discover that most of the cells have been merged rendering the spreadsheet useless. CD informs me that they have a Product Team working on a solution.

I can’t believe I haven’t seen any posts about this one!

Nuffsaid.

 

[rhinok]

Actually, Nuff - thanks for bringing this up. I did notice this issue last week, but forgot to include it. The issue is especially frustrating since the report that is exported to excel was formatted at design time specifically for excel. It worked great in CE8, but is horrible in CE8.5.

 

[lyanch]

This is a biggie for me. I would like to see this resolved before I install my upgrade.

Lisa

 

[rhinok]

Addendum to my original Issue #3:

When I attempt schedule reports in certain formats such as Word or RTF and email that report via SMTP the instance fails with the following error message: &quot;write error. CrystalEnterprise.Smtp: SMTP_E_TCPSOCKET_SEND(3) I am able to successfully email other formats such as Excel, Crystal and Acrobat

After furthing testing I have identified that only Word and RTF formats (I hadn't tested every single format yet) fail in combination with SMTP and they are only affected if there are graphics (tested both blob objects and charts) present in the instance. I can successfully schedule to Word and RTF for SMTP destination if the instance contains no graphics.

 

[rhinok]

FYI, Issue three also occurs with embedded OLE ojbects (Corporate Logo, in my case). As soon as I remove the logo, I can email the report in Word or RTF with no difficulties.

Regarding Excel formatting issues, I've run the following tests in my test environment (CE8.5 with ActiveX viewer using ePortfolio):[ol][li]Scheduled a report to format Excel (Data Only). Result = Excel document formatted perfectly to my expectations[/li]

[li]Scheduled a report to format Excel with Export Report Header and Tabular Format checked. Result = Excel document with merged columns[/li]

[li]Scheduled a report to format Excel with Export Report Header checked, Tabular Format unchecked. Result = Excel document with merged columns[/li]

[li]Scheduled a report to format Excel with Export Report Header unchecked, Tabular Format checked. Result = Excel document with merged columns[/li]

[li]Scheduled a report to format Excel with both options unchecked. Result = Excel document with merged columns[/li]

[li]Scheduled an report that is formatted for Excel in Crystal Reports format and then used the export option in the ActiveX Viewer to export to Excel. Result = Excel document with merged columns[/li][/ol]As you can see, I've only been able to get decent Excel results in one of many tested scenarios.

 

[VergeResources]

In reference to the originally posted message, I've also encountered errors since applying the CR8.5 Upgrade for CE8.5 patch. Now, when I try to publish a report using the Crystal Management Console, I get:

&quot;Retrieve Error
There was an error while retrieving data from the server: Failed to read data from report file C:\Program Files\Seagate Software\WCS\iarcmcaf.rpt.

Reason: Unable to launch C:\Program Files\Crystal Decisions\Enterprise\win32_x86\plugins\desktop\CrystalEnterprise.Report\ReportAdd program to add report to the system. &quot;

Have any of you encountered this error or have an idea how to fix it?

Prior to this patch, I've actually been very pleased with CE8.5. I think it is a much cleaner product than 8.0.

 

[rhinok]

Verge, I haven't run across this issue, sorry

Regarding my Issue #2--multiple addresses in the Cc line:

Based on further testing by both CD and myself, multiple addresses are possible in the Cc line, however, you must not separate the addresses with both a semicolon and a space. There is obviously a coding issue involved since you do not need to enter a space between multiple addresses in the To line.

 

[rhinok]

Update on Issue #3 - Setting Destination to SMTP with Word/RTF documents w/graphics causes the following error message: write error. CrystalEnterprise.Smtp: SMTP_E_TCPSOCKET_SEND(3)

CD Tech Support doesn't have any documentation on this error message and couldn't reproduce it. The Tech Support rep suggested that I set the destination to Unmanaged Disk and check the file size. My test file weighed in at 1.74Mb in both Word and RTF format, whereas the same report was only 440Kb in Acrobat and 220Kb in Excel.

Based on the size of the file, I checked my IIS SMTP settings and found that my message limit was 2Mb. Once I bumped the limit to ~5Mb I was able to successfully set destination to SMTP with Word/RTF format. The mystery is resolved regarding this isssue but I'd still like to know why Word/RTF documents are so abnormally large Vs. other exported formats.