Frustration with report designer error Messages

[former_member308135]

I am having difficulties troubleshooting changes to some complex reports, particularly after doing a database refresh. 'This Field Name is not known' is not terribly useful without the name of the field that is not known. Similarly 'A number or currency amount is required here' without any clue as to where 'here' is, is not very useful. I would suggest a message like 'The Field Name [0} is not known' would be a huge boon to developers everywhere as it would at least give a clue where to look. The report I am debugging has 12 tables at the top level and 10 sub-reports so guessing where the error is, is not practical. Also, I am applying changes made from the database to an old report, so I am not in a position to change one thing at a time to see what breaks.

Please create a project to improve the information given in error messages by the designer. My productivity would go up considerably if I did not have to check hundreds of formula fields trying to figure out what is not working when the designer module already knows the problem.

Thanks, Neil

[former_member11696 · Accepted solution]

Hi Neil,

SP 24 is the latest now.

https://wiki.scn.sap.com/wiki/display/BOBJ/Crystal+Reports%2C+Developer+for+Visual+Studio+Downloads

Download the Parameter test app, it has a FormulaField.Check() API in it and will give you the formula and field info missing.

Don

[former_member308135]

I am using the most recent release for Visual Studio 2010 labelled Crystal Reports for .net Framework - 13.0.22.2668. I have never seen the behaviour described - whenever a problem happens I get the cryptic pop-up shown above and no fields are highlighted and the Formula Editor does not open.

I worked around my problem by identifying the fields that were disappearing in the new version, removed them from the formulas on the report and sub-reports and then refreshing the database definitions. Doing a database validation does not work if fields have been removed and you have nothing to map them to. You cannot ask Crystal Reports to show you where those fields were mapped to. You have to remove them before verifying the database.

I have turned off automatic validation to get around this problem, but as I mentioned, if Crystal Reports could just tell me in the pop-up, '"ou are missing field 'X'" life would be a lot easier.

[DellSC]

What version of Crystal are you using? Usually when Crystal brings up these messages, it will either highlight the field in the Field Explorer or open the Formula Editor if the issue is in a formula.

Also, I would refresh one subreport at a time so that you get this information and then refresh the main report instead of relying on the main refresh to update the subreports.

-Dell