Preview doesn't work on Crystal report XI/Server 2008 R2

[Former Member]

Hi Everyone,

I am facing an issue since 1 week now and I was hopping you can help me.
We currently have a Windows server 2000 with IIS and Crystal report XI installed on it.
We use this for generation reports based on a SQL database.
Now is time to move to server 2008 R2 but I can't make the preview work at all.
ActiveX or java previous, nothing works.
the ActivX/java client is displayed on the screen in IE but stay emtpy.
We can export to PDF or XLS, the only thing that doesn't work is the preview.

I am even able to reproduce the issue on a fresh install:
install 2008 r2 STD
install IIS + ASP
install crystal report XI SR2
install crystal report XI SP6
Set Application pool to 32bits
use the test files from aspxmps115.zip

the windows 7 client is able to see the preview on our old server 2000 but not on the 2008 r2 server so I don't think it's related to the client side.

The only thing I found is the following error on the server in the httperr1.log:
2015-04-17 05:32:50 10.149.19.57 55693 10.149.8.242 80 HTTP/1.1 POST
/aspxmps115/aspmps115/BeginHere/RDCrptserver115.asp?cmd=get_pg&page=1&incomplete_page=1&incomplete_page_count=1&smart_images=1&viewer=actx&vfmt=encp
1 Connection_Dropped Classic+.NET+AppPool

This "connection dropped" error indicates that the crystal report timed out or returned an error at some point I think.
I checked the event log, text log files, but nothing.
I'm out of ideas and log files.

Anything as an idea?

[former_member183750 · Accepted solution]

CR XI R2 was not supported on Server 2008. See this wiki for more info:

Crystal Reports v. 9.1 to SAP Crystal Reports, developer version for Microsoft Visual Studio Runtime...

Now, there were reports of people being able to get CR XI R2 to work on WIN 2008 Servers so I compiled their experiences in this blog:

http://scn.sap.com/community/crystal-reports/legacy-sdks/blog/2010/04/06/report-designer-component-r...

Please note that I have not done any of the steps documented in the above blog. The steps are not supported (CR XI R2 is out of support in any case...).

Recommended approach; update the app to the CR SDK for .NET

- Ludek

Senior Support Engineer AGS Product Support, Global Support Center Canada

Follow me on Twitter

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Ludek,

You are a genius: first link, first reported issue: The crystal report viewer just shows the viewer, but without any report result.

I changed the code in as you said in RDCrptserver115.asp:

response.addheader "CONTENT-LENGTH", lenb(temp)

to

response.addheader "CONTENT-LENGTH", lenb(temp + 0)

And BANG, my test environment, dev environment and production servers are now all up and running.

Thank you so much again

NB: The correct link is

http://scn.sap.com/community/crystal-reports/legacy-sdks/blog/2010/04/06/report-designer-component-r...

(your link was missing the last letters)

[former_member183750 · Accepted solution]

Ooops, sorry about the missing letters. Bad copy / paste.

It is actually quite amazing how many people this blog has helped. It really was just a "desperate times call for desperate actions" sort of a thing. Glad it helped

Happy coding,

- Ludek

[Former Member]

Hi Christophe,

May I know your application database? Is it SQL 2012?

I am in a very similar situation to migrate a legacy VB6 application to Windows 2008 R2 Server and VB6 application has to support generate reports against SQL 2012. I am just wondering whether CR 11.5 + CR SP 6 helped you to generate reports against SQL 2012. Kindly share your experience.

Regards

Raghu

[Former Member]

Hi Raghu,

Currently our SQL server is 2005 but our DEV team need to migrate it to 2012 by the end of july.

if you want send me a message at the end of july and I'll let you know the issues we had.

Regards

Christophe

[former_member11696]

Hi Guys,

The problem is MS SQL Server 2008 and above renamed their client dll from SQL Native to SQL Native 10 for 2008 and Native 11 for SQL 2012.

When MS changed their client dll name our database drivers look for specific client dll names and if not found default to a generic SQL Syntax. When you update your Clients this is going to cause problems, maybe.... Depends on the complexity of the SQL being used.

Since no patches are available now for XI R2 it is not aware of the changes we added to support SQL 2008 and 2012. You may be able to make it work with ODBC but MS does not fully support MDAC ODBC drivers with SQL 2008 and 2012....

You guys really need to update to VS 20xx and CR for VS. Our Windows Form viewer is getting closer to be like the old ActiveX viewer. In CR for VS SP 14 you will be able to print using the activeX dll which uses the same printer dialog as CR Designer uses...

Good luck

Don

[former_member11696]

Hello,

Moved your post to the Legacy SDK forum.

Likely cause is the crviewer.cab file is not being pushed down to the client or it's permission issues for the viewer folder.

Use Fiddler to debug and possibly ProcessMonitor to see what is being denied access.

Don