June 1, 2004 at 9:07 pm
Problem:
It appears as though Crystal Reports Version 8.x has incompatibility issues with Windows Server 2003.
The problem manifests itself in the form of several errors when trying to export reports from the ActiveX Viewer
“CRAXDRT Error Occurred on Server. 507 : An exception has occurred”
“CRAXDRT Error Occurred on Server. 70 : Permission Denied”
“CRAXDRT Error Occurred on Server. -2147190908 : Failed to export report”
Solution:
The common thread in all the above messages is “CRAXDRT”.
CRAXDRT.dll appears to be the library responsible of rendering and exporting reports. I suspect the locked-down and hardened security found in Windows Server 2003 has hurt Crystal and this CRAXDRT.dll – and I suspect we may see the same issue in Windows XP SP2? These are assumptions - I don't fully know the reason
Either way – I was able to resolve the issue by creating a COM+ Package (As a Server Application) and registering the craxdrt.dll in that package.
The file typically lives in <C:\Program Files\Seagate Software\Report Designer Component\>
Notes:
Judging by the number of postings in Google Groups, it appears that a lot of people have found this issue, when upgrading to Windows Server 2003. Crustal themselves are horribly silent, saying only “8.x versions are not supported on Windows 2003”.
Personally - I find this very disaapointing as I have a lot of customers still using Version 8 of Crystal Reports. Most of them appear to be upgading to Reporting Services rather than Crystal 10 - so perhaps this is not that much of an issue - but I would be interested to hear other viewpoints to establish where the industry is heading with one.
June 3, 2004 at 5:53 am
Very interesting. Next week we start migrating from Crystal 8.5 to rel. 10. We are building new servers but choose to stay with Windows 2000.... don't know why.... They are reluctant to start rolling Win2K3 before SP1 is released I do know that...
June 4, 2004 at 1:32 am
I would be interested to know how your migration goes. I tried a going 10 before I figured out what the issue was, and my 8.5 reports wouldn't work - they weren't accepting the paramters from the asp pages that were calling 'em, or I just got blank reports...
June 7, 2004 at 2:20 pm
You might want to consider SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services. It's free with a valid SQL Server 2000 license. It does require Visual Basic .NET (as a minimum) for report design. Visual Studio .NET 2003 is recommended. I just came back from a 2 day seminar by Homnick. It is thoroughly wrapped up in the .NET framework. VERY COOL! Sure beats the $80,000 Crystal Reports Enterprise license.
All the best,
Dale
Author: An Introduction to SQL Server 2005 Management Studio
June 7, 2004 at 2:25 pm
I have heard a few say its really not free.... Everyone I have heard says NO you really don't want to put this on an existing SQL Server.... its intensive enough that you should put on a dedicated server... so you have hardware AND a SQL Server 2 CPU license to buy minimum... Not to mention the dollars you would spend to convert over.....
June 7, 2004 at 2:43 pm
Well, I can assure that it's free. I have a copy. You just need to request it from Microsoft's Web site. All you pay for is postage. As for being intensive, go here - http://www.microsoft.com/sql/reporting/productinfo/sysreqs.asp. It requires SQL and IIS running on the same server. You decide. I am running it with no problem on my development server. I'll be moving it to production next week.
All the best,
Dale
Author: An Introduction to SQL Server 2005 Management Studio
June 7, 2004 at 3:01 pm
I'm sorry. I am wrong about IIS and SQL required on the same server. It does require IIS but not necessarily on the same server. That's just the way I have it currently configured.
All the best,
Dale
Author: An Introduction to SQL Server 2005 Management Studio
June 8, 2004 at 4:02 am
Yep - we are going with SQL RS - but until we've finished rewriting the reports Crystal has a (limited) life.
BTW : SQLRS is "free" as long as you have SQL server licenses for the machine you are installing it onto. ie: If you install it onto separate SQL + IIS servers then you will require 2 licenses. It has the same licensing model as Notification Services
June 8, 2004 at 5:38 am
I was in a Microsoft sponsored seminar and there is a point at which you should run Reporting services and its SQL Svr repository on its own hardware (This was coming from a Microsoft rep.). We are a big enough shop that yes we would have to... we have tons of Crystal reports. Small shops may be able to get away with using an existing SQL Server server.... we would not. I do agree, Reporting services is free.... what I was trying to say is that for medium to large corporations you have to buy hardware AND the SQL Server license for a dedicated server for this... Yes, the Reporting services is free, however we would have to pay a bundle for dedicated hardware and it would have to be clustered because of all of our stores some being 24 X 7... not to mention converting all of our Crystal reports over....
That was my point !
June 8, 2004 at 7:12 am
Do you run Crystal on your SQL server now? If so, Reporting Services should not be a problem. 40 people in our class were running RS on their servers w/ SQL and putting RS on another server was not even a topic that was brought up in the class but I have sent Mr. Homnick, http://www.homnick.com, an email expressing your concerns. Besides, you can import any existing Access or Crystal report into Reporting Services. The advantage is that you have it all wrapped around Web Services and XML.
As for an additional server, with the price you pay for enterprise licenses of Crystal, you can buy three servers with SQL and Reporting Services.
Perhaps that since you are already knee deep in Crystal, RS is just not the solution for you. However, it is very much worth looking into for those that are open to other reporting platforms to work with their existing SQL Server. It is economical and .NET ready.
All the best,
Dale
Author: An Introduction to SQL Server 2005 Management Studio
June 8, 2004 at 2:21 pm
Here's an FYI. Mr. Homnick wrote the following:
"The answer here is that long term there is absolutely no question the enterprise would be better off going off with SQLRS. In flexibility, scalability, cost and maintainability; SQLRS is the better product. Considering existing “LARGE” investments in CR, I believe the enterprise should look to SQLRS for new reporting jobs and maintain CR as a legacy system. They will experience immediate cost savings and efficiencies with every new reporting job."
I wanted to include some information concerning clustering. Your concerns were on track with that.
"With Reporting Services, there is another deployment model that you can implement to support a large installation, known as the Web farm deployment model.
Reporting Services supports clustering so that you can create a highly available and scalable report server installation. A report server Web farm consists of multiple report servers that share a single report server database (or a cluster of report server databases). You must use additional software to configure and manage the cluster. You can cluster report servers, report server database, or both.
A report server database can be part of a SQL Server failover cluster. After you install Reporting Services, you can use feature in SQL Server 2000 to create a cluster basted on the existing Report Server database. Whether you use a single database or a database cluster, the configuration you use is transparent to a report server.
Microsoft recommends the use of Microsoft Application Center 2000 or third-party software to create and maintain a report server Web farm. Although you can create a report server Web farm by running Reporting Services Setup, Reporting Services does not include tools for managing a Web farm configuration."
All the best,
Dale
Author: An Introduction to SQL Server 2005 Management Studio
June 9, 2004 at 11:43 am
Dale,
Maybe you can give me some perspective on RS for our situation, too. We typically just write .asp pages to do our reporting - Crystal is not used at all. Our management likes the .asp pages b/c the users can view their reports via the web when VPN'd in, and, more importantly, it's free (unlike Crystal).
However, we have to setup a new .asp page for each report (obviously). Given learning curve, implementation costs, and developer productivity (up? down? I dunno), what would you say to:
Your input (and/or others) would be most appreciated!
Thanks,
Paul
June 9, 2004 at 1:17 pm
PaulR,
I typed up a ton of good information for you on this subject and when I hit "Post Reply" it completely disappeared and brought me back to the "Post Reply" screen. Please go to this link until I can get some time again to type all that up for you. The same crap happened to me last night. It's very irritating.
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2003/jun03/06-02SQLreporting.asp
Generically answering your questions, 1. Yes, RS is much better mainly due to centralized management of the reports. 2. Yes, because you get report repository, report authoring, and centralized management all wrapped up into one. 3. Yes, much more flexible in terms of scheduling and delivery. 4. Yes, it is browser based. No, special requirements other than having Reporting Services installed. 5. Yes, it integrated great with Analysis Services (see link above).
Good luck,
Dale
All the best,
Dale
Author: An Introduction to SQL Server 2005 Management Studio
June 10, 2004 at 2:51 pm
Dale,
Thanks for the info. I suppose I'm really looking for as close to possible an open & shut case for our firm to move all reports and such to RS. I guess I should first just install it at home and try it out, make a few case samples, and prove its worth that way.
I appreciate the answers...
Thanks,
Paul
July 1, 2004 at 4:18 pm
Dale, you mentioned in an earlier post that you can import Crystal reports into RS. I know that Access reports can be imported, but how do you do this with Crystal reports? Do you have a third-party tool?
Thanks,
Jeremy
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