Discrepancy in behavior between SAP CR 2016 and new runtimes

[brian_hart]

I use SAP CR 14.2.2.1975 for developing reports.

We have a third-party product that uses CR Runtime. A recent upgrade included a change from 13.0.22.2668 to 13.0.24.2970. Of course, we have no control over that; the CR runtime installation is embedded in their software install/upgrade package.

I have a crosstab report that was already finely-tuned to just fit the page width-wise when the crosstab expands to show the data columns. When I run it in my dev version, it displays fine; however, when I run it through the software, using the same arguments, and only as of this upgrade (i.e. the operative change presumably being the new Crystal runtimes) the figures in the summary total row at the bottom overflow the width and therefore display as "#######" instead of the actual figures. This is in the preview as well as printing to physical printer or export to .pdf.

I took the easy way out and reduced the font pitch by one for those particular boxes, but it leaves me with little confidence that I can design any report having summary totals and have the result in the runtime be the same as it is in the dev version.

I cannot see any way that this can be their software; it has to be something different in the new CR runtime. They naturally say that because it is not in their software, I should take it up with SAP. However, I have no access to their code to see how they have implemented the SAP CR runtime API.

So the question is two-part:

1. In the specific case: any ideas on what could cause this discrepancy in how boxes are sized? Is it possible it is cross-tab specific and that the crosstab is sizing the boxes according to the individual cells, unaware that the summary is a digit larger?
2. In the general case: how would I take up an issue like this with SAP when I am not the developer and therefore can show only the result, not the methods used to invoke the API? IP Logged

[former_member11696 · Accepted solution]

Hi Brian,

SP 24 was the most stable of them all so it's likely the code they are using, all of your settings are programmable.

We don't support VBA, you will need to use Visual Studio .NET.

Only option is for them to fix it or possibly Ido can provide you with an application that can possibly replace what you are using now.

I suggest going to Ido's site, he can provide the link, and looking around if the others are not willing to "fix" their software.

Don

[ido_millet]

Brian, I use the latest SP 24 and haven't seen any problems using UNC path for exports. How exactly did you test that aspect?

[former_member11696]

Hi Brian,

SP 24 is the latest and it fixed a lot of issues with the Viewer and formatting engine.

You should discuss with the makers of that software, they may have registry keys to adjust fonts and spacing that may have been removed with the update you did.

Not clear if you just updated it or if they updated it for you?

Don

[brian_hart]

Don.

I apologize for the delay. For some reason, I did not get the response via e-mail, and in revisiting the thread now, saw your post.

The particular software comes pre-packaged with the version they have integrated. To get a different version, I have to download & install it separately. So I can test other versions, but I have very little ability to determine whether the new "limitations" are actually imposed on them intentionally by SAP as a function of the newest runtime, as they claim. For example, we lost the option to export to MAPI--even though this still exists in SAP CR 2016 (i.e. the development version of Crystal). Besides perhaps posting here on this forum in the hopes that someone else has seen this behavior, I have no idea whether 1) they are truly over a barrel because SAP has intentionally deprecated some prior functionality (in which case I will not complain but just accept it as fate), 2) they are assuming it is new functionality and giving us permanent changes when it is just a bug in a particular version of the runtime (i.e. have not bothered to try to contact SAP to determine if some limitation was intentional or an oversight/bug), or 3) there has been a change to the API calls used to invoke Crystal, and they have not bothered to look up new or changed API objects/methods and are just going with what they have always done, then accepting some limitation rather than taking the time to determine if the way some prior functionality is called has changed.

Another good example is a report that, if it has a default printer stored that exists on the machine but is not the user's default printer, pops up asking which printer, with no recognition of which printer is the user's default printer. As above, I have no way of telling whether they have given in to a bug/oversight or if there is something intentional about this.

Yet again is a big issue in which they used to be able to export directly to a UNC path (all in the API, no user-interactive printer choice once the user clicks a button in their app) but now claim that Crystal requires a mapped or local drive; UNC will no longer work. I simply cannot tell whether this is a bug in the runtime, if SAP changed it intentionally, or if something in the API changed so that they need to rewrite the call to accommodate the new method of using UNC.

I just feel like they are not being entirely up front about which of those it is, and I have virtually no recourse beside learning the entire API myself and using it within, for example, VBA (the only language I know well), then, if I can get it working there, trying to prove to them that it was a bug in a particular runtime version or modification of how an API call works...