Crystal Reports 2016 very slow startup

[Former Member]

I have Crystal Report XI installed on my Windows 10 64-bit workstation. It worked fine until a recent Windows 10 automatic update broke the JET connection to xls files. So I purchased and installed the upgrade for Crystal Reports 2016. It installed without any issue.

But when I try to launch CR 2016, I see it appear in the Task Manager but I don't see the splash screen. After several MINUTES, the UI finally appears and I can use the program with no issues.

This very long startup doesn't seem normal. I have a new(ish) computer with 32gb of RAM and a solid state drive. Crystal Reports XI started very quickly. But the 2016 version takes several minutes. Sometimes if I kill the process in Task Manager and then launch the program again, the splash screen will appear. But even then, it still takes several minutes before the actual program starts.

I have 14.2.4.2410 (Support Pack 4) installed, full developer license.

I can try uninstalling the previous version, and then uninstall and reinstall 2016 but before doing that, I wanted to post this to see if there were any known issues or fixes.

[vitaly_izmaylov]

Unfortunately the workaround:

https://www.tenforums.com/performance-maintenance/96792-fall-creators-update-poor-performance-laggin...

did not fix the problem on my test machine, but now we can confirm the cause of the delay - it is GetPixel api call performance on Windows 10 after FCU update.

Crystal Reports developers made some changes to crw32.exe to optimize the number of GetPixel calls CR makes. I've tested the new binary on two affected machines and CR started within 10 seconds.

We have a fix, but it takes time to test and release it, so we still open for any suggestions to workaround the OS changes.

[vitaly_izmaylov]

Thank you Eric and Scott. It is first time I see that the problem affects Crystal Reports 2008. Good to know. Not sure yet what we can do for CR 2008, but for CR 2016 developers are working with affected customers and advanced logging.

Unfortunately we did not reproduce the problem in house and standard logs like Process Monitor do not give us enough information. That is why it takes longer, but we are working on the problem.

[vitaly_izmaylov]

Thank you, Gregg, now it all make sense and matches with what we discovered so far.

We are going to try it with several users who faces the problem.

Thank you

[Former Member]

I also have this issue. It started after the Win 10 Fall Creators Update. I was able to speed up the load time by turning off the Control flow guard setting (see the link below) and enabling the "Override high DPI scaling behavior" and set it to "System" in the Crystal Desktop shortcut compatibility properties.

Other applications have this issue and it's reported to happen on PC's with UHD displays or high font scaling

https://www.tenforums.com/performance-maintenance/96792-fall-creators-update-poor-performance-laggin...

[Former Member]

I recently bought a new computer that is much more powerful than my old computer. So I loaded CR 2016 onto my new computer and moved the license over. I had CR 2016 SP 2 on my old computer and I upgraded to CR 2016 SP 4 on my new. On my new computer, it takes about 5 minutes for CR to load. Once it is loaded, it is fine. But the initial load is painfully slow.

[Former Member]

I installed a patch (CR201604P_6-80000444) and crossed my fingers that it would help this startup issue, but it didn't. It's super annoying. Sometimes when I get to the office I launch Crystal Reports even if I won't need it until later. I don't understand how a product that has been around for so long has this type of issue. And getting support from SAP is impossible.

[vitaly_izmaylov]

We found with some users (at least 3 users reported) that the delay in CR 2016 start caused by Windows Explorer process.

Crystal Reports starts normally after windows explorer process restart in Task Manager. If you still have the problem, can you test it?

[Former Member]

Thanks for your reply. I just tried this as a test. I opened Task Manager and restarted Windows Explorer. Screen flashed to indicate it restarted. Waited a few moments then launched Crystal Reports. Still takes a long to to start up. Maaaaaybe a little faster, but still takes too long to start. My entire computer can boot up faster than it takes CR2016 to launch.

[Former Member]

I am seeing the same issue with Crystal Reports 2008, and on a well powered i7 / 32GB machine.

I have found the Explorer restart helpful, but would like to see this problem get resolved in a more effective / permanent way.

You may also want to change the "Check for updates" to Off, and don't show the "Start" page - just some ideas from other that posted this in a different thread.

It seems clear that some recent Win10 update has created the problem. Nontheless it seems an issue that SAP/Crystal needs to address.