Running Crystal Reports in a new environment

[Former Member]

Hi,

we have been running VB 6 application that uses Crystal 8.5 on a group of Terminal Servers for about 5 years. These servers are near their sell by date and we have created a new test server with more memory to try and take the first step to replacing our old kit.

The existing and new servers both run Windows Server 2003 R2 SP2 and are 32bit.

The existing instructions I have say to install, VB5 runtime components, CR ActiveX viewer, CR 8.5 (complete install) and put %systemroot%\crystal into the Path environment variable.

I did all this as the adminstrator. I have checked against the existing servers and all looked fine.

The application and reports reside on another server in our network and are accessed from there by the working Terminal servers.

However when I run the VB application I get the 20599 - Cannot open SQL Server. If I open an existing CR report and try to look at the database connections I get Class Not Registered. I have done extensive searching on this and follwed virtually all recommendations however nothing appears to be working.

I've created a new report and was able to create both Oracle and SQL Server OLE connections from it. It looks like only the historical reports are causing the problem.

Does anyone have any advice on how to get old reports working in a new environment ?

Regards

Karen

[former_member183750 · Accepted solution]

Hello Karen

A question re:

However when I run the VB application I get the 20599 - Cannot open SQL Server. If I open an existing CR report and try to look at the database connections I get Class Not Registered.

I'm not sure of the difference between "run the VB application" and "open an existing CR report".

One thing I can tell you is that the error " Class Not Registered" means that one of the CR runtime DLLs is not registered. I suppose the question then becomes; how was the CR runtime deployed? Typically the dll not registered will be craxdrt.dll or craxddrt.dll (if used in your app), but it could be any number of the CR runtime COM dlls.

- Ludek

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[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Thanks for getting back to me Ludek,

Sorry if I wasn't clear earlier. When I open actual the actual Crystal Report (via CR designer) I get the class not registered but only when I try to select 'database' from the toolbar. I suspect the SQL Server error I get through the application (vb exe) is just the same thing but giving an different message.

I have loked at all the dlls that appear necessay and they all look like they are in there. This incudes CRAXDDRT.DLL and CRAXDRT.DLL.

What puzzles me is that a new report seems to work without a problem.

I installed Crystal from an installation directory we have used historically. The install looks exactly as it should.

Regards

Karen

[former_member183750 · Accepted solution]

Class Not Registered in the designer? Very weird.  I think you are correct that this is the same issue, but the runtime throws a different error. Typically. we'd want to get this working in the designer before moving on to runtime. So:

What database would this report be connecting to? And what is the database connection method?

Oh and heads up; I'm not sure if CR 8.5 supported WIN2003 - I suspect not. I realize this works on some WIN 2003 servers, but just had to say... it may be that who ever installed CR 8.5 on the working servers had to do a bit of hacking(?)...

- Ludek

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Ludek,

I agree with you I believe the installation instructions I have do not provide all the steps needed.

The string passed to the Crystal Report from the VB exe is

Provider=OraOLEDB.Oracle;Password=xxxx;User ID=xxxxx;Data Source=xxxx;

In my new test report I was able to set a connection up in CR designer to the Oracle database and when I look at the driver it uses its PDSOLEDB.DLL. This is what the working version on the old machine uses.

We are currently looking at re-writing the whole thing so we may just have to bring that forward.

Many Regards

Karen

[former_member183750 · Accepted solution]

Hello Karen

The reports are using OLE DB to Oracle and thus the pdsoledb.dll is the correct driver. Now, CR 8.5 being so long ago, I just don't remember much about it, but these days we often run into issues if the report uses OLE DB driver for Oracls from Microsoft. See if this is the case. If it is, change to a driver from Oracle and test in the designer again.

- Ludek

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Ludek,

The problem has been resolved. I re-installed the Oracle OLEDB provider but noticed that it had previously been installed in c:\program files\common files\ezaccess\ora and I would have expected it to be in the c:\ORA92 directory. I installed it there and all started to work. Thanks Goodness !!

Many Thanks for your advice.

Regards