9iDS Release 2 Report Designer Crashes

Question

I have had numerous crashes over the past few weeks using this tool. As a background, I now have about 25 reports. Sometimes, I go into each one and "tweak" the report to change parameter sizes, layout, footer, etc. I "hand" edit some of these because I never seem to be able to re-load the template without some error. I don't know the tool very well, but, it's got a lot of great features. If it didn't crash or hang, numerous times, it would be great. One morning, recently, I was trying to update all the reports (22 of them) and print a sample page for my customer. I was ensuring the logo was the right one, the page footer was right, etc. I recieved no less than 10 crashes, forcing a restart of the tool each time. Needless to say, I wasted a lot of time doing that and wasn't able to go through all 22 reports I am running under Windows 2000 SP2 (and also under Windows XP Pro, SP1). This is both before and after applying 9.0.2.0.4 patch. Note, now that I know how to create templates, the logo, footer, etc issues are really not the problem, rather the crashes.
Sorry for the long list here in one message, but it seems to be large pattern and can be frustrating at times.
Template "Reapplication" issues:
1) Reapplying self-made template after only changing font and font size in template to make it smaller: I get a "No column is selected in group 'my group name'. Each report produces a different result, but that's the error message -- actually, I just tested this again. I don't even have to try to open re-apply the template specifically. I open the report wizard and click finish and get this, no matter what I do in the wizard. Is that the only way to reapply the template (especially, since I only want to get the font changes and color changes).
2) Clicking OK to the above error OFTEN (most of the time), produces "Instruction at 0x64e39295 referenced memory at 0x8b501045. The memory could not be read. In some cases, this happens after I select cancel in the reports wizard, when I received the error #1 above.
Because I don't understand problem #1 very well and because I frequently receive error #2, I end up opening the "old" report, copying the SQL query, closing the "old" report and generating a new report, using the template and then re-sizing the columns of the report. If someone could help with #1, that would be most helpful. That may or may not prevent the errors below. Most of my reports are "paper and web layout" and "group left" with 2 or 3 levels of groups, if that makes a difference. Also, all of my queries have lexical parameter "where_clause", allowing dynamic augmenting of where_clause.
3) The pattern of operations is: open old report, Grab SQL, close old report, generate new report via reports wizard, make report look right (fix column widths, make count columns right justified and displayed with "0,0" formatting, insert bookmarks, update user_parameter where_clause (see below) to be 4,000 characters). Save as and pick old name, when complete, save report, close report and open next report. I get through 2, 3 or 4 reports and then I get a crash. There are a two errors that I consistently see:
a) During open of report: XML Parser failure, then the crash
b) Unable to load string resource, then crash.
c) During close of report, The instruction at 0x64af3d4f referenced memory at 0x00001f55. The memory could not be read.
4) the template has user parameter defined "where_clause" 4,000 characters. I thought the template would supply that, but every time the reports wizard takes my query with the &where_clause, it resets the parameter size to 40 characters. I think that's because I'm seeing the message: Note: the query Q_1 has created the lexical parameter(s) 'where_clause', and I think that's overriding my template because at this point in the wizard I haven't even picked my template.
5) Alt-tabbing away from Reports back and forth (while creating this message, in fact), I have received the following twice while in reports wizard, after getting the exact text of the lexical parameter dialog mentioned above. The error: "The instruction 0x65134268 referenced memory at 0x00000044. The memory could not be read.
I hope these issues will be resolved in the near future. This is a great reporting tool, but with these kinds of errors, it's frustrating to use.
Regards,
Jeff

Answer 1

Hi Jeff,
Issue #1 occurs because of the report wizard. When you need to make a change, not the entire report, you should not use the wizard, use the Layout editor instead, in your case you can open the report design in the layout editor to change the font size/color of the fields then run the report and save it.
The wizard, when invoked, will start the whole new report design and expect new selections for the design, in your case, it expects you to select the fields to be displayed in the group(s) again, that is why you got the error, and I belive this error is the cause to other errors. You can test to see in the wizard, after you apply the new template don't click Finish yet, but go to the Group and Field tabs you will see . Even after you select the fields for the group when you run you will see that the report has new layout which looks completely different from the previous layout.
Good luck.