Failed to open the connection. Error in the Designer when copying ...

Question

I have two different systems I am developing an application on.
I copy the entire directory from one system to the other. Both systems have the same environment:
Visual Studio 2010
Crystal Reports for Visual Studio 2010 (the production release, or I think it is the vesion is 13.0.2.0 is the version on the assemblies)
SQL 2008 R2
Today, I started adding Crystal reports to this VS solution. I have a reportdriver class that exports all the reports to an HTTP Stream, but we can sit that aside for now. The problem I am having is strictly with the integrated designer.
I have a bunch of existing reports written for an old Sybase databse. I have ported them to SQL and the table structure matches. I simply add the report to my project, point it to the new datasource (using "Set Datasource Location" - OLE ADO SQL) and then preview the report to be sure it runs.
I am just using "localhost" as my server name for the OLE connection so I...in theory... don't have to change the data source to view it on the other system. Both systems have SQL 2008 R2 installed locally. For my login credentials, I use SQL Security and use the same database login/password on both development machines andthe production server.
Today, I copied my entire project to the other PC (as I do almost every day).. When I open any of the reports (in VS) and try to preview them I get:
Failed to open the connection.
Details: ADO Error Code: 0x80004005
Source: Microsoft OLE DB Provide for SQL Server
Description: [DBNETLIB][ConnectionOpen (Connect().]SQL Server does not exist or access denied.
SQL State: 08001
Native Error: 17 [Database Vendor Code: 17]
I can only guess that I am using two different OLE ADO drivers on the two systems or there is something embedded in the rport or somewhere in my solution that "knows" I am not really on the same system that I initially set them up on and previewd them with.
Am I on the right track? Any idea how I can fix this? Obviously, I don't want to have to setup the datasource for every report in my application (if I do that, the report works) when I copy it from the development to the production server.
I am in a real bind here and under a fast aproaching deadline. Any help is much appreciated!!!
Shayne

Answer 1

Don't use localhost as your server name. It's a reserved name and should not be used in code.
Try this also [Kbase |http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/servlet/prt/portal/prtroot/com.sap.km.cm.docs/oss_notes_boj/sdn_oss_boj_bi/sap(bD1lbiZjPTAwMQ==)/bc/bsp/spn/scn_bosap/notes%7B6163636573733d36393736354636443646363436353344333933393338323636393736354637333631373036453646373436353733354636453735364436323635373233443330333033303331333533353333333433363339%7D.do] SAP Note 1553469 - How to enable Database logging in Crystal Reports for Visual Studio 2010
Edited by: Don Williams on Jan 30, 2011 6:02 AM