RE 7.95 and Crystal Reports XI - frustration

Elaine Tucker · April 2016

A bit of a rant, but also help needed...

So it is now 7:02 pm, I opened a case with support at 11:45 am today because I was unable to EDIT a crystal report because we upgraded to 7.95 last night/this morning and I needed to install Crystal XI. I must have some how missed this in all the documentation I read, because if I had known that as a DBA I needed in install CRXI BEFORE upgrading I would have done it.

So with that being said, and after all the help the numerous support techs supplied, - especially Erik who "held on the phone/screen share" waiting for the FTP and then walked me through the install at FINALLY 6:15 pm this evening. So I was thinking, ok this is good, so I let the call conclude and stopped the screen share; BUT 6:35 (central time) pm after rebooting after the install, I am unable to run CRXI because of Crystal Reports Application Error unable to load keycode.dll.

So I call again, and the tech who answered the call is unable to help and all the other Crystal Reports support people have left for the day. I can't find anything on the KB on how to fix it so I am going to "mea culpa" to my VP of Development who needed this report today for a meeting.

I can't believe it took all day for them to try and fix this and STILL I am stuck. Any suggestions on how to fix this would be appreciated.

JoAnn Strommen · April 2016

Sorry Elaine, what a frustrating day for you! Wish I had knowledge in that area to share, but I don't.

Do know your pain and frustration - also with support for long block of time yesterday and today with unsolved problem and FTP issues.

Hopefully your VP will be okay and you can have a great weekend.

Amy Dana · April 2016

Ugh - this is my nightmare. Did you ever get it resolved?

David Springer · April 2016

Hi Elaine,

I'm very sorry to hear about the delay in your case and that the issue occurred in the first place. Support has reached out to try to resolve the problem as soon as possible.

We're also in the process of improving 7.95 upgrade resources, to ensure users are fully prepared to upgrade in the future. While I realize that doesn't necessarily ease your frustration in this case, we definitely want to minimize any hurdles users have when upgrading.

Again, I'm sorry that your experience on Friday was so frustrating, and please know that we're working to avoid this problem in the future.

Elaine Tucker · April 2016

We have not resolved this yet, as I am out of the office until Thursday, once a solution has been found I will be sure to post it here.

Jennifer Broadwell · April 2016

I had the exact same headache when we upgraded. We were on an older version of Crystal, and many of our reports stopped working and I couldn't open any of them to fix them. It probably took 1-2 weeks after going back and forth with blackbaud and our internal IT people to figure out that I needed a new version of Crystal (originally, blackbaud support told me it shouldnt matter). Thankfully, blackbaud sent me a file to download the newest version of crystal, and it fixed it. BUT, the reports were still messed up due to the change of how telephone numbers and emails were mapped. I had to get back on the phone with support 2-3 more times because I didn't know how to update everything. Thankfully the Crystal support person I spoke with was very helpful and patient. But, this whole ordeal took almost a month to get resolved...meanwhile, our pool annual giving director had no working reports for almost a month. Yes , please blackbaud, in the future when there is an upgrade, please warn the DBAs and also give us some heads up and instructions on how to fix these things once we upgrade.

Elaine Tucker · April 2016

This has been resolved! Took a complete reinstall of the software, with the assistance of BB Support. Since we are still on OS Windows 7, there were additional patches that had to be installed after the initial install of the software. All in, this took about 2 hours because there was rebooting involved after EVERY install/update/patch.

So, if you are planning on updating to 7.95 and you are using CR OUTSIDE of the RE plugin report viewer allow time for this in your upgrade schedule.

Thanks everyone - especially William Bolger who got the install to work and Dorrie Wallace for taking the time to listen.

Elaine Tucker · April 2016

Jennifer Broadwell:

I had the exact same headache when we upgraded. We were on an older version of Crystal, and many of our reports stopped working and I couldn't open any of them to fix them. It probably took 1-2 weeks after going back and forth with blackbaud and our internal IT people to figure out that I needed a new version of Crystal (originally, blackbaud support told me it shouldnt matter). Thankfully, blackbaud sent me a file to download the newest version of crystal, and it fixed it. BUT, the reports were still messed up due to the change of how telephone numbers and emails were mapped. I had to get back on the phone with support 2-3 more times because I didn't know how to update everything. Thankfully the Crystal support person I spoke with was very helpful and patient. But, this whole ordeal took almost a month to get resolved...meanwhile, our pool annual giving director had no working reports for almost a month. Yes , please blackbaud, in the future when there is an upgrade, please warn the DBAs and also give us some heads up and instructions on how to fix these things once we upgrade.

This is my next project, our reports are also broken. I think it has to do with the outer/inner joins. When I open the reports to edit in CR XI, I am warned "this report was created with an Earlier version of Crystal... some features may not be compatible". Which sigh.... why oh why do software companies NOT make their software backward compatible. Interesting to note, if I open the "current" report it does not work, if I open last years report it works.... go figure....

Elaine Tucker · April 2016

Ok, so when you change the left outer joins, there is an "OK" button at the very bottom of the screen - which I did not see because my window was maximized - was just closing the window using the X...so to make sure the left outer joins save, reduce the size of your window and click OK.

Also you have to reset these links on any NEW reports as well. wth?

Thanks again everyone.

RE 7.95 and Crystal Reports XI - frustration

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