"The source of the report definition has not been specified"

[søren]

I am new to Telerik Reporting.....

In my App_code-folder I have created a new report called Product.cs, I have choosen Telerik Reporting/ReportWizard to create a new report with some data in. But no matter what I do, I get the above mentioned error.

Hope someone can help me.

[Akshay Shah]

We get the same error in production and when users logout and login and open report again it works, is this some session lost or what please guide.

[Neli]

I am sorry to hear that you are experiencing issues with our product. There are two options that I would suggest:

1) In 15.1.21.616, we added support for keeping the client session alive in WPF, Windows Forms, and HTML5-based report viewers.

2) You can increase the value of the ClientSharingTimeout property.

[Steve]

Hello søren,

Please follow the best practices we have outlined and create your report in a class library that is later referenced in your app/site instead of placing your report in a website directly.

Sincerely yours,
Steve
the Telerik team

Check out Telerik Trainer, the state of the art learning tool for Telerik products.

[søren]

THX!!! I have been watching your videos but not found any solutions. this helped. It is working.

One more question.

I have a field called Description and it is in my database. The text is HTML. How to show that with formatting?

[Steve]

Hello søren,

As noted in our "Known limitations" forum thread, html support is not yet available. Exception is when the report is rendered in HTML because the browser that usually displays the report, handles the HTML itself.
As a new Reporting user, we would highly recommend going through our help, KBs, forums and code libraries that would probably contain answers to most of your questions. If you are unable to find the answer you're looking for, we'll be more than glad to help you out :)

Greetings,
Steve
the Telerik team

Check out Telerik Trainer, the state of the art learning tool for Telerik products.

[Azees]

How to solve that prolem i am also using telerik reporting in asp.net web application
if i see the preview i got the same error message  like " source of the report definition has not been specified"

Regards

Friend

[Jeffrey Monroe]

I get this too!

All I did was save a WORKING report under a different Report Name so I can expirement without losing work on the working report. Now the report with the new file name has this error and the work that I had working will not show up in the designer when I open it up, I only get code. Next, I tried to name it back to the orignal report and I stuck with the

"The source of the report definition has not been specified"

error!

I tried to fool the report by running a table wizard to try to remap the source but nothing has worked. I have double validated all the data sources work and everything is as it should be.

This is an ugly bug. Plus what is up with your forum search where it makes a sentence or phrase into 1 word? I had to use Google to find this posting for help! Your reporting is buggy at best.

[Steve]

Hello Jeffrey,

I've not been able to replicate this locally. Please provide more info - do you have your reports in a separate class library or do you use them directly in a web site/web (win) app? If the latter please make sure you create a class library and move all your reports there. Later you can reference the class library and use the reports for showing in win/web viewer.
If there are any specific steps to reproduce - please share them with us and we would research what is going on.

Sincerely yours,
Steve
the Telerik team

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[Amit Deshpande]

"The source of the report definition has not been specified"

We are facing the same problem, but the strange thing is we are NOT getting this error when we run the web application from my local machine, we are able to see the reports from aspx page which has updatepanel and reportviewer control... but when we do check-in code to TFS (Team Foundation Server), we are getting this error.

Regards,
Amit Deshpande
Persistent Systems Ltd.

[Amit Deshpande]

"The source of the report definition has not been specified"

We are facing the same problem, but the strange thing is we are NOT getting this error when we run the web application from my local machine, we are able to see the reports from aspx page which has updatepanel and reportviewer control... but when we do check-in code to TFS (Team Foundation Server), we are getting this error.

Regards,
Amit Deshpande
Persistent Systems Ltd.

[Rick Rehorst]

Hi all

What I found regarding to the problems mentioned here is that I had the same thing until I watched the demo projects and noticed that All the reports are stored in a ClassLibrary. I also saw Tlerik people do the same in the videos.

I tried this for my project and it worked!

So if you add a classlibrary to your project and create the reports and subreports in there, it 'll work..

Regards,

Rick

[Ed]

If we really have to put any report in a separate class library before we can use it then this is a very awkward implementation of reporting. I have a few one-off reports I want to show on one particular web-site, with no possible chance of reuse elsewhere.  The natural thing would be for me to simply add the reporting classes to my App_Code folder: something Visual Studio allows me to do.  This doesn't seem to work, however, resulting in "The source of the report definition has not been specified".  So I must now need to create a class library specifically for this one-off use, copying all my connection-string data etc., is that right?

Surely there's a better way of doing things for one-off reports, is there not?

[Massimiliano Bassili]

You can always start using web applications instead of the crippled freak called web site project and add the reports directly to the application. Both designer and runtime works like a charm ..

[Ed]

Thanks for the comment, Massimo -- I could indeed do that.  "Web site" projects suit us better because my boss can then make small code changes on the fly without needing to recompile the application; we work as a team but I do the lower-level coding and he does quick design fixes and things.  I'm just amazed that it doesn't seem to work with web-site projects at all unless you write and then import a separate assembly (which would appear to be quite a clumsy process).  Then again, this is my first-ever go with Telerik Reporting, so there's probably a lot more to learn ...

[william]

I have the same error, and I know why:

when you add the report template as a reference, missing to point the "report" source.

My environment, build the report templates in VS 2005, and integrate it into VS 2010.

[Michael]

I have run into this problem, but I don't know why!

I am using Reporting Q3 2010 in VS 2010.  I was trying to add reports to an existing Web Site Project by adding a report class to its app_code folder.  Having read this thread, I assumed this was the cause of my error, so I created a separate class library and created a new report in there, removing the original report from the web site.  But I'm still getting this error.

I have another application on the same machine which I have successfully added Telerik reports to.  The structre of that solution is the same, but it all works perfectly.  I even added a new report using the same datasource as the one which fails, and it all works.  I cannot see what the difference is between these two environments, and why one works when the other doesn't. 

Has anyone any other suggestions as to what might be wrong?

[Michael]

Has no-one any ideas what I can try?  I am able to develop my reports in a separate project (in a separate solution) but not within my existing solution.  I can't see how the two differ....

[Peter]

Hi Michael,

Have you tried to rebuild the project after upgrading the application with Upgrade Wizard? If you still experience difficulties we will appreciate if you open a support thread and send us the problematic project to debug the problem on our end.

Regards,
Peter
the Telerik team

[Michael]

Thanks Peter,

Well it seems to be working now, though I am not sure why!  Brand new reports that I created using the wizard exhibited the error, even when they were very simple.  But a report I generated in my external project which I then added my original solution works ok.  By the way I also received the error when there was a simple code error in the code-behind (I forget what the error was) which made me think that the error is rather generic?

Additional information 11:00 BST 20/10/2011
There is still something not quite right.  If I make a change to my report in the designer, even something very simple like changing the style of a text box, then preview and refresh the report, I don't see the change.  It is only when I rebuild the report project that I see the change.  This is not what happens in my stand-alone project - the change is rendered as soon as I save and refresh the report.

More information 12:00
Now I'm having serious problems with the designer.  I am placing shapes on the report surface which are not in the correct location when I render my report.  Also, when I open my solution, VS does not seem able to find the designer.cs file - it pops up a message saying 'file is in use by another process and then complains that 'InitializeComponent' does not exist.  I close the report and reopen and then it's ok.  This is all after a full reboot - there are no other VS processes running that could be holding the designer file open.

Resolved 16:00
I just thought I'd update this thread as I now seem to have resolved my issues.  In the end I had to create a new project and a new report, then copy the various items to it one at a time.  Now it works as it should.  I don't know what the issue was with the previous project - I have a feeling it may have been to do with differeing .net framework versions between the web site and the reports project.  And the issue I had with shapes not rendering in the expected locations was just that there was a cross-tab to the left of them which was pushing them out of place when it rendered.  I've put the shapes in an anchored panel and now they are fine.

[David A.]

I just upgraded from Q1 to Q3 for a Winforms app and I'm having the same "The source of the report definition has not been specified".  I have pinpointed the problem to be when the ViewMode is set in the InitializeComponent method to PrintPreview causing the private method RenderReport() to fire since the .Report property is not set.  I am setting the .Report property in the constructor of the form so this will always fail unless I set the ViewMode to interactive - which is not good.  My temporary workaround is to set the ViewMode to interactive in the designer and then to PrintPreview in the Load() event - I don't want to have to do this.  Even with this workaround I get an error in the CreateRenderingContext() method, but the report seems to render ok.

Help!!

WinViewer> An error has occurred while rendering a report:

System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

at Telerik.ReportViewer.WinForms.ReportViewerBase.CreateRenderingContext()

at Telerik.ReportViewer.WinForms.ReportViewerBase.CreatePreviewRenderingContext()

at Telerik.ReportViewer.WinForms.ReportViewerBase.RenderReport()

*** ReportProcessor.ProcessReport STARTED ***

*** ProcessReport #0 STARTED ***

*** Report Processing STARTED ***

*** Table::ProcessItem STARTED ***

*** TableBuilder::AddColumns STARTED ***

*** TableBuilder::AddColumns DONE in 00:00:00.0001653 ***

　

*** TableBuilder::AddRows STARTED ***

*** TableBuilder::AddRows DONE in 00:00:00.0000496 ***

　

*** TableBuilder::AddBody STARTED ***

*** TableBuilder::AddBody DONE in 00:00:00.0001392 ***

*** Table::ProcessItem DONE in 00:00:00.0266677 ***

*** Report Processing DONE in 00:00:00.0311923 ***

*** ProcessReport #0 DONE in 00:00:00.0568101 ***

*** ReportProcessor.ProcessReport DONE in 00:00:00.0592597 ***

　

*** Get IMAGE Rendering Extension STARTED ***

*** Get IMAGE Rendering Extension DONE in 00:00:00.0000280 ***

　

*** Measure Report (Horizontal) STARTED ***

*** Measure Report (Horizontal) DONE in 00:00:00.0003118 ***

　

*** Measure Report (Vertical) STARTED ***

*** Measure Report (Vertical) DONE in 00:00:00.0031561 ***

　

*** RenderReport #0 STARTED ***

*** RenderReport #0 DONE in 00:00:00.0229320 ***

[Peter]

Hello David A.,

This is a known issue and it's logged in our bug tracking system. We will introduce the fix with the next internal build. Please excuse us for the temporary inconvenience.

Kind regards,
Peter
the Telerik team

[David A.]

I will anxiously await this release.  Thank you.

[Will]

Using Q3 20111, I received this error after I added my ClassLibrary project to the solution that contained my SharePoint 2010 VisualWebPart project. I stopped getting the error when I removed the ClassLibrary from the solution.

[Steve]

Hi guys,

The original problem has been fixed in the latest internal build as promised and available for download in your account. You can see the release notes here.

Regards,
Steve
the Telerik team

[Michael]

Hi Steve,

Thanks for this - I'm glad it's now fixed as it was a horrible error to run into! 

I don't see the download in my account, presumably because I am not currently entitled to upgrades.  Any chance you could add this version to my available downloads?!

Michael

[Steve]

Hi Michael,

You do not see it as this is internal build for the Q3 release to which you have no license. The error reported by David on 17-Nov-2011 is the one fixed in the internal build, as you do not have license to Q3, we assume you've hit this error in some other circumstance? Looking back on this thread which started in 2008, make sure you're using either a separate class library for the reports or web applications instead of web site if you wish to add them directly to the project.

Best wishes,
Steve
the Telerik team

[ravi]

hi all ,

I am facing same issue when i run my project then existing report is running but when i create a new one then gives error the source of the report defintion has not been specofied by the i am new in telerik 

 

[Stef]

Hi ravi,

To verify you are using one version of Telerik Reporting in your solution, please run the Upgrade Wizard in all related projects - Upgrading Telerik Reporting Projects.

Then check where the report is located and if its assembly is referenced by the project with the viewer, or if the TRDP|TRDX file is accessible by the viewer's project.
Note that depending on the used viewer and the format of the report, you need to use the correct Report Source object to request a report for preview - How to: Set ReportSource for Report Viewers.


If you need further help, please post code snippet illustrating the settings of the viewer and how you set the report that will be displayed.

Regards,
Stef
Telerik by Progress