This is a migrated thread and some comments may be shown as answers.

Failed to map the path '/'

2 Answers 155 Views
General Discussions
This is a migrated thread and some comments may be shown as answers.
Dave
Top achievements
Rank 1
Dave asked on 31 Dec 2009, 04:13 PM
I recently downloaded the trial of the reporting component, and have created a report project in my solution with a couple of reports. Upon running the web site I get the "failed to map path" error, which upon searching I see is a security issue - http://www.telerik.com/community/forums/reporting/telerik-reporting/failed-to-map-the-path.aspx. Are you actually saying that to run your report viewer I have to run as an Administrator, when we should actively be encouraging users to run without elevated rights? Do I, and the rest of the developers, now have to Run as Admin every time, sometimes forgetting, then having to close VS and reopen it?

In the replies to the other thread you state that it's the WebConfigurationManager causing the error and that you can't touch that, which is true, but not helpful. The error is because you loop through the handlers to ensure that Telerik.ReportView.axd is present and it's that and only that, that requires elevated permissions as far as I can see. there really any reason to check that the handler is present? You could easily document the requirements for the handler; I have to add the handler anyway, so why check for its presence? There may be a very good reason why you need to check, and I'd love to hear it, but all I can see is that you throw an exception when initialising the viewer if the handler isn't configured.

I love the reporting framework you've built, but this is causing me to think again about using it.

Dave

2 Answers, 1 is accepted

Sort by
0
Accepted
Chavdar
Telerik team
answered on 04 Jan 2010, 02:49 PM
Hello Dave,

I think that there is enough good reason for this check. Consider the following scenario: you add the ReportViewer control on the .aspx page, assign a report and run the application. Upon displaying the page you start receiving javascript errors and see broken links instead of images, etc. Is this better than seeing an exception that clearly states that you have forgotten to add the http handler that the viewer requires and what impression will it make when initially everything appears broken? Moreover, the exception message specifies the exact version of the http handler that is needed - sometimes the handler might be registered but with a different assembly version, usually after manually changing the references to the reporting assemblies (instead of using the Upgrade Wizard) or replacing the assemblies in the \Bin folder. Consider also that most developers do not read the documentation first. :)

On the other hand, Visual Studio very often has to be run with administrative privileges. For example, you may want to run a web site from VS hosted on IIS in order to debug it. In this case you will also need to run the Visual Studio IDE as an administrator. In order to facilitate this and not forget, you may create a shortcut that always starts the IDE as an administrator: for more details see the User Rights and Visual Studio MSDN article.




Kind regards,
Chavdar
the Telerik team

Instantly find answers to your questions on the new Telerik Support Portal.
Watch a video on how to optimize your support resource searches and check out more tips on the blogs.
0
Dave
Top achievements
Rank 1
answered on 04 Jan 2010, 03:02 PM
OK, the handler version is a good reason, I'll give you that. And that most devs don't read docs, that's true too. You've given me the good reasons I asked for, but I still don't like it 8)

I rarely have to use Admin mode, so it's just something I'll have to get used to.

Thanks

d
Tags
General Discussions
Asked by
Dave
Top achievements
Rank 1
Answers by
Chavdar
Telerik team
Dave
Top achievements
Rank 1
Share this question
or