Reporting Designer Issues

[Brian Chavez]

Every single time I try desiging a report using the Reporting GUI designer, after about 2 minutes of use, I loose the ability to select designer objects with the mouse.

The designer then becomes non-functional, and I have to restart Visual Studio to resume desiging a report.  I've noticed this problem for a long time and with previous versions of Reporting.

I'm runing:

Visual Studio 2008

Vista 64-bit

Reporting Q1 2008 SP1

Is there any way I can get more information about this?

-Brian

[Steve]

Hello Brian,

We have been unable to reproduce the problem you describe. I spent probably hundred times x 2 minutes a day working with our designer, while testing reported issues or while preparing samples for clients and have not experienced such problems.
What you can do is try repairing your VS and Reporting installations or install the latest official version Q3 which btw contains the debug symbols you inquired about in previous thread.
If still having problems, please try this on another machine with vanilla installation in order to discount the possibility for local issues. We ask this, because you are the first one to report this and it is highly possible to be a local problem.

Best wishes,
Steve
the Telerik team

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[Greg]

I ran in to this issue as well where I was unable to select any objects.  It happened only on a few occasions.  I too had to restart Visual Studio to correct it.  I'm running Windows XP, VS 2008 and when the issue occurred I was either on Reporting Q2 or Q3 (don't remember).

[Steve]

Hi Greg,

I am afraid we would need a bit more info/guidance on how to reproduce this

• how many report designers did you have opened at the same time. Did you have winforms opened as well?
• how many Visual Studio IDEs did you work with?
• how did it happen:
  • while working with the designer all the time
  • after you switched from the code to the designer
  • after you changed a property on section/item
  • after you copied/moved an item

Without a recognizable pattern, it would be very hard to reproduce let alone fix such an issue. Any additional information would be highly appreciated!

Sincerely yours,
Steve
the Telerik team

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[Greg]

I've only rarely run into this so I've not noticed a pattern yet, and it's not really a pressing issue for me.  But to answer your questions I just had one IDE open but not sure how many design windows were open, maybe multiple.  I was not using winforms.  It seemed like it happened when I was highlighting groups of maybe a dozen or more controls to move around at once, then right clicking maybe? 

[Brian Chavez]

Hi,

Yes, this issue is really hard to track, thats why I didn't have much info about how to reproduce it.

 

• Ive only had 1 report designer open
• I've only had 1 IDE open

 

How did it happen:

• Was not working on the designer all the time
• Yes, I switched to code (not reporting code), then switched back.
• No, did not change any properties on reporting items.
•  No, no copying/moving any items.

 

I dedicated a little more time to investigate the issue.  Here's my steps to reproduce the problem:

1. Make sure you start Visual Studio 2008 fresh without any code windows open.  All windows must be closed and Visual Studio must have a blank gray background.  I'd probably disable that "VS start page" to be sure.

2. Open 2 code windows from 2 different projects (do not include the Reporting Assembly).  Split each code window into vertical groups.  You should have 1 code window on the left and 1 code window on the right from different assembly projects.

3. Double click on your custom report from your Reporting Assembly, and it will load in one of the vertical groups.  Now you should have one vertical group with 1 code window and 1 report designer, and another vertical group with 1 code window.

4. Make sure you can select existing objects on your custom report.

5. Go into your Control Toolbox, and select a "Shape" reporting object.  Draw a circle on your designer surface.  Select the circle, then delete it.

6.  Next, click into the code window in the other vertical group (this is probably where the issue occurs).  The active window should be your code window from the other assembly.

7.  Go back to the reporting window, try to right click (at this point, I cannot right click or select any reporting objects.)

8.  Go into your toolbox and try selecting a shape reporting object and try adding it to your report.  I get the following error:

"Cannot add shape2 (Telerik.Reporting.Shape) to PictureBookReport (Telerik.Reporting.Report)."

I love error messages like this, they are great.  It does not give me much insight into where the error occurred or how to go about giving you more information, or give me a reason why I cannot add the shape to my report.  It just states the obvious, I cannot add a shape to the report.  Less is more, frustrated to no end.

Well, thankfully, I have a few debugging skills up my sleeve, so I loaded a second instance of Visual Studio 2008 with no project loaded, hooked/attached the debugger onto the first instance running the Telerik Report.  Set a thrown exception breakpoint on your Telerik.Reporting assembly and was able to extract a little more information:

System.ArgumentException occurred
  Message="Cannot add shape2 (Telerik.Reporting.Shape) to PictureBookReport (Telerik.Reporting.Report)."
  Source="Telerik.Reporting"
  StackTrace:
       at Telerik.Reporting.ReportItemBase.OnItemValidate(ReportItemBase item)
  InnerException:

Okay, well, the exception did not have a full and complete stack trace, but being pissed at your software that would not have passed my QA testing probably wouldn't have helped either, so I went the extra mile to break the cookie jar and get you a full stack trace.  Have fun:

    Telerik.Reporting.dll!Telerik.Reporting.ReportItemBase.OnItemValidate(Telerik.Reporting.ReportItemBase item) + 0x51 bytes
    Telerik.Reporting.dll!Telerik.Reporting.ReportItemBase.ItemCollection.OnValidate(object value = {shape2 (Telerik.Reporting.Shape)}) + 0x57 bytes
    mscorlib.dll!System.Collections.CollectionBase.System.Collections.IList.Add(object value = {shape2 (Telerik.Reporting.Shape)}) Line 127 + 0xc bytes C#
    Telerik.Reporting.dll!Telerik.Reporting.ReportItemBase.ItemCollection.Add(Telerik.Reporting.ReportItemBase item) + 0x30 bytes
    Telerik.Reporting.Design.dll!Telerik.Reporting.Design.ParentItemDesignerHelper.AddItem(System.IServiceProvider serviceProvider, Telerik.Reporting.Design.ReportItemBaseDesigner parentDesigner, Telerik.Reporting.ReportItemBase newItem, System.Collections.IDictionary defaultValues) + 0x7ec bytes
    Telerik.Reporting.Design.dll!Telerik.Reporting.Design.ParentItemDesigner.Telerik.Reporting.Design.IParentItemDesigner.AddItem(Telerik.Reporting.ReportItemBase newChild, System.Collections.IDictionary defaultValues) + 0x1e bytes
    Telerik.Reporting.Design.dll!Telerik.Reporting.Design.ReportItemBaseDesigner.InitializeNewComponent(System.Collections.IDictionary defaultValues = Count = 2) + 0x1a6 bytes
    Telerik.Reporting.Design.dll!Telerik.Reporting.Design.ShapeDesigner.InitializeNewComponent(System.Collections.IDictionary defaultValues) + 0xf bytes
    System.Drawing.dll!System.Drawing.Design.ToolboxItem.CreateComponentsCore(System.ComponentModel.Design.IDesignerHost host = {System.ComponentModel.Design.DesignerHost}, System.Collections.IDictionary defaultValues = Count = 2) Line 368 C#
    System.Drawing.dll!System.Drawing.Design.ToolboxItem.CreateComponents(System.ComponentModel.Design.IDesignerHost host, System.Collections.IDictionary defaultValues) Line 322 + 0xc bytes   C#
    Telerik.Reporting.Design.dll!Telerik.Reporting.Design.ParentItemDesignerHelper.CreateTool(System.IServiceProvider serviceProvider = {System.ComponentModel.Design.DesignerHost}, System.Drawing.Design.ToolboxItem tool = {Shape}, Telerik.Reporting.ReportItemBase parent, System.Drawing.PointF location, System.Drawing.SizeF size, bool hasLocation, bool hasSize) + 0x239 bytes
    Telerik.Reporting.Design.dll!Telerik.Reporting.Design.Behavior.ParentItemBehavior.OnLoseCapture(Telerik.Reporting.Design.Behavior.Glyph g, System.EventArgs e) + 0x92 bytes
    Telerik.Reporting.Design.dll!Telerik.Reporting.Design.Behavior.BehaviorService.OnLoseCapture() + 0x28 bytes
    Telerik.Reporting.Design.dll!Telerik.Reporting.Design.Behavior.BehaviorService.PopBehavior(Telerik.Reporting.Design.Behavior.Behavior behavior = {ParentItemBehavior: PictureBookReport (Telerik.Reporting.Report)}) + 0x6a bytes
    Telerik.Reporting.Design.dll!Telerik.Reporting.Design.Behavior.ParentItemBehavior.OnMouseUp(Telerik.Reporting.Design.Behavior.Glyph glyph, System.Windows.Forms.MouseButtons buttons) + 0x4b bytes
    Telerik.Reporting.Design.dll!Telerik.Reporting.Design.Behavior.BehaviorService.OnMouseUp(System.Windows.Forms.MouseButtons buttons) + 0x2f bytes
    Telerik.Reporting.Design.dll!Telerik.Reporting.Design.Behavior.BehaviorService.AdornerWindowCtrl.OnMouseUp(System.Windows.Forms.MouseEventArgs e) + 0x82 bytes
    System.Windows.Forms.dll!System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmMouseUp(ref System.Windows.Forms.Message m, System.Windows.Forms.MouseButtons button, int clicks) Line 13034 + 0x28f bytes  C#
    System.Windows.Forms.dll!System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(ref System.Windows.Forms.Message m) Line 13764    C#
    Telerik.Reporting.Design.dll!Telerik.Reporting.Design.Behavior.BehaviorService.AdornerWindowCtrl.WndProc(ref System.Windows.Forms.Message m) + 0x90 bytes
    System.Windows.Forms.dll!System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.OnMessage(ref System.Windows.Forms.Message m) Line 14051  C#
    System.Windows.Forms.dll!System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.WndProc(ref System.Windows.Forms.Message m) Line 14106    C#
>   System.Windows.Forms.dll!System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.DebuggableCallback(System.IntPtr hWnd, int msg = 514, System.IntPtr wparam, System.IntPtr lparam) Line 777 + 0xa bytes   C#

-cowboy

PS. If this helps solve the problem, telerik points would be nice.

[Brian Chavez]

Oh, and thank you ____VERY____ much for the Debug Symbols.  I didn't know you included them...  I could have probably used them right now....

I'm _____really______ happy you guys are listening to your customers.  It's a good sign that Telerik is on the right track.

As my firend Billy G. says:
"Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning." - Bill Gates

+1 for Telerik.

[Brian Chavez]

Wait a sec, where exactly are the Debug Symbols for Telerik Reporting Q3 08?

I logged into my account, and I don't see it in the download section for 2008.31105

I see Auto Install, Documentation.chm, and Source Code.

Searched for *.pdb in the source and i dont see anything, ran the setup .msi and i dont see any option to install PDBs.

Thanks,
cowboy

[Steve]

Hi Brian,

Thank you so much for these steps to reproduce - we were able to verify it on our end as well. I've logged it in our bug tracking system and it would be investigated for a subsequent release of the product.
As for the debug symbols - they are in the bin folder of the Reporting installation (i.e. C:\Program Files\Telerik\Reporting Q3 2008\Bin).

I have updated your Telerik points as a token of gratitude for your involvement on this issue.

Sincerely yours,
Steve
the Telerik team

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

[Steve]

Hi Brian,

After the promised investigation of the designer breakage, we found out that this is actually a bug in Visual Studio which manifests itself after moving from code pane to designer (winforms included) in a split layout. More info on the bug from MS is available here.
Our developers have addressed it so that it would not become unresponsive anymore - the fix would be available in the SP1 release this week.

Thank you for reporting this once again.

Sincerely yours,
Steve
the Telerik team

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

[Brian Chavez]

Steve,

You said this issue was fixed.  Apparently, it is not.  I just updated my Telerik Reporting Q1 2009 and THIS BUG STILL EXISTS.

Can you please GET A HANDLE on this issue?

Telerik never fails to frustrate me... I get SOOO much friction when working with your libraries (Reporting and AJAX).  Can you please start *thinking* about building quality and stability?

My experience for the past 2 years with you guys has been Telerik = Friction.  Usually, when you pay for something (espeically as expensive as this toolset is), you'd expect it to work, albeit minor issues, but not blocking-show stopper issues like this...

Thanks,

Brian Chavez

[Svetoslav]

Hello Brian Chavez,

It seems there are several problems mentioned in this long thread.

The first one, as Steve has already pointed, is due to a bug in the Visual Studio and we have already done whatever is possible on our end, and our work has been officially released as Q3 2008 SP1. For more information please see the Q3 2008 SP1 release notes. We have reported this to Microsoft and I will suggest you do the same as well.

The second problem - with the inappropriate messages when an incorrect item is dragged over another - is also fixed in the latest version (Q1 2009).

The 3rd problem seems to happen accidentally and up until recently we had no information on how to reproduce it. Fortunately our constant efforts to do so seem to give results. Our recent observations show that this usually happens after moving a couple of items together; if you move items one by one everything works fine. Once we have a valid pattern to reproduce the issue at all times, we will spend time to find the actual reason and we will make sure that everything works correctly.

We do understand how important is the Report Designer when working with Telerik Reporting and we are constantly improving its behavior. Your feedback has helped us make it even better. We have to point out that this is a very complicated system that takes time and effort to develop, and I hope that you, being fellow developers, will understand this.

Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience, and thank you for the patience and the feedback.
 

Regards,
Svetoslav
the Telerik team

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[Brian Chavez]

Why are you selling Telerik Reporting if it doesn't work with Visual Studio 2008?

Your system requirement documentation says:

http://www.telerik.com/products/reporting/resources/system-requirements.aspx

"Visual Studio 2008" is a supported development tool.  Apparently not.

You should NOT CLAIM Visual Studio 2008 as a supported development tool if it DOES NOT WORK.

The problem is, the Reporting Designer is FUNDAMENTALLY a basic component of a developer's workflow to design reports.  Without it, you are basically stuck, and your product is of no use.

If I made the same excuse to my clients, that you gave me, I would be out of business and out of a job.  It's very simple, it either works or it doesnt.

[Vassil Petev]

Hello Brian,

To our regret, removing Visual Studio 2008 from the list of supported IDEs will not solve the problem. We would like to take the opportunity and once again apologize for it - we understand your aggravation and are trying to help you as much as we can. Please, assist us in doing so - we will appreciate any constructive feedback, which will help us reproduce, analyze, and ultimately fix this problem.

We would like to send an appeal to all customers reading this forum: we will very much appreciate any additional information on this, which you think could help us find the problem. The more information we have, the sooner we will be able to isolate and fix it.

Thank you very much in advance.
 

Sincerely yours,
Vassil
the Telerik team

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[Chad]

My team is currently evaluating this product (Q1 2009) and has also run into designer issues.  Specifically, we occasionaly lose the ability to resize objects.  We can manually specify the size in the properties window but not through the designer.  I believe I have narrowed it down to the following steps:

1. Multiselect by Ctrl-clicking at least a second item.  (Shift-clicking and dragging the mouse do not seem produce this issue.)
2. Copy
3. Paste (anywhere in the report)

The size of every object in the report then seems to be locked through the designer.

[Steve]

Hello Chad,

We are already aware of this exact problem as my colleague Svetoslav outlined as 3rd problem in his post. Our devs are already looking into the problem and we hope to have this addressed for the subsequent version of the product.

All the best,
Steve
the Telerik team

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

[Massimo]

Unfortunately, the same problem is present in Telerik Reporting Q3 2010.
After moving from Preview back to Designer Pane, it is no more possible to select any object of the report.
Restarting Visual Studio 2008 is needed to continue working in the Desiger Pane.

Regards,
Marco.

[Massimiliano Bassili]

The Q3 designer works correctly for me, so I guess more information would be needed in order to get help e.g. exact steps to reproduce, video or a sample where the issue occurs persistently. What happened when you try this with the provided examples?

Cheers!

[Massimo]

Well, to be honest the problem does not occur systematically, but as it has occurred some time while I was creating different reports I have considered to post it. As soon as I'll have some time to investigate better the problem I'll come back to this post.
Thanks.