Visual Studio Report Designer is Blank

AUTHOR: Stephania Tapela

DATE POSTED: June 13, 2016

PROBLEM
If the VS Report Designer is blank, this indicates that the report's InitializeComponent method cannot be accessed and read.

Possible reasons for the problem are:

1. The create class inheriting Telerik.Reporting.Report does not have a default parameterless constructor in which the InitializeComponent method is called.
2. In rare cases, usually when working under source control, the report's files are disassociated - Visual Studio does not recognize the Report's CS|VB, Designer.CS|VB and RESX files as a whole. This condition can be recognized by testing to navigate to the definition of the InitializeComponent method from the report's constructor.
   This can be observed with other types of items like Win Forms and Web Forms as well.
   
   

SOLUTION 

1. Check the report class for a default parameterless constructor and add such, if needed. Verify that the InitializeComponent method is called in that constructor.
2. Verify Telerik Reporting is installed on the machine, and Telerik Reporting assemblies are referenced in the project. Then exclude the report files from the project and re-add only the report's CS|VB file. Visual Studio should auto-detect the related Designer.CS|VB and RESX files.
   *You can exclude many reports at once, but re-adding reports must happen by adding one by one separate reports' CS|Vb files.