BusinessObjects Board

Rebuilding a complex Report that is corrupted

building reports desktopintelligence
#1

Hi All - I’ve got a fairly complex document with several reports that we’ve developed in 6.5.1 Full Client using 8 Data Providers and dozens of variables. The document is 122 MB due to the deletion of DP’s during development WITHOUT purging the query data. According to BO Tech support, BO does not delete the data associated with a DP when a DP is deleted. The reports are now exhibiting bizarre behaviour such as changing values in variables when the report is refreshed which has made all reports unusable.

It appears my only option may be to rebuild the report from scratch and I’m wondering is there are any tools or BO functions that I can use to export some of the pieces of the corrupt report like variables or data providers or tables or even to print the formulas for cells in tables.

Any help is GREATLY appreciated.

David

decisionbuilder (BOB member since 2002-09-19)

.rep file growing from 600k to 400 MEGABYTES
#2

Welcome to B:bob:B!

Templates are the way to go. Save each tab as a template. Then rebuild the DPs and apply the templates. All the formulas will come back.

Steve Krandel :us: (BOB member since 2002-06-25)

#3

You might also take a look in BOB’S Downloads at this utility: Copy Data Providers / Copy Report Variables .

The utility may have been written for 5.x – I do not know if it works for 6.x.

Anita Craig :us: (BOB member since 2002-06-17)

#4

Excellent on both responses, thank you! :smiley: You have my eternal gratitude, respect and admiration…of course that and $7.58 will get you a half-caf-frapu-lat-a-cino at Starbucks, but what the hey…

D

decisionbuilder (BOB member since 2002-09-19)

#5

Unsure how to solve this if it is a true corruption thing…

On bloated reports though - one thing that has worked in the past - for me - is to go into the query panel and save and close all queries thus creating an empty report. You can then ‘Save As’ a new file name.

You then close and re-open the document and refresh, this can solve the size issue. If it does you are then free to rename the report to the original name…

Mak 1 :uk: (BOB member since 2005-01-06)

#6

I don’t think he has a corrupted report. Instead, I think he’s getting screwy results from what I’ve called “phantom data providers”, since they didn’t purge the data providers before deleting them.

In my view, the product should purge the data providers before it deletes them. But if you’ve got a problem report like this – trying to copy or recreate the data providers you want to keep – into a new report – seems to fix the problem.

Anita Craig :us: (BOB member since 2002-06-17)

#7

If you have huge report with many DPs then there is a chance of BO not working correctly.
One of my reports has 118 MB in size and it used to act very bizarre. Most importantly, I could see repeating values in every column.
In order to get rid of this issue I am following these basic steps and it is working very fine. Slow refreshing time and low vaitual memory issues are still bugging me .
hope this will help to get rid of your problem.

  1. go to data provider.
  2. save and close
    follow the same steps for every DPs
  3. View Data ->link all the required DVs
  4. refresh data

kool :nepal: (BOB member since 2005-04-15)

#8

But he really knows what his problem is – he has unpurged phantom data providers. If he got rid of those (by copying the real data providers to a new document) – he may be just fine.

Anita Craig :us: (BOB member since 2002-06-17)

#9

The steps to resolve this were the same as I suggested.
I have seen this problem before and save and closing each DP - from the Query Panel - and saving the report as a diffrent name has always worked for me - seems to get rid of the phantom DPs…

Mak 1 :uk: (BOB member since 2005-01-06)

#10

Anita and MAK1 - a big thanks to both of you for r your responses. Unfortunately Anita is 100% correct in her comments. I had previously purged the DP’s from the “Data manager” window but repeated this process from the “Edit Data Provider” window as MAK1 suggested. The result was the same with no shrinkage of the report.

As per Anita and Steve K’s suggestions I have saved off each report as a template (.ret) and in a new blank document used the DP and Variable copy utilities to copy DP’s and variables from the corrupted report. This saved a lot of the drudge work but I’m still debugging the new report as the copy didn’t transfer all of the items completely.

Here is the note from BO tech support regarding the case. I have yet to hear back from them about a suggested course of action other than to rebuild the report.

=========================================================
ER Id : 11258

Subject : Purging cube, or reducing data set does not reduce the file size for existing reps

Current Functionality : Comments from Paris, ref. Case 21580 -
Fix info:
A bug was logged for this problem. Nevertheless it was buried because of the huge complexity of the fix.
The problem is in the multiDP use : If you have 2 DP, that bring back 2 columns of datas, BO stock datas in a LDB file. When you delete one of the DP, all datas stays in the LDB. BO is then not capable to recognize which datas in the LDB belongs to the deleted DP. So BO keep everything instead of deleting something that could be very important.
A possible workaround is : purge the cube, BEFORE modifying a request or deleting DP."
Let me know if this answers this question for you

Requested Functinality : Comments from Paris -
The solution given is true for new report. When you create a report, before modifying the query, then purge the cube. Unfortunately for existing reports, there is no solution for the moment.
Customer can ask for an enhancement request.
Customers Requires the ability to reduce the .rep size for existing reports.

=========================================================

The above has been acknowledged by the product group and could be fixed in one of the future versions of Business Objects.

We hope the above information helps you. Please check the same and let us know as how to proceed with the case.

We shall await your reply and proceed accordingly.

decisionbuilder (BOB member since 2002-09-19)

#11

Do you know if Business Objects have fixed this bug yet?

If so do you know the hotfix number?

Many thanks

Simon

MrT (BOB member since 2005-09-28)

#12

I do not believe so. It is still there in 6.5.2.

Steve Krandel :us: (BOB member since 2002-06-25)

#13

I’m sure they’ve not fixed this yet. Their final response was a suggestion to rebuild the report from scratch.

David

decisionbuilder (BOB member since 2002-09-19)

#14

I have a report that contains about 15 data providers - There is one data provider that is corrupted & causing problems with the report - but it refuses to be deleted. It bombs each time I either refresh it or try to delete. I have tried purging ALL the data providers & removing ALL the links, etc, etc… to no avail.
This report is the report from hell :reallymad: not an easy task to re-create it. Is there ANY other way that I can delete this dp from behind the scenes or is there a utility that can do this?

dlleal :us: (BOB member since 2005-07-28)

Deleting a Corrupt Data Provider