Troubleshooting Standalone Report Designer

Standalone Report Designer Crashes

When the Standalone Report Designer crashes while working with Telerik Reporting, the way to determine what has caused the problem is described in the following steps:

• Upgrade to the latest version of the product in case the reason for the crash has been fixed.
• Try the reproduce the crash on another machine to exclude machine-specific problems e.g., corrupted Telerik Reporting installation.

• Provide us with a log file containing detailed information about the Standalone Report Designer crash. To create the log file, turn on tracing for the Standalone Report Designer and perform the actions that caused the crash. Below is the XML you need to add to the designer's configuration file to enable tracing:

  • For the .NET Framework Standalone Designer version

    The Trace Listener for .NET Framework is set in the system.diagnostics section of the designer's configuration file Telerik.ReportDesigner.exe.config:

    <?xml version ="1.0"?>
    <configuration>
        ...
        <system.diagnostics>
            <trace autoflush="true" indentsize="4">
                <listeners>
                    <add name="myListener" type="System.Diagnostics.TextWriterTraceListener" initializeData="c:\temp\StandaloneDesigner.LOG" />
                    <remove name="Default" />
                </listeners>
            </trace>
        </system.diagnostics>
    </configuration>
    

    More details about the .NET Framework Standalone Report Designer's configuration file are available in the Configuration article. Telerik.ReportDesigner.exe.config resides in the [InstallDir]/Report Designer directory by default (it is recommended to create a backup copy before modifying it).

  • For the .NET Standalone Designer version

    The Trace Listener for .NET is setup in the Telerik.Reporting section of the designer's configuration file Telerik.ReportDesigner.Net.dll.config.

    <?xml version ="1.0"?>
    <configuration>
        ...
        <Telerik.Reporting>
            ...
            <traceListeners>
                <add name="myCustomListener" type="CustomListenersNamespace.CustomListener, CustomListenersAssembly"  initializeData="Telerik.ReportDesigner.custom.log" />
                <remove name="Default" />
            </traceListeners>
        </Telerik.Reporting>
    </configuration>
    

    The type specifies the Assembly Qualified Name of the Trace Listener type implementing the abstract class System.Diagnostics.TraceListener. You may use its implementations in System.Diagnosics like System.Diagnostics.TextWriterTraceListener and they will be discovered automatically even if you don't provide the assembly name specified as CustomListenersAssembly. If you provide a custom type, you need to copy its assembly in the designer's folder (see its path below). You need also to provide the assembly name CustomListenersAssembly along with the full type name CustomListenersNamespace.CustomListener. More details about the .NET Standalone Report Designer's configuration file are available in the Configuration article. Telerik.ReportDesigner.Net.dll.config resides in the [InstallDir]/Report Designer/.NET directory by default (it is recommended to create a backup copy before modifying it).

• Check the event viewer logs for any log entries related to the problem.

• Use Visual Studio Debugger to attach to the Telerik.ReportDesigner.exe running process before it crashes, in order to pinpoint where the error occurs.

After you generate the log files from the above steps, archive them and attach them to a support ticket. Include the steps which have to be followed in order to reproduce the issue.

The report cannot be opened in the Standalone Report Designer

Please refer to the information from the following KB article: The report cannot be opened in the Standalone Report Designer

The Standalone Report Designer cannot recognize custom assemblies

If the Standalone Report Designer is not able to resolve and display in design time the assemblies that you would like to use for custom User Functions or ObjectDataSources, please, check the following resources:

• Using External Assemblies with Custom CLR Objects in the Report Designer
• ObjectDataSource Assembly Not Loaded by Standalone Designer
• Loading .NET 7 assemblies in the Standalone Report Designer for .NET