We have a process that generates around 20,000 PDFs using SSRS as the backend.
The mechanism used to generate these is the Report Execution 2005 API endpoint
We have just performed a run where occasionally a PDF would be generated missing some data, or the header or the body or the footer.
The break down of that was around 12,000 generated correctly, 1000 blank, 7000 data incorrect.
There doesn't seem to be a rhyme or reason for this, no pattern in the data or timings. In the logs we can see the following:
We log all parameters used to execute these reports in a DB, so using this we went and re-run that report with the same parameters and it ran fine. We then went and took 100 of the random errored ones, ran them manually and they all worked fine.
My only straw left to grasp at is there is some caching or SSRS deep issue that is causing this.
If anyone has seen something similar or has an opinion on where to check next, would be much appreciated.
I'm having some issues with a report deployed to an SSRS 2016 server.
When the report is run in IE, Edge or previewed in VS it returns the correct result (some sales data for the current month), but when the same report is run in Chrome it returns values for the whole year.
I've searched for thoroughly for a resolution but was unable to find anything. I did find a few posts here and elsewhere regarding compatability issues between Chrome and SSRS 2016, but the resolutions (using various Chrome extensions), did not work. Using an extension is not really the solution that I want, as I'm more concerned about users viewing reports in Chrome and seeing incorrect results.
Additional info:
+This is a report I have inherited and did not design.
+Report has a number of parameters, some hidden, some not.
+Report contains 18 datasets.
+There are some textboxes with actions in the report, each of which execute the report with different parameters (eg last quarter, YTD).
+When certain actions are executed, the report returns the below error. This only happens when using Chrome.
An error has occurred during report processing. (rsProcessingAborted)
Cannot read the next data row for the dataset ConversionRates. >(rsErrorReadingNextDataRow)
For more information about this error navigate to the report server on the >local server machine, or enable remote errors
+The dataset described in the above error is not the same every time the report is run.
What I've tried already:
+Various Chrome extensions (more as a test than a solution), these made no difference.
+Searching this site / Google for suggestions but to no avail.
What I would like to achieve:
I would like to know how I can ensure that the correct results can be
returned in Chrome for any user, without having to perform any action
on each user's machine.
I realize this is not much to go on, but I'm hoping someone else has encountered the same error. I suspect it's something to do with rendering in Chrome but I can't figure it out, so any suggestions at all would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks v much
I am using Selenium framework for my test cases execution.
I need an instant report of test cases that are passed while the full suite is in execution currently.
For Eg: There are 100 test cases in suite and five have run of which 3 passed, 2 failed and I need these instant report while the suite is in-progress. Can you please help me with this task?
You can use ExtentReport.
You can use it to log your test steps and once its done it will generate a report to show your results.
For what your looking for, ExtentReport uses a "flush".
If you call this flush after each test step it will amend the step and create the report.
This is something I'm looking into myself at the moment, so I wouldn't consider this an answer but something I've stumbled across myself, hope it helps.
Here is how to set up ExtentReports on your project with examples - http://www.ontestautomation.com/creating-html-reports-for-your-selenium-tests-using-extentreports/
You must use it in conjunction with a test runner eg. TestNG or JUnit.
For what you are trying to achieve is slightly different to the example. You need to call a flush after every test step so it will amend to the report after the step is completed rather than when all the tests are completed. Its not something I have done before but it was explained to me like the following
Just call .flush() after every test instead of once at the end of your test run. BUT you need to make sure the ExtentReports object itself is only initialized once, instead of being reinitialized at the start of every test. For example, I used TestNG. The ExtentReports is called once using #BeforeSuite, but the .flush() is called after every test using #AfterMethod. I hope this makes sense.
The only thing that can’t be solved via code is the HTML refresh as this is outside the control of the ExtentReports library (it doesn’t know where you’ve opened the actual HTML file). But this can be taken care of by using a simple browser plugin as I said. At least for Chrome there are a lot of them, just do a Google search for ‘chrome auto refresh’.
Hope this helps. If you need anymore advice don't hesitate to contact me.
I have been using selenium webdriver to automate AUT. Unfortunately our system has lot of known bugs and Product is ok with them but the real problem is those test cases will fail in TestNG report and management will get a big list of failed testcases. So Management asked me to remove known issues from the test but my test manager is not agreed to remove/disable them from test.
So what I am thinking is, create a custom annotation and have a field called bugNumber and based on the existence of the bug number I will create a report where test cases failed with known bug number will go down in the report and failed test cases without bugNumber will come on the top of the report. But I really don't know how to get those custom annotations to TestNG test-results.
Could you guys suggest me something please ?
First off I understand that it is a horrible idea to run extremely large/long running reports. I am aware that Microsoft has a rule of thumb stating that a SSRS report should take no longer than 30 seconds to execute. However sometimes gargantuan reports are a preferred evil due to external forces such complying with state laws.
At my place of employment, we have an asp.net (2.0) app that we have migrated from Crystal Reports to SSRS. Due to the large user base and complex reporting UI requirements we have a set of screens that accepts user inputted parameters and creates schedules to be run over night. Since the application supports multiple reporting frameworks we do not use the scheduling/snapshot facilities of SSRS. All of the reports in the system are generated by a scheduled console app which takes user entered parameters and generates the reports with the corresponding reporting solutions the reports were created with. In the case of SSRS reports, the console app generates the SSRS reports and exports them as PDFs via the SSRS web service API.
So far SSRS has been much easier to deal with than Crystal with the exception of a certain 25,000 page report that we have recently converted from crystal reports to SSRS. The SSRS server is a 64bit 2003 server with 32 gigs of ram running SSRS 2005. All of our smaller reports work fantastically, but we are having trouble with our larger reports such as this one. Unfortunately, we can't seem to generate the aforemention report through the web service API. The following error occurs roughly 30-35 minutes into the generation/export:
Exception Message: The underlying connection was closed: An unexpected error occurred on a receive.
The web service call is something I'm sure you all have seen before:
data = rs.Render(this.ReportPath, this.ExportFormat, null, deviceInfo,
selectedParameters, null, null, out encoding, out mimeType, out usedParameters,
out warnings, out streamIds);
The odd thing is that this report will run/render/export if the report is run directly on the reporting server using the report manager. The proc that produces the data for the report runs for about 5 minutes. The report renders in SSRS native format in the browser/viewer after about 12 minutes. Exporting to pdf through the browser/viewer in the report manager takes an additional 55 minutes. This works reliably and it produces a whopping 1.03gb pdf.
Here are some of the more obvious things I've tried to get the report working via the web service API:
set the HttpRuntime ExecutionTimeout
value to 3 hours on the report
server
disabled http keep alives on the report server
increased the script timeout on the report server
set the report to never time out on the server
set the report timeout to several hours on the client call
From the tweaks I have tried, I am fairly comfortable saying that any timeout issues have been eliminated.
Based off of my research of the error message, I believe that the web service API does not send chunked responses by default. This means that it tries to send all 1.3gb over the wire in one response. At a certain point, IIS throws in the towel. Unfortunately the API abstracts away web service configuration so I can't seem to find a way to enable response chunking.
Does anyone know of anyway to reduce/optimize the PDF export phase and or the size of the PDF without lowering the total page count?
Is there a way to turn on response chunking for SSRS?
Does anyone else have any other theories as to why this runs on the server but not through the API?
EDIT: After reading kcrumley's post I began to take a look at the average page size by taking file size / page count. Interestingly enough on smaller reports the math works out so that each page is roughly 5K. Interestingly, when the report gets larger this "average" increases. An 8000 page report for example is averaging over 40K/page. Very odd. I will also add that the number of records per page is set except for the last page in each grouping, so it's not a case where some pages have more records than another.
We narrowed down the large PDF exports from SSRS and found 2 main culprits
1) Unless images are JPG or PNG colour type 3, they are expanded to BMP's See here
2) Unless you configure SSRS to behave otherwise (not recommended), then SSRS will embed fonts or font subsets into the PDF, unless they are one of the 5 'standard' PDF fonts.
Although none of the standard fonts (other than Symbol I guess) are installed on most Windows OS's out of the box, we've found that if you use Times New Roman, Courier New, or Arial then forward and reverse font substitution will take place.
The easiest way to convert your RDL's is to view them as XML and search and replace the FontFamily tags.
If you have to use a non standard font, then, you can still minimize the damage:
Use as few fonts as you can. Search through the RDL XML to make sure there aren't any redundant fonts.
Use TTF fonts if you use different sizes of the font.
Try not to mix normal, bold and italic variants of the font, else it will be embedded multiple times.
Does anyone know of anyway to
reduce/optimize the PDF export phase
and or the size of the PDF without
lowering the total page count?
I have a few ideas and questions:
1. Is this a graphics-heavy report? If not, do you have tables that start out as text but are converted into a graphic by the SSRS PDF renderer (check if you can select the text in the PDF)? 41K per page might be more than it should be, or it might not, depending on how information-dense your report is. But we've had cases where we had minor issues with a report's layout, like having a table bleed into the page's margins, that resulted in the SSRS PDF renderer "throwing up its hands" and rendering the table as an image instead of as text. Obviously, the fewer graphics in your report, the smaller your file size will be.
2. Is there a way that you could easily break the report into pieces? E.g., if it's a 10-location report, where Location 1 is followed by Location 2, etc., on your final report, could you run the Location 1 portion independent of the Location 2 portion, etc.? If so, you could join the 10 sub-reports into one final PDF using PDFSharp after you've received them all. This leads to some difficulties with page numbering, but nothing insurmountable.
3. Does anyone else have any other
theories as to why this runs on the
server but not through the API?
My guess would be the sheer size of the report. I don't remember everything about what's an IIS setting and what's SSRS-specific, but there might be some overall IIS settings (maybe in Metabase.xml) that you would have to be updated to even allow that much data to pass through.
You could isolate the question of whether the time is the problem by taking one of your working reports and building in a long wait time in your stored procedures with WAITFOR (assuming SQL Server for your DBMS).
Not solutions, per se, but ideas. Hope it helps.
Obviously, its a huge report, in fact it's closer to a 1.3 GB database, than a report.
Have you thought of finding a way to split it into multiple pieces and then combine them together? (use one of several different ways to combine PDFs listed on this site.)