Method:API Q&A

Re: Most of our Reports stopped generating this morning!!!!

Method_Chris — Thu, 17 Jul 2014 17:47:40 GMT

Hi.

Sorry you where having troubles this morning. I’m not sure this is really an API issue, since you are generating reports rather than using the API, but the syntax of the SQL should be the same regardless. We have applied no patches to the DB server that would have caused this stop working. Most likely, there were new or modified records in your data, that changed SQL Server’s ability to make guesses on the intention of your SQL statement was, and therefore caused it to return an error.

X > '' still doesn’t look right right to me. If you are trying to make sure X is not empty, you should do something like:

X <> '' AND X Is Not Null

ISNULL(X,'') <> ''

Thanks!

Chris

Re: Most of our Reports stopped generating this morning!!!!

robert.cowart — Thu, 17 Jul 2014 17:01:19 GMT

I figured it out!! Thankfully I am a DBA and knew where to look. There must have been a SQL Server patch applied today in Methods DB that started strongly enforcing datatypes in SQL WHERE statements. I had a X > 0 on a TEXT (varchar) column that started breaking the WHERE. I checked the data types and found X was TEXT. I changed X > 0 to X > '' and voila it works.

Most of our Reports stopped generating this morning!!!!

robert.cowart — Thu, 17 Jul 2014 16:07:11 GMT

Around 10:30 EST on July 17, 2014, we started having an issue with Method reports. Many of our reports stopped working at the same time. These are custom reports from custom screens that have been running well for months and have not been changed recently. I am trying to find out what the Method folks may have changed this morning that could have broken our reports.

The same reports that fail have an error that says: There was an unspecified error loading the report. These same reports will run from the Report Designer, just not from Method CRM in the browser. All reports that read the Company.CompanyType value will not run from Method. I thought it might be a locked Company table so we got everyone (and MIE) out of QuickBooks but it didn't change anything. I even remove all report references to Company.CompanyType but the reports preview in RD but can't be run from Method. I just talked to a Method tech support person but they were not able to determine the problem or a solution. I thought maybe it was a license count limit assuming running reports took up a license, but increasing the license count did not get reports running.

SOMEONE PLEASE HELP! We have PRODUCTION deadlines and Method's failure to generate reports is killing us!