Getting "File error: data may have been lost" 1

[kernal]

I don't know if this is a crystal or excel problem so I thought I would post to both forums:

I'm using crystal 8 with a csv file and exporting to excel. I have excel 2003 with service package 3.

Whenever I export now to excel from crystal, I'm getting the following error message when I try to open it up in Excel "File error: data may have been lost." The file does open and as far as I can tell, no data has been lost. I'm not sure when this started since I give reports to users without opening them up in excel (no user has said they are having this problem but I suspect that they really don't read the error and just click ok).

I have another computer with Crystal 9 (I'm making copies of my reports and converting them to 9 so we can switch over to 9). Using the same csv file and same excel version with same service package and it opens up fine with no error.

Any help is very appreciated.

 

[dgillz]

How many records are in your crystal report? Excel can hold a maximum of 65,535 including a title row.

If this is not the issue, download the latest service pack, monthly hotfix and export driver hotfix from the business objects website, and try it again.

Software Sales, Training, Implementation and Support for Macola, eSynergy, and Crystal Reports

http://www.gainfocus.biz

"What version of URGENT!!! are you using?

 

[lepon]

I had a problem where I was getting the same error "File error: data may have been lost" when opening up an xls file in Excel 2003. The file was generated on the fly by code and was working previously on the same machine with no changes made to the code. The only thing I could think of that could've cuased this was the recent service pack (SP3) installed on the machine. Luckiliy, I had a machine at hand that still hadn't had this service pack applied - was still on SP2. Stangely it worked on this machine..?
I'm not sure if the new service pack is to blame...?
I know you mentioned you got another machine with SP3 working so perhaps not in your case.

 

[kernal]

thanks dgillz. They didn't have a service pack or monthly hotfix that I could find for crystal 8 so I did it for 8.5 and it looks like one of them did correct my problem so I'm no longer getting the error message. It looks like one of the updates (not sure if it was the service pack or monthly hotfix) caused a different problem. When I tried to open up crystal 8 from my desktop's toolbar like I always do, it opened up crystal 8.5 (I didn't have 8.5 on machine before the updates and can't use it since it wanted some kind of code before it would be usable). Luckily, I was able to find the 8 executable file still on my machine.

Thanks again for helping me with the export problem.

 

[kernal]

Hey lepon,

It does look like Crystal 8 didn't like SP3 but Crystal 9 is ok with it, since my other machine with 9 is working fine.

 

[Siggy19]

This seems to be a problem when exporting from Crystal 8.5 to Excel 2003 SP3 ONLY WHEN Excel 2003 SP3 is on the Crystal machine.

I have two users, one on Excel 2002 and the other on Excel 2003. If the 2003 user exports to Excel, he gets the error. If the 2002 user does it, no error. If 2003 user emails the exported file to the 2002 user and 2002 user opens it, no error. If 2002 user emails the exported file to the 2003 user and 2003 user opens it, no error.

However, on our system there actually does not appear to be any data missing. No promises that there won't be missing data tomorrow... so I am very frustrated about this.

 

[devans9707]

We just started getting this error last week trying to export to Excel 2003, SP3, and Crystal 8.5. Has anyone found a definite solution to this problem?

 

[Siggy19]

Upgrade to version 11 of Crystal !

 

[dgillz]

Bigger issue - why export to excel in the first place?

The typical answer to this is so that the user can further manipulate the data once it is in Excel. This is a very poor reason to export to Excel. Just get your desired end results directly from Crystal.

Excel also has the # of records limitation I mentioned above.

Software Sales, Training, Implementation and Support for Macola, eSynergy, and Crystal Reports

http://www.gainfocus.biz

"What version of URGENT!!! are you using?

 

[Siggy19]

On a serious note;

1. It does now work since we upgraded to version 11.

2. Exporting to Excel allows for manipulation of the data, for example including historical data in future projections etc. The row limit has been almost eliminated in Excel 2007, although I don't know if crystal knows this.