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Posting An Issue To Microsoft Connect

January 4, 2012 in General, SQL Server | No comments

I’ve been a user of the Microsoft Connect site for several years now. A regular user who now and then casts an Up vote or clicks the “I can reproduce it!” link. Not as a content poster. Well, I did post some comments in the past, but I never filed an issue or suggestion.

So, a couple of weeks ago I decided to post my first bug to Microsoft Connect, an issue which I had discovered in SQL Server 2012 RC0. Because this process took me more time than I’d expected, I‘m now blogging about my experience.

The hardest part about the whole experience was finding the actual page that needs to be used to enter and submit the content.

Submitting Content To Microsoft Connect

Are you in for a ride on the Connect site? Here we go!

Step 1: Search For Your Product on The Connect Home Page

On the Home page, enter a search term with which you can locate your favorite product. If you’re not signed in yet, do that first.

Step 2: Click To Participate

Once the search engine has produced the output, locate your favorite product and click the Participate action next to it.

Step 3: Submit Product Feedback

Click Submit Product Feedback to submit product feedback.

After clicking Participate, the following overwhelming screen appears. The link that you’re looking for is called Submit Product Feedback.

Step 4: The Feedback Center

After clicking Submit Product Feedback, you end up at the Feedback Center.

Do not use the Submit link, use Search first to check if your issue already exists.

Looking at the screen above, you’d think that the yellow Submit Feedback button can be used to open the page where you’d need to enter the bug details. Well, it doesn’t…

You need to search for your issue first, to ensure it doesn’t exist already.

Step 5: The Submit Feedback Button Has Been Found, Eureka!

The Submit Feedback button on the Product Search Results screen.

After you’ve performed the search for your issue, you get to the following page above. Finally, on that page you can click a real Submit Feedback button that will bring you to the Select Feedback Form page.

Step 6: Select Your Feedback Form Of Choice

Select SQL Server Bug Form to file a SQL Server issue, or SQL Server Suggestion Form for a suggestion.

On the Select Feedback Form page, select SQL Server Bug Form to file a SQL Server issue, or select SQL Server Suggestion Form to enter a suggestion.

Step 7: Fill Out The Textboxes

The "Submit A Bug" Form for SQL Server.

Finally, the page we’ve been trying to locate when we started the adventure, quest accomplished! With this new knowledge, we can now skip directly to step 6 through the following link: Select Feedback Form

Disclaimer: please ensure that you’re not creating duplicate bugs or suggestions, but use whatever search engine your prefer to achieve that goal!

So, here’s my New Year’s present to all of you! And remember: have fun!

Valentino.

References

Microsoft Connect

Feedback Center

Select Feedback Form

Tags: bug, Microsoft Connect, SQL Server

SSMS Showing Incorrect Version Numbers In Object Explorer

January 10, 2010 in Management Studio | 1 comment

Ever since I upgraded to SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 1 I noticed that the Management Studio was reporting incorrect version numbers when connected to Integration or Reporting Services. This incorrect version number is located to the right of the server instance in the Object Explorer.

As usual, a picture says so much more than … :

Object Explorer showing wrong version numbers

As I have posted earlier, 10.0.2531 is the version number for SP1, while 10.0.1600 is the original RTM version number.

I never really spent time looking for an answer to this. It was obviously a bug but I could live with it and someone else would probably already have filed it as being a bug. So recently I came across a post by Phil Brammer that mentioned this issue. This post got a comment from Matt Masson, a developer on the SSIS team. Have a look at the comment but in short: the version numbers that are being shown in the Object Explorer are actually the version numbers of the service’s .exe file! And SSMS is now showing the wrong number because these files didn’t get an update in SP1.

After a little search I found the bug report on Microsoft Connect, reported on March 11, 2009, by Dan English. Its status is Fixed but it seems that it isn’t. At least, looking at the comments, CU5 (Cumulative Update) for SQL Server 2008 SP1 is still showing the problem. So I guess you could go over to the Connect page and click on that Yes button if you’re interested in seeing this fixed. After all, it could be quite misleading to novice DB guys and gals…

On this same subject, there’s another interesting post by Adam W. Saxton, a member of the Microsoft SQL Server Escalation Services Team. In this post he takes a closer look at the SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services version number after having installed CU2.

Conclusion: if you need to find out what version your server is running, do not rely on the version numbers that you see in the Object Explorer. As Adam explained, one way is to look at the version numbers of the files that were included in the upgrade. But that may a bit of an overkill. My favorite way, assuming that all components of the SQL Server installation have been upgraded to the same version, is to use the following query:

SELECT @@VERSION;

On my machine that comes back with the following result:

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 (SP1) – 10.0.2531.0 (Intel X86) Mar 29 2009 10:27:29 Copyright (c) 1988-2008 Microsoft Corporation Developer Edition on Windows NT 5.1 <X86> (Build 2600: Service Pack 3)

And remember, have fun!

Tags: bug, data, Integration Services 2008, Management Studio, Reporting Services 2008, SQL Server 2008, SSIS, SSMS, SSRS

Report Builder 2.0: Cannot switch data source

September 12, 2009 in Reporting Services | 2 comments

I came across an issue when playing around with Report Builder 2.0. I had created a report using an embedded data source. Once I’d published the report to the report server, I couldn’t get it to run anymore. Instead it gave me the following error:

This report cannot be run in report builder because it contains one or more embedded data sources with credential options that are not supported. Instead of embedded data sources use shared data sources or save and view the report on the server.

Okay, no problem I thought, let’s just create a shared data source and switch to that one then. So I opened up the Data Source Properties in Report Builder and selected the Use a shared connection or report model radio button.

Unfortunately, when running the report it threw me that same error?! And when I open the Data Source properties again, my change was undone! It was still using the embedded data source.

As far as I’m concerned that should be a bug.

The only way that I could switch my data source to a shared connection was by creating a new data source, which means you also need to move all datasets connected to the original data source.

Quick tip: if you first rename the original data source and datasets to something like srcMyDataset_OLD, you can give the correct name to the new one straightaway.

So I guess that’s another workaround on my list

This issue was encountered while using Report Builder 2.0 (10.0.2531.0). I tried to reproduce it using Report Builder 3.0 (10.50.1092.20 – that’s the version of the SQL Server 2008 R2 August CTP) and I couldn’t. Which means it has been fixed. Good on you Microsoft!

Tags: bug, data, Report Builder 2.0, Report Builder 3.0, Reporting Services 2008, SQL Server 2008, SSRS

The value provided for the report parameter is not valid for its type

August 26, 2009 in Reporting Services | 11 comments

While building parameterized reports in SQL Server Reporting Services 2005 you may come across the following error when viewing the report in Preview.

An error occurred during local report processing.

The value provided for the report parameter ‘YourParameter’ is not valid for its type.

I encountered this error even though I had not specified a default value for the parameter. So how can it be not valid if it doesn’t exist?

I found a perfect solution in this little article.

Apparently it has something to do with the Allow blank value checkbox. In my report the data type for my parameter was Integer. And as explained in the mentioned article, the Allow blank value checkbox is checked and greyed out. Luckily the little trick of switching to String, unchecking the checkbox and switching back to Integer solves the error.

But why? How come that an error occurs due to a setting that is greyed out? A greyed out setting, doesn’t that mean that its value is not applicable in combination with the other settings? Apparently not. Well, I guess that’s a bug then, right?

If someone has a good explanation on this behaviour don’t hesitate to post a comment!

Tags: bug, Reporting Services, SSRS

BUG: Foreach Loop Container

June 9, 2009 in Integration Services | 1 comment

If you’re using Integration Services 2008 and the Foreach Loop Container in the Control Flow, you’ll very likely encounter this bug.

The Foreach Loop has several enumerators available. By default it selects the Foreach File Enumerator. However, as the screenshot below shows, there’s no way to configure it – the Enumerator configuration group just shows blank space.

This phenomenon is caused by a bug which has been reported on Microsoft Connect. The workaround, if you really need the File Enumerator, is to select another enumerator first and then switch back to the File Enumerator. You’ll notice that the regular controls show up and on you go, define that folder name!

Tags: bug, data, Integration Services, SQL Server 2008, SSIS

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