* Unable to run reports

[cwshonk]

Unable to run reports I.E. View->Publish->Narrative Reports->Ancestors by Generation.
Message shown is "Unable to Open Report"; Page Total is 0; When I try to refresh it "The current report has no content"
Any suggestions?
Thanks
Carl
Family Historian 7.0.21; running Wine and Ubuntu Linux 22.04.3 LTS

[tatewise]

I think FH relies on a Printer being defined to format Reports, so ensure a default Printer is set up.
If possible that should be a PDF printer driver.

[mjashby]

@cwshonk

Mike is, of course, correct about the need to have a default printer set up before the FH reports can display. On Windows this is taken care of automatically by the supplied PDF Printer Driver software, but Windows Printer Drivers don't work under WINE on Linux (or macOS). On Ubuntu Linux I suggest you install and configure 'cups-pdf'. IME, FH under WINE usually recognises cups-pdf as the default 'printer' as soon as it is correctly configured using the Linux Printer Setup facility.

Mervyn

[cwshonk]

Thanks for the quick response, but still no luck.
I can print From Family Historian Queries but Publish still get the "Unable to Open Report" message; Page Total is 0.
I have a pdf printer (cups-pdf) as well as a laser (Samsung-M2020-Series-2), both of which will print from queries ('query->Relatives and Relationships->Ancestors').
Thanks Again
Carl

[ColeValleyGirl]

Are there any Ancestors of the individual you've chosen as the basis of the report? (Just eliminating it as a line of enquiry?)

Does the report work if you select a different individual?

[Mark1834]

I suspect it is a Wine issue. My FH7/Linux Mint/Wine combination doesn't process reports at all (it just throws up a Wine error whichever report option I select under the Publish button). I haven't pursued it in detail, as I only use it for compatibility testing, but I know a previous issue was traced down to the old versions of Wine supplied in the standard Ubuntu/Mint repositories.

[mjashby]

Mark has a good point. If you have installed WINE from the Ubuntu repositories check the version you have installed, which may be horribly out of date. The current 'stable' version of WINE, as of today, is 8.0.2

[Mark1834]

Spot on Mervyn - Mint only offers WINE 6.0.3, even in the recent upgrade, and I suspect Ubuntu is similar. I updated manually to 8.0.2 following the instructions on WineHQ (which was no more complex than copying a handful of commands into a terminal window).

Restarting FH gave a prompt that PlayonLinux was updating, and a link to download additional software for .NET that only took a few seconds to run.

Report generation and pdf printing via cups now works perfectly.

[mezentia]

I'm getting this problem too. I'm running FH 7.0.22 on a Win10 pc with 12Gb main memory and plenty of spare disk. If I try to create a Descendants by Generation report for an individual for 15 generations, I get an "Unable to open report" dialogue box. The report length is zero. I have already defined my printer - although it seems that whichever printer this is, PDF or actual, is irrelevent. I have excluded all images. I know that without images the report will be in excess of 950 pages. On occassion, FH simply crashes if I try to re-create the report. To make matters worse, this is a family branch that I am currently working on and the number of people is growing all the time, so the report will only get longer! So, is there a maximum size of report that FH can handle?

[tatewise]

As usual with this kind of problem a little forensic software investigation will help.

Have you tried various alternative options such as fewer generations, other types of report, Query reports, etc?
Also, try using the Family Historian Sample Project.

Presumably, you are using the FH File > Print Setup... command to set the printer.

[mezentia]

Hello Mike

Yes, I have tried fewer generations (11), and that works, when FH is first loaded. The report fails if I run it again.

Other types of reports appear to work. The sample project won't exactly help as it's too small.

Yes, I'm using the FH File>Print Setup to set up my printer.

I set a note in one of my sources to Private to avoid it being repeated for each occurrence in the sources and this worked, reducing the output to 893 pages (including source list and bibliography).

I suspect that the report size might be the cause of the problem, although I'm fairly certain I've created larger reports in the past.

[tatewise]

Use Task Manager to review the FH process. What Memory does it use for the large reports that succeed?
Is it approaching the maximum of 4GB RAM for a 32-bit application?

As an experiment, I created large Narrative Reports amounting to 1,000 pages and memory peaked at 500MB.
With a larger Project and a larger report I also got "Unable to open report" messages and sometimes FH crashed.

[mezentia]

I managed to create a report of 841 pages. Memory peaked at 1032.7Mb, then FH crashed.

[tatewise]

On the basis that the Task Manager display lags behind actual Memory usage, it looks like Memory is the problem.
It may be worth reporting the problem to CP and see what they suggest.

[ADC65]

It's obviously something CP will need to look at, but you could look at the Windows Error Logs to see if there's any help there. They're a bit daunting if you haven't used them before as there tends to be a lot of information. Do a search for Event Viewer, then under Windows Logs click on Application. You can use Filter Current Log... over on the right to narrow things down. Most application crashes will report an Error Level event. The General and Details tabs at the bottom of the screen will give more information.

[mezentia]

Thanks ADC65. I am intimately acquainted with the Event Logs on my PC especially after the latest Win10 updates.

I will refer this to CP, though, to see what they say.

[mezentia]

It appears that the amount of memory available to FH is restricted, and I am hitting that limit with a very large report. CP's recommendation is to break the report into sections, which I find a little less than helpful.