Reporting issues - csv output corrupted

[RobW]

Morning, well, afternoon now!

Has anyone else noticed issues with reports where csv files are corrupt however xls files appear ok - we have a number of scheduled reports and it appears they broke between 00:00 on the 9/11 and the next report run on 00:00 on the 10/11.

Have just tried running a couple of reports which output to csv and the output is garbled so added xls to the output formats of these problem reports and once again, the xls output is fine.

Thanks,

Rob

[Adam Higgins]

Hi, Yes, I agree with this. Was just about to make my own post, as its something that the Hornbill developers need to look into.

From the reports I've set up I've found that 6th November ran okay, but 7th November and onwards haven't been correct. Looking into the CSV in Notepad, it looks like the text delimiter is missing for several fields, so now any free-text containing commas, tabs, or spaces will format as such (and not be in one cell). The specific fields that aren't working for me are Resolution, Source Type, Source Sub Type, Within Resolve Time, but I'm sure there are probably other too.

Kind of feels like there's been a system update that hasn't gone right, but I'm happy to be told otherwise as long as I can get this fixed!

[SamS]

Hi @RobW and @Adam Higgins,

Our developers have been made aware of this and are on the case.

[m.vandun]

Same problem here.

[m.vandun]

Hi,

@SamS What is the status of this issue? I've already missed my reports for the management meeting this week, they won't accept another week without these reports.

Regards,

[Steve Giller]

@m.vandunThe current workaround is to export to another format (e.g. xls) while we work on a fix.

[m.vandun]

@Steve Giller that works but i cannot import this via R script in Power BI. This only works via CSV. So this is no solution for me.

[Steve Giller]

@m.vandun Are you not able to save the xls as csv before importing into PowerBi?

[m.vandun]

@Steve Giller

The R script automatically creates a report and this report is then imported into Power BI. The R script provided is only for CSV import (tried converting it to XLS, but failed ;)). As Im not a developer my small amount of knowledge is not enough to adjust this properly.

[Steve Giller]

@m.vandun Unfortunately I wouldn't have that knowledge either.

I know that the fix for the CSV issue is being worked on internally, I can't give a timescale but I'm sure they'll post here when there's an update.

[Steve G]

For anyone who is experiencing this issue, and are using the R scripts to pull data from Hornbill Reporting and push into Power BI, please see the attached post for an immediate workaround.

Thanks,

Steve

 

[Joyce]

Hi @Steve Giller

We are experiencing the same issues as @m.vandun. Can't connect the report to PowerBI.

We have  lots of reports for different division, which we will need to update R Script as per the change. So a quick resolution for this will be very appreciated.

 

Thanks

[Joyce]

Thanks @Steve G, but still getting 'DataFormat.Error: Unable to translate bytes [E2] at index 24 from specified code page to Unicode.'

I have install 'readxl' package as per the above and select both CSV and XLSX output format on the report.

I also tried with on XLSX output format, which didn't return any data

 

Regards,

Joyce

[Steve G]

Hi @Joyce,

That's likely due to there being a UTF8 character stream in the report output that sits outside of the Unicode codepage - Power BI doesn't play nicely with all UTF8 characters (unlike pretty much every other system!). I've added some extra code into the script to do the conversion to allow Power BI to import the data, v1.8.0 is on Github now.

Note: as per the instructions, you will need to change the csvEncoding variable to fix this issue, a value of ISO-8859-1 will probably do it.

Cheers,

Steve

[HGrigsby]

We also have the same issue and jobs that run to import asset information and export to Power BI 

I also changed our reports that were saving as .xls to save as .csv when there was an issue with it a while back, so they aren't right either.

Helen 

[StephC]

We are having a problem with our CSV exports too, but this is with the goHornbillDataExport tool, so I don't think the xls workaround will work for us. Do any of the developers have an estimated time this might take to fix? Would be good to know if we need to look into alternatives or wait it out. 

[Steve G]

Hi @StephC,

I've just released version 1.6.0 of the Hornbill Data Export Tool, which supports the use of the XLSX files from reports, as well as the existing CSV file support. It can be downloaded from Github, and is documented on the Hornbill Wiki. Specifically, look for UseXLSX in the Configuration section, and make sure you switch XLSX on in the report config > Output Formats > Additional Data Formats:

Cheers,

Steve

[StephC]

1 hour ago, Steve G said:

I've just released version 1.6.0 of the Hornbill Data Export Tool, which supports the use of the XLSX files from reports, as well as the existing CSV file support. It can be downloaded from Github, and is documented on the Hornbill Wiki. Specifically, look for UseXLSX in the Configuration section, and make sure you switch XLSX on in the report config > Output Formats > Additional Data Formats:

 

Thanks, Steve! Will look at implementing that. 

[Deen]

@StephC @HGrigsby How have you managed implemented Steve's workaround?  Let me know if you have had any problems with this.

[HGrigsby]

Hi @Deen We don't use R but have downloaded the latest version of the Data Export Tool so that we can test it to see if it resolves the issue.  And have changed the reports so export to .xls to see if they run successfully.

Helen 

[StephC]

23 hours ago, Deen said:

How have you managed implemented Steve's workaround?  Let me know if you have had any problems with this.

@Deen Thanks for checking back! Yes I have implemented the updated version and it looks to be working again. Thanks @Steve G

[Deen]

@StephC That's good to hear thanks.

[Nanette]

@StephC @HGrigsby @Ann-MarieHolloway @Joyce @m.vandun @Adam Higgins @RobW

We can inform you this has now been fixed  in the latest platform (ESP) build 3416, which is now live in all instances.

Kind regards, Nanette
 

[Adam Higgins]

Many thanks for the fix. Working perfectly!