Crystal Report server issue

I figured out a good way to debug these errors:

The CrystalWebService has really bad logging, and the service can fail without logging anything in the logs. You can add custom log messages to the logic, since the C# files are included in the WebService installation folder.

For example, my cws logs would always just return

5/28/2026 2:57:22 PM[IFSCRWebSetup]-[GetDbInfoFromXml] Decrypted.
5/28/2026 2:57:22 PM[IFSCRWebSetup]-[GetDbInfoFromXml] Decrypted.
5/28/2026 2:57:22 PM[IFSCRWebSetup]-[GetDbInfoFromXml] Retrieved Information from XML : DBUser-IFSSYS DBPassword-******* PrintUser-IFSPRINT PrintPassword-******* DBServerName-IFSPDB AppOwner-IFSAPP IALOwner-IFSINFO
5/28/2026 2:57:22 PM[IFSCRWebSetup]-[GetDbInfoFromXml] Decrypted.
5/28/2026 2:57:22 PM[IFSCRWebSetup]-[GetDbInfoFromXml] Decrypted.
5/28/2026 2:57:22 PM[IFSCRWebSetup]-[GetDbInfoFromXml] Retrieved Information from XML : DBUser-IFSSYS DBPassword-******* PrintUser-IFSPRINT PrintPassword-******* DBServerName-IFSPDB AppOwner-IFSAPP IALOwner-IFSINFO

No error, just seemingly abrupt stop. Since we have a working instance up and running, I knew that the next log message should look something like this:

5/28/2026 3:02:38 PM[IFSCRWebSetup]-[GetParameterCount] Report Document parameter count : 1 

From this, I could look for the method GetParameterCount inside the cs files in the folder IFSCRWebSetup/App_Code. Inside this method I added some debug trace messages after each line to see where the log messages would end, for example 

log.write("debug1", log.trace);

From there I managed to find out that the code abruptly stopped inside the Authorize function when trying to call this part:

if (!(IFSDbAccess.DbAccess.ValidateAuthToken(xmlDBServerName, xmlDBUser, xmlDBPassword, xmlAppOwner, authToken)))
{
	log.write("[Authorize] Provided Authentication token is not valid.", log.trace);
	throw new System.Security.Authentication.AuthenticationException("Provided Authentication token is not valid.");
};

So I added a try catch block around this part, and could catch an error message to the web service logs:

TNS:could not resolve the connect identifier specified

This essentially solved the issue since I was finally able to see why the report failed.

Hi ​@Mikko1234,

After weeks discussing with IFS Support, they told us that Crystal will be discontinue soon, so we decided to not follow with the project.

Too much expend for something that will be discontinued soon. 

IFS Cloud 24R2 Deprecation Log - Updated 07 March 2025 | IFS Community

Gianni Neves