Crystal Reports for VS 2008 - "The user function manager DLL (ufmanager.dll) could not be found."

Question

StackOverflow, you're my only hope!

I am unfortunate enough to have inherited an ASP.NET 3.5 application roughly 3/4 in development. This project uses Crystal Reports Basic for VS 2008 to generate a PDF file from a data source. Pretty straightforward.

Anyway, this project compiles and runs fine on my development machine (VS 2008), but then when I publish it to the server (which has the CR Basic for VS 2008 Runtime installed), I get this error message when trying to export the report to PDF:

Error in File C:\WINDOWS\TEMP\Report {D3596595-5217-4888-A770-72427B29DE27}.rpt:
The user function manager DLL (ufmanager.dll) could not be found.
Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.

Exception Details: System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException: Error in File C:\WINDOWS\TEMP\Report {D3596595-5217-4888-A770-72427B29DE27}.rpt:
The user function manager DLL (ufmanager.dll) could not be found.

Unfortunately, a search on Google for the error message only turns up a handful of results, and they haven't helped.

My server is running Windows 2003 x64 SP2. I've tried installing the Crystal Reports runtimes on the server (both the x86 and x64 editions). Strangely enough, the app doesn't detect the x64 version, so I'm using the x86 version.

I see the file ufmanager.dll in C:\Program Files (x86)\Business Objects\Common\2.8\bin, but I don't know where my app is looking for it. I even tried sticking it in the "bin" folder of my app, but no luck.

If any kind soul happens to have seen this error before and knows the fix, I would be seriously grateful.

Answer 1

Given that the error appears to be a COM exception, does ufmanager.dll need to be registered on the server?

Answer 2

Does the report use a user-defined function (from an external DLL)?

Answer 3

Have you tried installing the runtime for Crystal Reports Basic for VS 2008? Check my post on runtime locations at http://blog.aggregatedintelligence.com/2008/12/crystal-reports-basic-2008-runtime.html

Remember that if you use the CR B for VS 2008 runtime, then you must update the dll versions from 10.2.x to 10.5.x (needs to be done in the web.config as well as the aspx files which use the CR viewer).

Answer 4

Hi,

I just spent two days on this error and was ready to pull my hair out. The bottom line is that giving the IIS_WPG user full control permission on the crystal bin folder did it. This is very similar to the famous unknown.rpt error on setting up crystal on a Windows 2003 server.

It's important to note that the Crystal support guys (I spoke with two of the absolute best) have never seen this error and it's only documented on the net once or twice. We are all assuming that it's due to my using a Godaddy virtual dedicated server setup and that the virtual software is causing this. To read all about this mess, go to https://forums.sdn.sap.com/thread.jspa?forumID=313&threadID=1261161.

It's a community based forum so you might have to register but it is free.

Ed

Answer 5

I have Crystal 10 installed on a Windows 7 64bit Computer as well as Crystal XI R2 and I was getting the error when trying to open a report in Crystal 10.

I copied the file From: C:\Program Files (x86)\Business Objects\Common\3.5\bin To: C:\Program Files (x86)\Crystal Decisions\Crystal Reports 10

Issue resolved.

Answer 6

yannstlo's solution worked like a charm. Thanks!