I had a customer this week who updated a report to read Oracle instead of SQL Server. The report was based on a command and the SQL was virtually identical. But for some reason the Oracle version would take a full 5 minutes to refresh while the SQL Server version only took a few seconds.

Once the report was run in Oracle the first time it could be refreshed using different parameters and it would only take a few seconds. I had the customer check for indexes but those had been set up to match SQL Server. I wondered if it was a data cache, but that didn’t explain why setting new parameters would be fast.

The only other thing that I could think of that was unique to the first refresh was a setting in Crystal that does a “Verify Database” on the first refresh. This usually takes a few seconds and isn’t noticeable, but as a test I turned that feature off. The first refresh was now as fast as SQL Server. Apparently, something in their environment caused the “Verify” process to take 5 minutes to complete.

If you run into something similar, go into File > Report Options and look for the check mark that says “Verify on First Refresh”.  Unless your environment is changing frequently, this doesn’t need to be checked, although in most environments you won’t notice a difference.

If you aren’t familiar with the “Verify” feature you can invoke it at any time by using the option in the database menu. This forces Crystal to poll the database for a complete list of fields for every table used by the report, including the data types.  Crystal stores this info in the report, which gives you a full field list even when you aren’t connected to the database.  Whenever fields are added, removed or their data type is changed this list needs to be updated . That is what it means to “Verify Database”.