Black Boxes and Microsoft Dynamics GP Report Writer Reports

Over the last week, there has been a Microsoft security update released via Windows Update which is causing graphics on Microsoft Dynamics GP Report Writer reports to show as black boxes.

The Microsoft Dynamics GP support team is aware of the issue and is working to find a resolution. The current work around is to roll back the Windows Updates that caused the issue and pause updates to prevent them from being installed again.

[Edit] 20-Mar-2021: The Windows team have released a fix for this issue, it look’s like it needs to be installed manually. Please see the updates on both the articles from the Dynamics GP Support team and from Beat Bucher (links below).

Below is an excerpt from an email from Terry Heley from the Dynamics GP support team:

What we are seeing as an impact would be legacy Report Writer reports and the call of printing process.

Templates seem fine, your checks will be fine if you are using example Mekorma to print them, if you just have a signature in RW on checks you will probably get a black box on your checks with this update.

It is not just a GP problem, other products could be impacted, but it again depends on the call the product is making.

Right now we are still working with Windows to see what changed and how this impacted our code and printing calls in Dynamics GP.

It does not sound like windows is going to pull this update as products should be more secure in the calls they are making, specifically around this area:

This issue occurs when a printer HBITMAP is being selected into a display HDC (Device Context) by either the application sending the print job or the printer driver rendering the print job. The app (or printer driver) shouldn’t be doing that. Specifically, logos, graphics and QR codes fail to print or render properly when an application tries to select a printer bitmap into an HDC (Device Context). Applications should instead directly to the printer using the context returned by CreateDevice.

Please follow the blog for any updates, if and when a release is scheduled besides the workarounds in blogs, I will let you know.

For more information see the articles and links below:

• GP Support Team: Black Boxes and Microsoft Dynamics GP Report Writer Reports
• Beat Bucher: Another Windows Update that could get your GP client in trouble…
• DynDeveloper Thread: Print a black square in Sales Order instead of printing the company logo.
• GPUG Forum Thread: Printing Issues
• GPUG Forum Thread: Blocked Image from SV Invoice

The Dynamics GP support team and Beat Bucher are updating their articles (top two links above) with new information as it comes to hand.

Hope this summary is useful.

David

20-Mar-2021: Added information about resolution provided as manual windows update.

This article was originally posted on http://www.winthropdc.com/blog.