Dynamics Community Forum Thread Details

When generating an electronic reporting report, users may encounter an error saying, “Object reference is not set to an instance of the object.” Or you may get a message saying an attachment is no longer attached or an error occurred during the request of the file. This often happens after an update or after migrating data, but sometimes it can happen intermittently as well.

The reason behind this is often that the data where the Azure storage blob is located has become corrupt. The system can no longer find the attachment to generate the electronic report file.

The most common solution for this problem will be discussed below, then information on how this issue can be avoided in the future.

First, make a note of where the configuration with this issue is located. Note any configurations that are dependent on the configuration with the problem as well as any related configurations.

Go to Organization Administration > Periodic > Migration Cleanup

When deleting configurations in the Migration Cleanup tool, make sure to start with the innermost configurations as found in the hierarchy. In this case, remove the Fixed Asset Roll Forward configuration, which does not have any dependent configurations, so it can be deleted first.

Select the configuration encountering an issue.

Click Delete to remove the configuration with this issue.

If it is desired to delete the related configurations all the way back to the data model, be sure to start with the innermost configurations. In this example, if deleting all the way back to the Fixed Assets Model data model, we would also delete the Fixed Asset Listing and Fixed Asset Listing CSV configurations first, then delete the Fixed Assets Model.

Now go back to the configurations list, see that the configuration is missing.

Open the repository and import the latest version of the Fixed Asset Roll Forward configuration again.

Now test the report to verify that the configuration works again.

To help prevent this in the future, Microsoft has introduced new functionality to create a backup of configuration attachments. When the system runs the configuration, it checks for the attachment. If the attachment is missing, it will check the backup and restores the attachment if possible.

For the most part this is set up automatically. Review the setup by going to the Electronic Reporting workspace and clicking Electronic Reporting Parameters. On the Attachments tab, note the settings related to Backup Storage of Templates.

If Stop Making Backup Copies of Templates parameter to Yes, backups will not be available for any new configurations you import or create. It is recommended to leave this set to No as backups will be made automatically.

If there is a need to clean up the backup storage and replace the attachments in backup storage with fresh copies, first click the Clean Up Backup Storage button, then click the Fill in Backup Storage button.