Spektrix aims to be user-friendly. Wherever we can, we will add a custom message, explaining what has caused the error and (if we can guess in advance what you're up to) how to work around it.
But sometimes an error will occur that we haven't anticipated, and in these cases, you will either see the famous 'green screen', or else receive an error message as you try to run (or schedule) a report.
Green Screen errors
These will appear immediately you try to do something that the system either doesn't understand, or needs to prevent in order to secure your data and bookings. The whole screen will be replaced by a big, green error message.
Whenever these occur, Spektrix are notified immediately, and we receive a detailed error log. But the information is too detailed to show in the user interface, so you will simply be shown a generic message encouraging you to contact us.
What to Do
The immediate remedy is to press the back button on your browser. This will take you back to your activity immediately before the error.
You will then need to resolve the conflict or problem, or the next step will just result in an error again. If you cannot guess the cause of the error yourself, call us on the usual Support number and we will be able to talk you through the fix!
We appreciate that this is a long-winded process, but we often incorporate fixes to Spektrix releases based on previous green screen errors, so that the error no longer happens, or you see an explanatory message instead. Every green screen will take us by surprise (and they are rare), but they will all work towards a better system!
Report errors
When you run a report, you may see a box at the top-right of the screen saying that the report has failed, or that no data was found.
If your report unexpectedly returns a 'No Data' error, check the criteria set and the range of data to make sure you haven't limited the data too far. You may have asked the report to check for performances within a date range where there were no events, for example. If you can't work out why the error is appearing, call Spektrix Support for advice.
If you receive a red error warning, then the report is suffering a similar conflict to the green screen scenarios explained above. You may be running a report that relies on a data field that has since been renamed or deleted, or the report template may have become corrupt.
What to Do
Click the red X to clear the report log from your screen, then try and run the report again.
Try selecting to run the report as an Excel file, a CSV or raw XML data. If there is a problem with the PDF template, you may still be able to output your data using one of the other export types.
Contact Spektrix if you would like us to take a look for you, and to clear up any template errors.