Report Generator runs out of memory

[Dave.B]

I've just submitted this bug report to Sparx Systems:

The report generator runs out of memory! It produces a pop-up dialog with title bar "FlushRtfLine(B)" and message "Ran out of memory".

I have monitored the available physical memory with Task Manager and there is more than half a gig available when this error occurs. (The machine has 2GB installed.)

The report's template has been used without problem before, but since then the model has grown in size. (Previously generated reports were about 110 A4 pages.)

Any suggested workarounds as the production of my report is on a critical path.

That's against EA version 7.5.850.

Regards
Dave B.

[Shawn Stepper]

I've run into this too and did not find a suitable workaround. Apparently the RTF generator is a third party tool, so is somewhat of a black box to Sparx.

[Dave.B]

I had this reply from Sparks:

Thanks for passing this on.
This problem is a shortfall in a third party add-in used for the RTF  reporting.  It is principally occurs when a lot of large images are generated in a report. For the RTF files the images if compressed, need to be de-compressed. So small pngs can end up as large bitmaps in the reports.
We are currently trying to get this add-in corrected.
  
In terms of a work-around for this I can only recommend you try setting the option:
Tools | Options | Diagram | Image Memory Limit - set this to 16.
Alternately try setting some large images to a format when uncompressed is a lower size file.
  
As I was saying, we are in the process of getting this corrected.
  
I hope this is of help.
Best regards,

XXXXXXXXX

I've tried the suggested work-around and found that it didn't help.

I did find a crude and cumbersome work around in the form of exporting my model's package from our MySQL host shared model and importing it into a free standing .eap file. (I also had to export the report templates and import them into the .eap file too.) The report generator ran without a problem. Maybe there was a bit more memory for the report generator to play with. May be it will break if I add one more diagram!

Regards
Dave B.

[Shawn Stepper]

That workaround did not help me either.

[Coops]

RTF generator that ships with 7.5 is flaky to say the least.  We've had terrible problems with it for producing any kind of professional documentation.

We had an almost identical issue with a 210 page report and in the end I had to split it down into several smaller generated reports and stitch them together in word.  There were all sorts of other issues with formatting and line spacing too which have been driving me insane

It has added hours to the project and we've missed 2 milestones on our critical path because of it.  It's great that EA captures all the information but from a Business analyst point of view if I can't get professional looking requirements docs out of the product it's useless to me.

The time and effort spent trying to sort out RTF reports will soon add up to us purchasing a more expensive peice of software that is actually up to the job.

[Graham_Moir]

We've had similar issues in the past,  and I agree the rtf generator is flaky and difficult to get to grips with (although I haven't tried v8 yet),  however we've largely got over the problems by starting again and making sure we have our styles, lists etc..  defined in one place - normal.rtf.

Then we have re-built ALL our templates based on that to ensure consistency across the templates.  All of a sudden at generation time we have proper numbering across documents, consistent formatting and something that really almost looks professional.  We do still do some final polishing in Word - but that is no more than a couple of minutes per document.

Two irritating bugs still outstanding :
- the generator appends an extra paragraph at the end of each model document in a virtual document).
- update styles from nromal.rtf doesn't work for existing styles it will only add new ones.  

[Sunshine]

Did you find a solution to this problem. I'm experiencing the exact problem "ran out of memory" with the RTF generator.

[Sunshine]

Okay for future reference I found a work around and a fix.
The problem of running out of memory was experienced on my system at work. A core 2 processor and 2GB RAM running Vista with EA version 7.5 Build 852.

Workaround:
Generate the document in pieces and then stitch it back together again in MS Word or Open Office using file include.

Fix
Try running it on the latest version of Enterprise Architect with more memory on Windows 7. The version of EA I used was V8.0 Build 862. I watched the physical memory usage go up to 3.2GB RAM which kind of explains why my 2GB system at work didn't cut the mustard.

NOTE
I did try increasing the RAM using a USB key and Vista's memory boost feature but I still got the out of memory message even with an extra 4GB on the system at work.

Hope that helps someone who might be experiencing the same problem.