It’s a BUG

The other day I was merrily exporting a SQL Report to Excel when I came across this cheeky little message where some tables should have been

"Data Regions within table/matrix cells are ignored"

A quick search on forums reveals the following solution

This is a known issue in the reporting services. It is caused by the limitation of the Excel rendering. So you may redesign the report or export to other formats.

Well that’s a relief. It’s not a bug it’s a known issue and limitation, entirely different from a bug. If it was a bug I’d be stuffed and would have to go back to my project manager and tell him that we’re starting the export again from scratch so the deadline is receding rapidly into the distance. Thankfully because it’s only a limitation I only need to go back to my project manager and tell him that we’re starting the export again from scratch and etc………..

IT’S A BUG. It’s not a limitation, known issue, user error, unforeseen circumstance or convergence of several highly unlikely events. Come on Microsoft admit to it. My software’s got bug’s, my colleagues software’s got bug’s and Microsoft’s software’s got bugs. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. The first step to solving a problem is admitting it’s there. Mr Bill Gates – you’ve got a bug.