Summary
Showcase Report Writer error when trying to open a report (.rpt file). The error could be that the file cannot be found or is corrupt, but may take many forms. Alternately, the existing report may have been changed in a way that is unacceptable, or maybe it was deleted by mistake.
Resolution
Look for a file with the same name and extension .rpB. This is a backup copy of the report. Change the extension from .rpB to .rpt and you'll be able to open it in Report Writer. If the user gets an error when trying to open the .rpt file with Report Writer, it's possible that the file itself is corrupt.
There's a way to identify corrupt reports, but it's somewhat subjective:
Change the extension from .rpt to .xml and open the file in your favorite XML editor (Internet Explorer works good). What you should see is a long and complex XML document - lots of tags that may not make any sense, but are legible and in plain text.
At no time, should you see characters that aren't on your keyboard (Unknown how this works in other languages, but this works as a good rule of thumb for US English PC's with standard keyboards).
You should see a tag near the beginning and one at the end for "RWReport". You can compare a known-good report to get an idea of what to look for. If you see unknown characters, if the file contents are really short, or if the "RWReport" tag is missing at the end of the document, then the file is corrupt.
It's unknown why this happens and is extremely rare. Using the .rpB version of the report is the only resolution.
