PRB: 'Object Has Failed to Load' Error Message from Editor

When an ActiveX control without a User-Interface is inserted into a page in Source view, or when Source view is activated for a page that contains a control without a User-Interface, an error message box appears that states the following:

Source view is attempting to render the control graphically but cannot because the control has not defined a design-time graphical interface for itself.

This behavior is by design.

When a control without a User-Interface is inserted into a page in Source view from the Toolbox, the error message cannot be avoided.

To avoid receiving the error message whenever you switch to Source view, add an attribute called "viewastext" to the <object> tag that defines the ActiveX control that does not have a User-Interface. This will prevent Source view from attempting to render the control graphically, for example: Alternatively, you can tell Visual InterDev to show all control as text when in Source view. To do this, go to the Tools menu and click Options, and select HTML from the tree. Set "Source view display" to "Text."

This error also occurs if you are creating a DTC in, say, Visual Basic, and are testing it in Visual InterDev editor. If you forget to run the DTC while in Visual Basic, you get this error. It can be resolved by deleting the object in Visual InterDev, running the Visual Basic project, and then re-adding it to the page in Visual InterDev. Once you have compiled the Visual Basic project and deployed the DTC, this shouldn't be a problem.

The error message does not necessarily mean that the control is not properly registered on your machine. It only indicates that Source view is not able to render the control graphically. Some ActiveX controls do not have a design-time graphical interface.