I found when I create this simple query in the report designer:
SELECT TO_CHAR(trunc(sysdate)-1, 'DY MON DD') as "Date" from dual
the report does not process the query and becomes very unhappy. preview stalls out intermittently. when I remove the query all is well again. maybe im doing something wrong. haven’t seemed to have any issues with other queries. I just created a parameter to create the date format im looking for but thought I would let someone know the issue.