Branched issue from discussion that took place in #1322816: views data export - exposed filters well after the issue was closed as duplicate.

If a views data export tries to execute and for some reason fails, there is no condition or information that it failed. This leads to views data export exploding because the query was never executed and thus the index table never created. Since there are no errors caught here, the batch just blows up in the user's face with such errors as "view or base table not found".

I think the solution should be that views data export checks the execution state of the view ($this->view->execute) and if it failed, figure out why it failed, and call abort_execute with an appropriate error message. Then, for whatever the reason (#1322816: views data export - exposed filters or any other case), at least VDE provides feedback to the user.

Additional documentation should also be available for site builders so that we do not end up tearing hair out trying to figure out why VDE seemingly fails on a view so that site builders can build working data exports.

In my case, view::validate() returns TRUE but the view is still not executed. I'll have to dig through views and add debug code to figure out why exactly build/execute failed. At least I know now.