CREATE BLOG dbo.SqlServer

Whew - this has been a challenging last 30 days as I've tried and tried to just get SP2 to work in various environments without generic and generally not-helping-thank-you-though error messages. I love the new features in SP2 particularly the ability to create and use Custom Reports, but today I've had about four hours of SQL Hell lol. One problem was that I installed Reporting Services onto an already-SP2 machine. I then applied SP2a then patched to 3152 - all good, right?

After that, my RSConfigTool.exe (a.k.a., the Report Services Configuration Manager/Tool/Utility) doesn't work lol. When I launch it, it lets me connect to SSRS but immediately throws one of the "Unhandled Exception has occurred in your application. If you click continue..." popups that we get when we are in development and haven't implemented an exception handler.... ahem....

Here's the error thrown:

System.Management.ManagementException was unhandled
Message="Not found "
Source="System.Windows.Forms"
StackTrace:
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.MarshaledInvoke(Control caller, Delegate method, Object[] args, Boolean synchronous)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.Invoke(Delegate method, Object[] args)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.Invoke(Delegate method)
at ReportServicesConfigUI.ConfigurationManager.Panel_ConfigurationChanged(Object sender, EventArgs e)
at ReportServicesConfigUI.Panels.ConfigurationPanel.OnConfigurationChanged(EventArgs e)
at ReportServicesConfigUI.Panels.DatabaseSetupPanel.SetDatabaseConnectionTask(String connectionString, String server, String database, ConfigurationCredentialsType credsType, String account, String password, Boolean upgrade, String dbVersion)
at ReportServicesConfigUI.Panels.DatabaseSetupPanel.SetDatabaseConnectionTask(Object state)
at System.Threading._ThreadPoolWaitCallback.WaitCallback_Context(Object state)
at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.Run(ExecutionContext executionContext, ContextCallback callback, Object state)
at System.Threading._ThreadPoolWaitCallback.PerformWaitCallback(Object state)

Likely it's too generic to offer anything but I put it up here just in case someone else has seen this :(

Another error that I've gotten in the RSConfigTool.exe is:

An unhandled exception ('System.Management.ManagementException') occurred in RSConfigTool.exe [7632]

When I click a panel, it then pops up a message that says:

There was an error while switching panels. The most likely cause is an error retrieving WMI properties. The exception details are: Not found

Speaking of WMI, I had a weird error installing SP2 on a Windows 2003 Standard Edition server today that had two instances, one with RTM and one with SP1 on it. The SP1 instance (the default) upgraded fine but the RTM would not update and the error message said something like, "An error occurred. Run over to Google and find KB921896 for details."

So I did.

And I'm not friggin happy!!!

KB921896 is the list of bugs fixed in Service Pack 2....

So, what would you do next? Well, I tried installing Service Pack 1 onto this instance which lasted for a total of 2 minutes before throwing three errors in succession. The final error? "An error has occurred. Please point yourself quickly to KB913090."

You guessed it: KB913090 is a list of all the bugs fixed in SQL Server 2005 SP1 lol.

Okay....

So which is it: do the folks at MSFT have a huge sense of humor or are they just rushing stuff out the door to meet some deadline that we don't know about? I don't know and I'm just kidding around anyway - we all know they don't have a sense of humor!

;)

Labels: Reporting Services, sql 2005, sql server 2005, sql server 2005 sp2

How to Find Out the Build Number for SQL Server Reporting Services

How do you find out if Reporting Services has Service Pack 2 installed? It's actually not easy!

You can look certainly at the SQL Server 2005 instance and determine whether it has SPx installed rather easily in the SQL Server Management Studio. One way is to connect to the SQL instance in the Object Explorer. The Object Explorer will show you the build number (such as 9.00.3042, .3043, .3050, .3152, etc. You can also easily see the build number of Integration Services in SSMS by connecting the Object Explorer to your Integration Services instance in the same way. But what about Reporting Services? It does *not* show you the build information...

There are lots of reason we need to know this information. You do know (or should know) that you can install SQL Server 2005 SP1/Sp2 without installing the service pack for Reporting Services, right? You could also have installed Reporting Services after installing SQL Server 2005 with a Service Pack and now you need to apply the SP to SSRS. So how can we figure out whether or not SSRS is up to SP2 (or SP whatever)?

The most logical and straight-forward way to determine whether your Report Server is using RTM, SP1, SP2, etc, is to look at the file version of ReportingServicesService.exe. On my server, this is installed in C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.2\Reporting Services\ReportServer\bin\ and it may be for you as well. Simply right click on the file and choose "Properties". Click the "Version" tab and look at the "File Version". The various file versions and what they mean are listed below:

* 9.0.3042.0 or later - Service Pack 2
* 9.0.2047.0 - Service Pack 1
* 9.0.1399.0 - RTM

There are other visual indicators as well. If SP2 is installed, you will see a file named "rsreportserversp2update.config" in the root of your \ReportServer\ app. You'll also see a ReportService2006.asmx installed (as opposed to just having ReportService2005.asmx).

If you'll pop on over to your \ReportManager\ app and look in the "bin" directory, you can also view the File Version of the various .dlls. If they are dated February, 2007 or later then your Report Manager is at least on Service Pack 2.

Of course, you can always look in the logs, right? Mine are here: C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.2\Reporting Services\LogFiles\. You will also see the file versions listed in the logs:

* Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services Version 9.00.1399.00
* Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services Version 9.00.2047.00
* Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services Version 9.00.3042.00

Do you know of other ways to view the SSRS version/build number that I haven't listed? Please let me know :)

Labels: Reporting Services, SSRS