SSRS 2014 report deploy issue

Question

I was using SQL Server 2014 Reporting server (report server version shows on http://localhost/Reportserver is 12.0.4100.1) and also was using Visual Studio 2013 for development.

Recently I started to work on new PC and only Visual Studio 2015 Enterprise Edition was installed on this. Currently my reports developed with business intelligence which comes with Visual Studio 2013 and I was unable to open my report project on new PC. So I installed the business intelligence tools to match with Visual Studio 2015 and did small changes on 2 reports. Anyhow I noticed that design code of the reports were having huge changes.

The issue is, when I try to upload changed reports to report server on the report server interface, I get an error message:

The definition of this report is not valid or supported by this version of Reporting Services. The report definition may have been created with a later version of Reporting Services, or contain content that is not well-formed or not valid based on Reporting Services schemas. Details: The report definition has an invalid target namespace 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/sqlserver/reporting/2016/01/reportdefinition' which cannot be upgraded. (rsInvalidReportDefinition) Get Online Help

Still I am able to upload the same report from Visual Studio 2015 to same server by selecting deploy option on solution.

Could someone help me to upload the report designed by vs 2015 to SSRS.

Answer 1

I am on a phone right now so can't double check exact syntax 😕 Ran in to this recently. You are probably used to deploying .rdls right out of your source folder. With the new version vs 2015 running against an older server version you will need to follow a few simple steps.

1. Make sure your target environment is set correctly in project properties. It probably is since the upgrade should recognize it.
2. Build your project. The source files will still be in the new format but .rdls (and other files) will be created in the target version in your bin sub-folder. These can be deployed without problem.

It looks like starting with Report Server 2016 there is a new file structure and the xmlns in the rdl file changes. Vs 2015 with the updated SSDT-BI will upgrade every report you open automatically to the new format and use that as the new source file. But building to the target environment will create rdls using the old xmlns and file format.

EDIT Just adding some additional information I put in a different answer.

Under project properties you can have up to 3 options for TargetServerVersion depending on VS version and SSDT-BI version installed:

• SQL 2008
• SQL 2008 R2, SQL 2012, SQL 2014
• SQL 2016+ (new in VS 2015 with latest SSDT-BI)

Each of these uses a different xmlns in the report XML code. As you open each report your source report .rdl file will be upgraded to the latest xmlns - like it or not.

However when you deploy or build, the .rdl files in your bin folder will be compiled to match the target. As long as you use the bin folder versions (automatic with VS deploy) you can successfully deploy these to your server.