How to Enable Remote errors on SQL reporting services.

If you have been using SQL reporting services, you may have encountered few errors which just become difficult to resolve. In such cases, its advisable to enable the remote errors on your reporing services which helps you to understand the inner exceptions.

The remote errors can be enabled on the reporting services in two ways:

1. Using the SQL Server Management Studio

Start Management Studio and connect to a report server instance.
Right-click the report server node, and select Properties.
Click Advanced to open the properties page.
In EnableRemoteErrors, select True.
Click OK.

2. Using a script to enable remote errors:

a. Create a text file and copy the following script into the file.

Public Sub Main()
Dim P As New [Property]()
P.Name = "EnableRemoteErrors"
P.Value = True
Dim Properties(0) As [Property]
Properties(0) = P
Try
rs.SetSystemProperties(Properties)
Console.WriteLine("Remote errors enabled.")
Catch SE As SoapException
Console.WriteLine(SE.Detail.OuterXml)
End Try
End Sub

b. Save the file as .rss in your local folder.
c. Open a command prompt window
d. Either Navigate to the directory that contains the .rss file you just created or use the absolute file location on the command prompt. Type the following command line, replacing servername with the actual name of your server:

rs -i EnableRemoteErrors.rss -s http://servername/ReportServer

3. Enabling the remote errors by updating the database.

a. Update ReportServer database Configuration table for EnableRemoteErrors

Update the ConfigurationInfo table in the ReportServer database for configuration record named "EnableRemoteErrors". The default value for EnableRemoteErrors property in the ConfigurationInfo database table is "False". Update the value to true by running a simple update statement.

You may not be successful to see the changes made on the ConfigurationInfo table on the Reporting Services application, if the application is being used intensely.

If everything goes fine, you should see a message "remote error enabled."

Note: Do ensure that your server is accessible from the location / machine you run the script from. If you have direct access to the server, run the script on the server.

Enabling the remote errors should give you detailed information on all the issues you encounter on your reporting services.