mom reporting server - complicated layers (baking a tall cake)...

Ran into an issue on MOM Reporting Server. After some investigation, it was all the way down at the Framework layer. If you're not familiar with MOM Reporting, it's like the house that Jack built. It requires the following layers:

• Windows (obviously)
• SQL (obviously)
• IIS .NET Framework
• SQL Reporting Services
• MOM Reporting Services

So... if you have a failure on any one of those layers, your little house is going to come apart. For my particular situation, as mentioned before, the problem was at the Framework layer. I couldn't figure out where it was failing or how to fix it. I did the only logical thing... reinstall.

Reinstalling made no changes, so I moved to the next logical step... uninstall.

I uninstalled everything down to IIS. Since there were other websites running, I knew that probably wasn't it. Also, SQL was healthy as well. DTS jobs were running. SQL queries worked fine. This is when I started packing back the required components. I got .NET Framework loaded, which seemed to go fine. At the last leg of the SQL Reporting Services install, it stated there was an error during the install. I looked up the error code... and it stated that I needed to run rsactivate. Here's what I got back:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL\Reporting Services\ReportServer>rsactivate -c RSReportServer.config Failure starting the web service: The Report Server Web service has not generated a public key. The service may not have started successfully. Check the log files for more information.

Alright... that makes no sense to me. I looked up that error... and it stated I needed to run aspnet_regiis. Here's what I got back:

C:\WINNT\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v1.1.4322>aspnet_regiis -i Start installing ASP.NET (1.1.4322.0) without registering the scriptmap. An error has occurred (0x80070005). You must have administrative rights on this machine in order to run this tool.

After several aggrevating attempts to uninstall/install components again, I gave up and called India. Here's where the problem was... (don't laugh). That stupid error code above was partially accurate. Even though I have administrative rights, there was a corrupted registry which did not contain the proper permissions. :/

Here's the locations in case you run into this (and judging by some of the newsgroup posts, you have):

• HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\EventLog\Application\ASP.NET 1.1.4322.0
• HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\EventLog\Application

So first hurdle crossed. Granted access, ran aspnet_regiis -i, ran rsactivate... we're good. Now browsing to the web page brought another error:

The underlying connection was closed. Could not establish secure channel for SSL/TLS. HTTP Error 403 - Forbidden.

So the issue here was incorrect VDIR settings in IIS. This is what we changed to make it work:

REPORTS Virtual Directories tab

• Verify the path is set to C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL\Reporting Services\ReportManager
• Verify the Application Name = "Report Server Interface"
• Modify Execute permissions from "Scripts Only" to "Scripts and Executables" Documents tab
• Remove all default documents .Add "Home.aspx" as default.

Directory Security tab

• Uncheck "Enable Anonymous Access".

REPORTSERVER Virtual Directories tab

• Verify the path is set to C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL\Reporting Services\ReportServer
• Verify the Application Name = "Report Server"
• Modify Execute permissions from "Scripts Only" to "None"
• (On IIS5.0) remove all Application Mappings and add Application Map with Executable set to "%WINDIR%\microsoft.net\framework\v1.1.4322\aspnet_isapi.dll"
• Extension set to "*"
• Verbs set to "All Verbs"
• Select Script Engine checkbox Documents tab
• Add the following default documents in this order: default.htm, default.asp, index.htm, iistart.asp, default.aspx Directory Security tab .Check "Enable Anonymous Access"

There were other problems after that. Paraphrasing, add the ASPNET account to the RSExecRole in SQL for the ReportServer and ReportServerTempdb database. If SQL Server is on the same server as Reporting Services, change the account being used from "Machine" to SYSTEM in machine.config (located under the field). After all that worked, I installed MOM Reporting. Of course, the catch here is that you don't want to lose all your data (won't let you continue without removing the db). So I did the following:

• Detached the database.
• Renamed the .ldf and .mdf files to something generic.
• Ran through the installation.
• Detached the new db. Deleted them. Renamed the old to the new.
• Attached.

You'll lose all your MOM reports. I had to import all the report XMLs back in.