Is it possible to stop SSRS 2008 R2 from ugprading a 2005 RDL on first use?

2
votes

We have a set of reports that were created using BIDS 2005 and we are trying to deploy these onto a 2008 R2 server. The problem we are coming across is that on first view of one of our reports SSRS 2008 R2 is looking to see if it can upgrade the report and all the subreports, this is causing the main report to be upgraded to 2008 but the subreport contains a third party Custom Report Item which will not allow the subreport to be upgraded. We would prefer it if the 2008 R2 did not try to upgrade any of the reports at all.

As you can see from this article: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms143674(v=sql.105).aspx

(Section : Upgrading a Report with Subreports)

Microsoft states that :

The main report can be upgraded but one or more subreports cannot be upgraded. The main report is processed by the SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services report processor, but the rendered report shows the message "Error: Subreport could not be processed" in the location where the subreport that could not be upgraded would appear.

This is clearly useless as we need to be able to see the subreport!

So my question is:

Can we force SSRS to always use the 2005 RDL files without automatically upgrading?

1
reporting-servicessql-server-2008-r2
As a workaround for the deployment bit, have you tried deploying the reports without opening them for viewing? Of course this still doesn't allow you to edit the reports. - Jeroen
Well we are able to deploy the reports, but when we view the main report it will display the whole report with the exception of the subreport where it will say "Error: subreport could not be shown". we are able to view the subreport on independently but not within the main report. - stuartmclark

1 Answers

0
votes

I think the easiest answer will be to edit the parent report in BIDS 2005 and add a CustomReportItem, maybe even with visibility set to false. This should force SSRS 2008R2 to flag the report as needing backwards compatibility.

Alternatively, this flag is stored somewhere in the database, but I'm not sure where. I don't have access to any 2005 reports running with that processing engine, so I can't go hunting.