SSRS in VS2017 - query runs in Query Designer but doesn't display in report

Question

I'm developing an ssrs report in VS2017. I changed the query, in Query Designer using the same data set with the same field names. When I run the query, I get the data I expect but when I run the report, it doesn't.

The data in query designer is:

But the report displays:

It should have 'FAT TEST' displayed here. I removed the 'rdl.data' file and ran the report again, which usually fixes data problems, but it hasn't this time.

The field name on the report hasn't changed. In fact, nothing has changed apart from the one column that shows in Query Designer but not the report.

Answer 1

I don't know why this didn't display so I made a copy. I ran it and it worked as expected.

Answer 2

You are probably getting a cached version of the data. Visual Studio will cache the reporting data for reports in those *.rdl.data files and will continue to pull from the cache until you refresh the fields on the dataset or change a parameter in the report execution.

Next time you get weird things like this try and refresh the dataset and run again. There could be a cache buffer for report data held in memory or perhaps you deleted the wrong *.data file, in any case, a forced reconcile with the data source always works for me.