Hi, Recently our reporting services started to throw this error: report server cannot decrypt the symmetric key. I restored it, and for a while the problem was gone. Then it started to reoccur regularly. The application vendor stated it was a Microsoft problem. . As a temp fix while I was working this I set up a batch job to restore the key. I went from 24 to 6 down to 1 hour intervals, as the frequency of failures increased. Still getting worse. At one point the old key failed to restore, so had to delete and save a new one Any suggestions on where to look for what might be causing this? Google turns up lots of how to restore but not much why it fails TIA
Welcome to the forums. Did you check the event viewer log for any information or warning for this behaviour?
Yes I could see the error in SRS log file, as well as event view but could not see anything nearby to correlate it across any of the windows event logs. I was hoping someone had expreienced this and could point to something more specifc to check out, before spending a lot of time way down in the weeds. Periodic refresh of the key is working well enough to keep the users happy, but that's not really a solution just a band-aid.
We had similar problem in the past, and eventually found out that the SSRS service account permissions were not set. You might look into the Report Server Windows service trace log is recorded in the InstallationDrive:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\InstanceOfSQLServer\Reporting Services\LogFiles\ReportServerService_TimeStamp.log file. Also see this KBA http://support.microsoft.com/kb/842421 for more information.
Thx - will check that. Odd that its been running fine for close to a year with the same setup. AFAIK the accounts haven't changed. Only changes have been win updates
Can you reproduce the behaviour in a test environment? If its happening then you might log a support call with Microsoft for a fix.
Our test lab doesn't produce the problem. And I can't control it specifically. It just occurs after so manyreports. Most of the reporting is ad hoc, so don't have a job stream to replicate. And the test instance does not get as much usage. Is there a reporting stress tool out there? But the test instance has not been refreshed in a while. I'll have to see if the prod instance will cause the problem if I restore it to test. I supose that I would have to restore the report server db as well as the main app's db....
Yes, absolutely and in order to reproduce the environment should be like to like. BTW do you have support agreement with MS CSS?