ssrstracelog-review

name	ssrstracelog-review
description	Analyze SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) report server trace logs, RSReportServer.config / ReportingServicesService.exe.config excerpts, ExecutionLog3 query output, and related Windows Event Log entries to diagnose failed report server startups, database connectivity errors, memory pressure and AppDomain recycling, slow or aborted report processing, subscription delivery failures, and scale-out/encryption-key problems. Applies 24 checks (G1–G24) covering trace configuration health, startup and report-server-database connectivity, memory management and recycling, report execution performance from ExecutionLog3, subscription and delivery extensions, and scale-out deployment key management. Use this skill whenever a user pastes ReportServerService_<timestamp>.log content, RSReportServer.config/ReportingServicesService.exe.config XML, ExecutionLog3 output, or describes SSRS symptoms such as "report server unavailable", slow reports, failed subscriptions, or scale-out join errors.
triggers	["/ssrstracelog-review","/ssrs-trace-review","/rs-trace-review"]

SSRS Trace Log Review Skill

Purpose

Analyze SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) diagnostic artifacts to find why a report server fails to start, can't reach its report server database, runs reports slowly or aborts them, drops subscription deliveries, or fails to join a scale-out deployment. Applies 24 checks (G1–G24) across six categories:

• G1–G4 — Trace configuration and log health: DefaultTraceSwitch level, file size and retention settings, restart/recycle frequency visible in trace file rollover, and stale component-level trace overrides
• G5–G9 — Startup and report server database connectivity: rsReportServerDatabaseUnavailable, rsReportServerDatabaseLogonFailed, rsErrorOpeningConnection sub-causes, orphaned database pointers, and rsServerConfigurationError
• G10–G13 — Memory pressure and AppDomain recycling: MemorySafetyMargin / MemoryThreshold / WorkingSetMaximum configuration, hard recycles from memory allocation failures, and RecycleTime / MaxAppDomainUnloadTime tuning
• G14–G18 — Report processing and rendering: ExecutionLog3 time-phase breakdown, legacy processing engine usage, rsProcessingAborted and error statuses, and external image fetch latency
• G19–G21 — Subscriptions and delivery: file share and email delivery extension failures, and subscription scheduling clustering
• G22–G24 — Scale-out and encryption keys: rsInvalidReportServerDatabase after upgrade, rskeymgmt -j join failures, and missing symmetric key backups

This skill is the SSRS counterpart to sqlerrorlog-review (Database Engine ERRORLOG) — use both together when SSRS symptoms trace back to the report server database engine.

Input

Accept any of:

• Trace log excerpts — ReportServerService_<timestamp>.log or (SSRS 2017+) Microsoft.ReportingServices.Portal.WebHost_<timestamp>.log content, pasted as text. Lines follow the format <component>!<thread>!<pid>!<MM/DD/YYYY-HH:MM:SS> <severity> <LEVEL>: <message> (e.g. library!WindowsService_10!4c7c!05/24/2016-01:05:06 e ERROR: ...)
• ReportingServicesService.exe.config excerpts — the DefaultTraceSwitch value (in the <system.diagnostics><switches> block) plus the <RStrace> section (FileName, FileSizeLimitMb, KeepFilesForDays, TraceListeners, TraceFileMode, and the Components setting that carries per-component trace overrides)
• RSReportServer.config excerpts — the <Service> section (MemorySafetyMargin, MemoryThreshold, WorkingSetMaximum, WorkingSetMinimum, RecycleTime, MaxAppDomainUnloadTime, PollingInterval, MaxQueueThreads, UrlRoot)
• ExecutionLog3 query output — results of SELECT * FROM ExecutionLog3 ORDER BY TimeStart DESC against the report server database
• Windows Application Event Log entries for source "Report Server Windows Service" or "ReportServer" (commonly Event ID 107 and related startup/connectivity events)
• A natural-language description ("SSRS shows 'report server can't open a connection to the report server database' after a restart")

Where the files live

SQL Server 2016 (default instance MSSQLSERVER):
  Trace logs:   C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSRS13.MSSQLSERVER\Reporting Services\LogFiles\
  Trace config: C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSRS13.MSSQLSERVER\Reporting Services\ReportServer\bin\ReportingServicesService.exe.config
  Server config: C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSRS13.MSSQLSERVER\Reporting Services\ReportServer\RSReportServer.config

SQL Server Reporting Services 2017+ / Power BI Report Server (standalone installer):
  Trace logs:   C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services\SSRS\LogFiles\
  Trace config: C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services\SSRS\ReportServer\bin\ReportingServicesService.exe.config
  Server config: C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services\SSRS\ReportServer\RSReportServer.config

Trace logs are created daily starting at the first entry after local midnight (UTC timestamp in the filename) and whenever the service restarts — a burst of new trace log files on the same day is itself a signal (see G3). ExecutionLog3 is a view in the report server database (default name ReportServer).

How to Run

1. Identify the artifact type(s) in the input: trace log lines, trace config XML, server config XML, ExecutionLog3 rows, Event Log entries, or a mix.
2. Run G1–G4 against ReportingServicesService.exe.config / trace log filenames and header lines when present.
3. Run G5–G9 against trace log error lines and Event Log entries — search for rsReportServerDatabaseUnavailable, rsReportServerDatabaseLogonFailed, rsErrorOpeningConnection, rsServerConfigurationError, and Event ID 107 first; these are usually the root cause of "report server unavailable" symptoms.
4. Run G10–G13 against RSReportServer.config <Service> settings and trace log lines mentioning AppDomain recycling or memory allocation failures.
5. Run G14–G18 against ExecutionLog3 rows — compute TimeDataRetrieval + TimeProcessing + TimeRendering per row and compare to the dominant phase; check Status and AdditionalInfo.
6. Run G19–G21 against trace log lines from the emailextension or FileShareDeliveryProvider components, and ExecutionLog3 rows where RequestType = Subscription.
7. Run G22–G24 against trace log lines mentioning rsInvalidReportServerDatabase, rskeymgmt, or scale-out join attempts.
8. Order findings by causality — a connectivity failure (G5–G9) usually explains downstream processing/subscription failures (G14–G21); report it as the root cause and the rest as cascade.
9. If a check cannot be evaluated because its artifact is absent, report "Cannot evaluate — not provided" rather than skipping silently.

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Thresholds Reference

Setting / Metric	Default	Notes
DefaultTraceSwitch	3 (exceptions, restarts, warnings, status messages)	4 = verbose, 0 = disabled; lives in <system.diagnostics><switches>
Components (in <RStrace>)	all	per-component overrides as <component>:<level>, e.g. all:3,RunningJobs:4; components with no level use DefaultTraceSwitch
FileSizeLimitMb	32	per trace log file (0 or negative is treated as 1)
KeepFilesForDays	14	trace log retention (0 or negative is treated as 1)
TraceFileMode	Unique	one trace log per component per day; do not modify
MemorySafetyMargin	80 (% of WorkingSetMaximum)	low/medium pressure boundary
MemoryThreshold	90 (% of WorkingSetMaximum)	medium/high pressure boundary; must be > MemorySafetyMargin
WorkingSetMaximum / WorkingSetMinimum	not set (detected at startup) / 60% of max	KB; absent unless added manually
RecycleTime	720 (minutes = 12 hours)	scheduled AppDomain recycle interval
MaxAppDomainUnloadTime	30 (minutes)	background AppDomain shutdown wait
Execution log retention	60 days	rows older than this are purged nightly
Report processing phase share	—	one of TimeDataRetrieval/TimeProcessing/TimeRendering consistently > 70% of TimeStart–TimeEnd for the same report flags that phase

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Trace Configuration and Log Health Checks (G1–G4)

G1 — Verbose or Disabled Tracing in Production

• Trigger: ReportingServicesService.exe.config shows verbose tracing sustained across multiple trace log files with no active investigation — either DefaultTraceSwitch value 4 (in <system.diagnostics><switches>) or the <RStrace> Components setting raising all to level 4 (all:4) — or tracing disabled (DefaultTraceSwitch value 0)
• Severity: Warning
• Fix: Reset DefaultTraceSwitch to the documented default 3 (exceptions, restarts, warnings, status messages) and Components to all. Verbose mode generates large trace files and should only be enabled temporarily while reproducing an issue, then reverted. Disabling tracing (0) removes the primary diagnostic source for the next incident — Microsoft explicitly recommends against it.

G2 — Trace Log Retention Misconfigured

• Trigger: FileSizeLimitMb or KeepFilesForDays in ReportingServicesService.exe.config is changed from the documented defaults (32 MB / 14 days) in a way that risks either filling the log volume (very large FileSizeLimitMb combined with high KeepFilesForDays) or losing history needed to investigate intermittent issues (KeepFilesForDays reduced to 1–2)
• Severity: Warning
• Fix: Size retention to the investigation window required (a week of daily logs at 32 MB each is a small footprint). If verbose tracing (G1) is enabled temporarily, also temporarily raise FileSizeLimitMb so a single noisy day doesn't roll multiple files and lose context — then revert both together.

G3 — Frequent Trace Log File Rollover (Service Restarts)

• Trigger: Multiple ReportServerService_<timestamp>.log files with timestamps close together on the same day (trace logs roll on every service restart, in addition to the daily midnight UTC rollover and FileSizeLimitMb rollover)
• Severity: Warning (Critical if rollovers correlate with user-visible outages)
• Fix: Each unexpected new trace log file is a service restart or AppDomain hard recycle. Correlate timestamps with G5–G9 (connectivity failures that crash startup) and G12 (memory-pressure hard recycles) to find the trigger. A healthy server shows at most one rollover per day (midnight UTC) plus planned RecycleTime recycles (every 12 hours by default, which do not create a new trace log file — only process restarts do).

G4 — Stale Component-Level Trace Override

• Trigger: the <RStrace> Components setting contains a component-specific trace level override (e.g. all:3,RunningJobs:4 or all,SemanticQueryEngine:4) that raises a single component above DefaultTraceSwitch, with no corresponding open investigation
• Severity: Info
• Fix: Component overrides left from a past investigation silently keep one subsystem at verbose logging. Remove the override (reverting that component to DefaultTraceSwitch) once the original issue is resolved — re-add it deliberately the next time that component needs to be debugged.

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Startup and Report Server Database Connectivity Checks (G5–G9)

G5 — rsReportServerDatabaseUnavailable

• Trigger: Trace log or Event Log contains: "The report server can't open a connection to the report server database. A connection to the database is required for all requests and processing. (rsReportServerDatabaseUnavailable)" — or Windows Application Event ID 107, source "Report Server Windows Service": "Report Server Windows Service () can't connect to the report server database."
• Severity: Critical
• Fix: This is the report server's generic "can't reach my database" error and blocks every request. Check, in order: (1) is the Database Engine instance hosting the report server database running — hand off to /sqlerrorlog-review if it crashed or is recovering; (2) are TCP/IP and Named Pipes enabled for remote connections on that instance (SSRS uses both); (3) does the connection string in Report Server Configuration Manager's "Database Setup" page still point at a valid server/instance/database name. Re-run the connection through Report Server Configuration Manager rather than editing RSReportServer.config directly — the tool updates dependent settings and restarts the service correctly.

G6 — rsReportServerDatabaseLogonFailed

• Trigger: Trace log contains: "The report server can't open a connection to the report server database. The logon failed (rsReportServerDatabaseLogonFailed). Logon failure: unknown user name or bad password."
• Severity: Critical
• Fix: The domain account used for the report server database connection has an expired/changed password or has been locked out. Update the credential through Report Server Configuration Manager's "Database Setup" page (do not edit the connection string directly — passwords are encrypted with the report server's symmetric key, see G24). If the account is a gMSA, verify the report server host still has rights to retrieve the managed password.

G7 — rsErrorOpeningConnection Sub-Causes

• Trigger: Trace log shows rsErrorOpeningConnection together with an inner SqlException / SQL Server Network Interfaces error, most commonly "error: 26 - Error Locating Server/Instance Specified"
• Severity: Critical
• Fix: Error 26 means the connection string's server\instance name can't be resolved — check the SQL Server Browser service is running (for named instances), the instance name in the connection string matches @@SERVERNAME, and firewall rules allow the SQL Server port (or UDP 1434 for the Browser service) from the report server host. Also confirm the Database Engine service account's password hasn't expired — an expired account password can surface here as a generic network/instance-location error rather than an auth error. Cross-check with /sqlspn-review if the report server and database engine are on different hosts and Kerberos is in use.

G8 — Orphaned Report Server Database Pointer

• Trigger: Repeated SQL Server login failures (Error 18456) for the SSRS service account against a ReportServer$<InstanceName> (or similarly named) database that does not exist on the target instance, while the SSRS service itself reports starting successfully
• Severity: Warning
• Fix: The SSRS service is configured to use a report server database that was never created or has since been dropped/renamed, and polls it continuously (e.g. via PollingInterval), generating a steady stream of failed-login noise in the Database Engine's ERRORLOG and security logs (visible from /sqlerrorlog-review E-checks for login failure bursts). Either point the instance at a valid report server database via Report Server Configuration Manager, or — if this SSRS instance is unused — disable or uninstall the service to stop the noise.

G9 — rsServerConfigurationError

• Trigger: Trace log or Windows application log contains "The report server encountered a configuration error. (rsServerConfigurationError)" — typically immediately following a manual edit of RSReportServer.config or RSReportDesigner.config
• Severity: Critical
• Fix: A configuration file is missing, unreadable, or contains an invalid/missing XML element value that is critical to server operation (malformed XML stops startup entirely; an invalid non-critical value falls back to an internal default and is logged to the trace log instead). The accompanying second message states the actual cause — read the lines immediately following the rsServerConfigurationError entry. If this began after a manual edit, revert the change (restore from backup if available) per Microsoft's guidance for RSReportServer.config. Validate any setting changes against the RsReportServer.config configuration file reference before re-applying.

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Memory Pressure and AppDomain Recycling Checks (G10–G13)

G10 — MemorySafetyMargin / MemoryThreshold Misconfigured

• Trigger: RSReportServer.config <Service> section sets MemoryThreshold ≤ MemorySafetyMargin, or either value is set outside a sane 0–100 percent range
• Severity: Critical
• Fix: MemoryThreshold (default 90) must be greater than MemorySafetyMargin (default 80) — both are percentages of WorkingSetMaximum that define the low/medium/high memory-pressure boundaries. If the values are inverted or equal, the report server's pressure-response logic is undefined. Restore the documented defaults unless there is a specific, documented reason (e.g. lowering MemorySafetyMargin to react earlier to sudden processing-load spikes) — and if customized, ensure MemoryThreshold > MemorySafetyMargin is preserved.

G11 — WorkingSetMaximum Constrains a Dedicated Report Server

• Trigger: WorkingSetMaximum is present in RSReportServer.config and set significantly below the host's physical memory on a server dedicated to SSRS (no other major workloads)
• Severity: Warning
• Fix: WorkingSetMaximum is normally absent (the report server detects available memory at startup and uses all of it). An explicit low value is only appropriate when SSRS shares the host with other applications and must be capped to avoid starving them. On a dedicated SSRS server, remove the override so the report server can use available memory — premature MemoryThreshold/MemorySafetyMargin pressure responses (slowed processing, AppDomain recycles) otherwise occur well below actual physical memory limits.

G12 — Hard AppDomain Recycle from Memory Allocation Failure

• Trigger: Trace log shows an AppDomain recycle entry that is not at the scheduled RecycleTime interval and correlates with memory-pressure messages (high WorkingSetMaximum utilization, ScalabilityTime/EstimatedMemoryUsageKB spikes in nearby ExecutionLog3 AdditionalInfo)
• Severity: Critical
• Fix: A memory allocation failure triggers a hard recycle of all application domains: in-progress requests are cancelled (not restarted), users must refresh, and scheduled jobs wait for their next run. This is the report server's last-resort response to genuine memory exhaustion — identify the request(s) with the largest EstimatedMemoryUsageKB around the recycle time (large exports, many concurrent instances of a memory-intensive report) and either redesign those reports, stagger their schedules, or move SSRS to a host with more memory / dedicated hardware (per Microsoft's guidance that tuning MemorySafetyMargin/MemoryThreshold doesn't improve throughput once requests are actually being dropped).

G13 — RecycleTime / MaxAppDomainUnloadTime Tuned Away from Defaults

• Trigger: RecycleTime is set far below the 720-minute default (causing frequent planned recycles), or MaxAppDomainUnloadTime is set below the duration of the longest running subscription/snapshot job (causing in-progress jobs to be forcibly terminated during a recycle)
• Severity: Warning
• Fix: A low RecycleTime increases recycle frequency without improving stability — restore toward the 720-minute default unless a specific memory-leak workaround is documented (and prefer fixing the leak). MaxAppDomainUnloadTime (default 30 minutes) must exceed the longest background job's typical duration, or that job's AppDomain is restarted mid-run and the job is terminated incomplete — check ExecutionLog3 for the longest RequestType = Subscription durations before lowering this value.

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Report Processing and Rendering Checks (G14–G18)

G14 — Data Retrieval Dominates Execution Time

• Trigger: ExecutionLog3 rows for a report repeatedly show TimeDataRetrieval accounting for the majority of TimeDataRetrieval + TimeProcessing + TimeRendering
• Severity: Warning
• Fix: The bottleneck is the underlying data source query, not SSRS. Capture the dataset query and hand off to /sqlplan-review (single execution) or /sqlquerystore-review (recurring/regressed) for the Database Engine side. SSRS-side mitigations are limited to caching (G18) or report snapshots if the data doesn't need to be live.

G15 — Report Processing Dominates Execution Time (Legacy Engine)

• Trigger: ExecutionLog3 rows show TimeProcessing dominant and AdditionalInfo contains <ProcessingEngine>1</ProcessingEngine> (the legacy SQL Server 2005 processing engine rather than the on-demand engine)
• Severity: Warning
• Fix: Reports still using ProcessingEngine=1 don't benefit from the on-demand processing engine's incremental rendering and lower memory footprint. Re-author or upgrade the report (republishing from a current version of Report Builder/SSDT typically migrates it to the on-demand engine). If processing time is high under the on-demand engine (ProcessingEngine=2) instead, investigate report complexity — nested data regions, excessive grouping/sorting, or expression-heavy designs.

G16 — Aborted or Failed Report Execution

• Trigger: ExecutionLog3 Status is rsProcessingAborted or any value other than rsSuccess
• Severity: Critical if recurring for the same report/parameters; Warning if isolated
• Fix: rsProcessingAborted indicates the request was cancelled — commonly a client timeout (browser/HTTP timeout shorter than report processing time) or an administrative cancellation via "Manage Jobs". Non-rsSuccess error codes point at a specific failure (data source, expression, rendering extension) — look up the code in the Cause and resolution of Reporting Services errors reference. Recurring aborts for the same report under load are often resolved by raising the relevant timeout (report-level Timeout property, or the web server's request timeout) once the underlying query performance (G14) is acceptable.

G17 — External Image Fetch Latency

• Trigger: ExecutionLog3 AdditionalInfo contains an <ExternalImages> block with ResourceFetchTime contributing materially to TimeRendering for a report that embeds external (URL-referenced) images
• Severity: Info
• Fix: Each external image adds a synchronous fetch during rendering. For reports run frequently or by many concurrent users, host images locally (embedded image or same- network resource) or accept the added latency as a known cost of remote images. This is rarely the primary bottleneck but explains otherwise-unaccounted rendering time.

G18 — Live Execution Source for Cacheable Reports

• Trigger: ExecutionLog3 Source = Live for the same report+parameter combination executed repeatedly within a short window, where caching or a snapshot schedule is not configured
• Severity: Info
• Fix: Every Source = Live execution re-runs the full data retrieval/processing/ rendering cycle. If the underlying data doesn't need to be real-time, enable a cache refresh plan or a report snapshot schedule — subsequent executions show Source = Cache or Source = Snapshot and skip data retrieval entirely, directly reducing load identified by G14.

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Subscriptions and Delivery Checks (G19–G21)

G19 — File Share Delivery Failure

• Trigger: Trace log line from the FileShareDeliveryProvider (or filesys) component contains "Failure writing file" with a Microsoft.ReportingServices.FileShareDeliveryProvider.FileShareProvider+NetworkErrorException" and an inner "An impersonation error occurred using the security context of the current user"
• Severity: Critical
• Fix: The account configured for the file share subscription (or the report server's service account, if "Use the credentials supplied by the user...") can't write to the target UNC path. Verify the credentials saved on the subscription are current, the account has write permission on the share, and — if the share is on a different server than the report server — that Kerberos delegation (constrained delegation for the report server service account to the file server's CIFS service) is configured; this is the classic SSRS double-hop. Cross-check with /sqlspn-review for delegation configuration.

G20 — Email Delivery Failure

• Trigger: Trace log line from the emailextension component contains "Error sending email" with a System.Net.Mail.SmtpException (e.g. "The SMTP server requires a secure connection or the client wasn't authenticated")
• Severity: Critical
• Fix: The SMTP relay configured in RSReportServer.config (<SMTPServer>, <SMTPServerPin>, <SendUsingAccount>, <SMTPAuthenticate>) doesn't match what the mail server requires — commonly the server now requires authentication or TLS and SSRS is configured for anonymous relay. Update the SMTP settings via Report Server Configuration Manager (or the config file per Microsoft's documented procedure) to match the mail server's current requirements, and confirm the report server host is permitted to relay through that server (IP allow-list).

G21 — Subscription Scheduling Clustered at Peak Times

• Trigger: ExecutionLog3 rows with RequestType = Subscription cluster heavily at round-hour boundaries (e.g. many subscriptions all scheduled for 8:00 AM / 9:00 AM), producing a visible spike in concurrent executions
• Severity: Warning
• Fix: A burst of simultaneous scheduled subscriptions competes for the same MaxQueueThreads and memory budget, increasing the odds of G12 (hard recycle) and G16 (aborted executions). Stagger subscription schedules across a wider window (minute-level offsets rather than all on the hour). If subscriptions consistently run slow as a group, cross-check /sqlwait-review and /sqlmemory-review on the report server database for contention during that window.

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Scale-Out and Encryption Key Checks (G22–G24)

G22 — rsInvalidReportServerDatabase After Upgrade

• Trigger: Trace log contains an rsInvalidReportServerDatabase exception on a report server that is part of a scale-out deployment, occurring after another node in the deployment was migrated/upgraded to a newer SQL Server version
• Severity: Critical
• Fix: The report server database schema was upgraded by the first migrated node, but this node is still running the old binaries/schema expectations. Either upgrade this node promptly, or — if this node is being decommissioned — remove it from the deployment. Per Microsoft's migration guidance, after migrating the first node of a scale-out deployment, the old encryption keys for not-yet-migrated nodes must be removed from the Keys table in the report server database (via SSMS — the Reporting Services Configuration tool can't do this), or those nodes will keep trying to initialize in scale-out mode against a schema they don't recognize.

G23 — rskeymgmt Scale-Out Join Failure

• Trigger: Trace log or command output shows rskeymgmt -j failing with an access- denied error while joining a remote report server instance to a scale-out deployment
• Severity: Warning
• Fix: rskeymgmt -j -m <remotecomputer> -n <instance> -u <account> -v <password> must be run on a computer already in the deployment, and the -u/-v account must have local administrator rights on the remote computer being joined (the utility connects to the local Report Server Windows service via RPC and cannot manage a remote instance's keys directly). Confirm the account is a local admin on the target node, that the Report Server Windows service is running on both nodes, and that Windows Firewall permits the RPC endpoint between them.

G24 — Symmetric Key Not Backed Up Before Migration/Scale-Out

• Trigger: A migration, scale-out join, or encryption-key-recreation (rskeymgmt -s) is being planned or has occurred, and no symmetric key backup (rskeymgmt -e output or Reporting Services Configuration tool "Backup" on the Encryption Keys tab) is on record
• Severity: Warning
• Fix: The symmetric key protects all stored credentials and connection strings in the report server database (including the report server database connection itself — relevant to G6). Without a current backup, a lost/corrupted key forces rskeymgmt -d (delete all encryption keys and all encrypted content — every stored credential and connection string must be re-entered). Back up the symmetric key (rskeymgmt -e -f <path> -p <password>, or the Configuration tool's Backup button) before any migration, scale-out change, or key recreation, and store the backup file and password separately per /sqlencryption-review key-lifecycle guidance.

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Version-Aware Check Suppression

If the SSRS version is stated by the user or can be inferred from the file paths (MSRS13.<instance> = SQL 2016; standalone SSRS\ path = 2017+/Power BI Report Server), read VERSION_COMPATIBILITY.md (~/.claude/skills/VERSION_COMPATIBILITY.md if installed, or skills/VERSION_COMPATIBILITY.md from the repo). If unavailable, skip silently. For checks whose minimum version exceeds the instance version: verbose mode → log as SKIP (version: requires SSRS 20XX+, instance is SSRS 20YY); standard report → omit entirely. This skill applies to SSRS Native mode and Power BI Report Server. SharePoint- integrated mode uses different log locations (SharePoint ULS) — checks referencing ReportServerService_<timestamp>.log file paths do not apply there, but ExecutionLog3 checks (G14–G18) still apply.

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Output Format

Present findings in this order:

1. SSRS Health Summary — one sentence: symptom, affected component (startup / processing / subscriptions / scale-out), root cause.
2. Run facts table — SSRS version/edition, deployment mode (standalone/scale-out), instance name, log file timestamp range.
3. Findings table — one row per triggered check:

Check	Severity	Artifact	Finding	Fix
G5	Critical	Trace log	rsReportServerDatabaseUnavailable after restart	Verify Database Engine is up and remote connections enabled

4. Root cause — single root cause with evidence lines quoted from the trace log/config/ExecutionLog3.
5. Recovery sequence — ordered, concrete steps with companion skill references.
6. Configuration advisories — G1–G4, G10–G13 findings, separated from the incident analysis.

Analyzed by: ssrstracelog-review (G1–G24)

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Companion Skills

• /sqlerrorlog-review — when G5/G7/G8 point at the Database Engine instance hosting the report server database, the engine's ERRORLOG explains why it's unreachable (crash, recovery, startup failure)
• /sqlmemory-review — when G12 fires, check the report server database's host for matching OS-level memory pressure if SSRS and the Database Engine share hardware
• /sqldbconfig-review — confirms the report server database (ReportServer, ReportServerTempDB) is configured per Microsoft's recommendations (recovery model, compatibility level)
• /sqlspn-review — G7, G9, and G19 (double-hop) connectivity failures are often Kerberos delegation issues between the report server, the database engine, and file/SMTP servers
• /sqlplan-review and /sqlquerystore-review — G14 hands off the underlying dataset query for plan-level analysis
• /sqlencryption-review — G24 symmetric key lifecycle follows the same backup/rotation discipline as other SQL Server encryption keys

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VERSION_COMPATIBILITY

See skills/VERSION_COMPATIBILITY.md for the full compatibility matrix.

Check	SSRS 2014/2016	SSRS 2017	SSRS 2019	SSRS 2022	Power BI Report Server
G1–G4 (trace config)	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
G5–G9 (DB connectivity)	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
G10–G13 (memory/recycle)	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
G14 ProcessingEngine note	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
G15 legacy engine (ProcessingEngine=1)	✓	—	—	—	—
G16–G18 (ExecutionLog3)	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
G19–G21 (subscriptions)	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
G22–G24 (scale-out/keys)	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓

ExecutionLog3 requires SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services or later; earlier versions exposing only ExecutionLog/ExecutionLog2 lack Source values 5–7 (AdHoc/Session/RDCE) and the AdditionalInfo diagnostics used by G15/G17.