SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services: A generic error occurred in GDI+

While building some maps today in SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services, I kept coming up with an error that said:

A generic error occurred in GDI+

I was struggling to think what I’d done wrong. After much nashing of teeth and removal of hair, I finally worked out what the error was. When I got to the “Choose Color Scheme and Visualization” page of the map wizard for building a color analytical map, I hadn’t picked the correct value for the “Field to Visualize” drop-down. I’m guessing that because it had defaulted to my GEOMETRY column, instead of the field that I actually wanted to use for analysis, it must get itself into some sort of stack overflow or nesting problem.

Regardless, the error message isn’t helpful. Picking the correct column to visualize solved the problem.

Hope it helps someone else (or me when I forget and do it again in future :-))

2010-06-11