SQL: No report servers were found: what's in a name?

If you've worked with earlier versions of SQL Server, it's likely that you've configured SQL Server Reporting Services. To do that, the tool you use is Reporting Services Configuration Manager.

Lately, though, I've seen a number of people installing SQL Server 2017 Reporting Services and being confused. The same applies to Power BI Report Server installation.

During installation they are provided with an option to configure the report server, but if they go back into Reporting Services Configuration Manager, they can't find the server. They get the No report servers error shown in the featured image above.

The reason for this is that there was a subtle name change in SQL Server 2017, as you can see here:

Note that there are now too options that could be on your system:

  • Reporting Services Configuration Manager
  • Report Server Configuration Manager

Nothing to be confused about there 🙂

The first option will still find your older Reporting Services installations and allow you to configure them.

The second option will let you find a SQL Server 2017 Report Server or a Power BI Report Server and configure it.

It's worth noting that in SQL Server 2017, Reporting Services is no longer multi-instance. You can have one SQL Server 2017 Report Server OR one Power BI Report Server on a system.

20 thoughts on “SQL: No report servers were found: what's in a name?”

    1. Ha! Same here Todd – was having a moment until Googling and stumbling upon this website etc. Now? Yeah plus sigh, my eyes are or were finally open. "Thank you Greg!!"

  1. okay, this appears to be my problem. However, I don't have the 2nd option – the report server configuration manager – maybe I need to download it separate?

    1. Hi Ben, that seems odd. The report server configuration manager is installed with either Power BI Report Server, or Reporting Services Report Server. It's part of the standard install. When you installed, did it give you an option to "configure it now?"

  2. thanks Greg. Helped me lot …when i was selecting reporting services ,configuration manager was not showing instance name …then i had to uninstall and again install SSRS setup.
    I was wondering why this is happening…Report server shows my instance and server name once opened and i can connect.

    1. Glad it helped. Clearly nothing confusing about "Reporting Services Configuration Manager" vs "Report Server Configuration Manager" 🙁

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