SSRS – No connection could be made

In a Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 test system, I recently saw the following error when attempting to print any SSRS report:

Error when creating SSRS report: No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it

I confirmed that the relevant instance of SSRS was running, and decided that the problem was related to the port referred to in the error: 8203. I knew that this test AOS was the only one configured on this server and the default ports were being used – including 8201 for the Service port. I could not track down why port 8203 was being used.

After some help from Microsoft Support in Munich, the cause was found to be the Microsoft Dynamics AX configuration file that SSRS was using. The file is called Microsoft.Dynamics.AX.ReportConfiguration.axc and can be found in one of these locations (depending on the version of SQL being used).

If you are using SQL Server 2008: \Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSRS10.[SSRSInstanceName]\Reporting Services\ReportServer\bin.

If you are using SQL Server 2008 R2: \Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSRS10_50.[SSRSInstanceName]\Reporting Services\ReportServer\bin.

If you are using SQL Server 2012: \Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSRS11.[SSRSInstanceName]\Reporting Services\ReportServer\bin.

The SSRSInstanceName can be found in AX at System Administration -> Setup -> Business intelligence -> Reporting Services -> Report servers in the ‘Server instance name’:

SSRS Report servers

When I edited the Microsoft.Dynamics.AX.ReportConfiguration.axc file, I was able to search for several references to 8203:

AX Config file contains references to port 8203. The ports for the AOS and WSDL are also wrong.

I also noted that the ports for the AOS and WSDL were wrong.

Presumably, I could have corrected the information in the file. But the file is actually a standard AX client configuration file, and I simply replaced it with a copy of the .axc file I had been using to point the AX client at the test AOS. It would also have been possible to create this file using the AX 2012 Configuration Tool. After doing this, I was able to create SSRS output – a restart of the AOS or SSRS was not required.