MSBuild Using Wrong Version of Assembly to Compile RDLC File - msbuild

Question

I am using the reportviewer control from VS 2010 to create client side reports (rdlc). Everything is working fine on my development machine, and when I manually compile (via VS2010) and manually deploy to a test machine that doesn't have development tools installed.
In order to get the test machine to work (without installing VS2010 or ReportViewer.exe), I had to add references in my project to Microsoft.ReportViewer.Winforms, Microsoft.ReportViewer.Common and Microsoft.ReportViewer.ProcessingModel and have them all "Copy Local".
I have the rdlc files configured for Build Action => embedded resources. This is the default setting when adding a new rdlc to the project. I am open to configuring this otherwise if this would resolve this problem (no idea if its related).
The problem: since adding the rdlc files, the solution no longer builds on the build server. I have installed ReportViewer.exe on the build server, and have verified that the required assemblies exist in the GAC. The .Net 4 framework is NOT installed on the build server--I don't think this is required because the solution targets the 3.5 runtime.
I believe the root of the problem is the following from the build log:
Target "RunRdlCompiler": Building
target "RunRdlCompiler" completely.
Output file
"obj\Release\RdlCompile.compiled" does
not exist. Using "RdlCompile" task
from assembly
"Microsoft.ReportViewer.Common,
Version=9.0.0.0, Culture=neutral,
PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a". Task
"RdlCompile":
Report\RDLC\GreenReport.rdlc (0,0):
error rsInvalidReportDefinition: The
report definition is not valid.
Details: The report definition has an
invalid target namespace
'http://schemas.microsoft.com/sqlserver/reporting/2008/01/reportdefinition'
which cannot be upgraded.
From what I can tell, Microsoft.ReportViewer.Common version 10.0.0.0 is what should be used to "compile" the rdlc, but MSBuild appears to be using 9.0.0.0. I believe if I could force it to use the right version (which IS installed in the GAC), the solution would compile.

Answer 1

This is because your Microsoft.Common.Targets file is pointing to the 9.0 version of the assembly.
If you look in [sysdir]\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5 you will find Microsoft.Common.targets, which is driving a lot of what MSBuild does. This verion of the common targets file points to [Program Files]\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v9.0\ReportingServices\Microsoft.ReportingServices.targets forcing MSBuild to run with the 9.0 version.
When you installed .NET 4.0, you got a new common targets file in the v4.0.x directory, this new one now points to [Program Files]\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\ReportingServices\Microsoft.ReportingServices.targets which points to the 10.0 version of the ReportViewer assemblies.
The 10.0 ReportViewer is compiled against .NET 3.5 and intended to work in both 3.5 and 4.0. You could very likely get rid of the .NET 4.0 framework, and alter your 3.5 common targets file to point to the new ReportingServices target file, and it should work. In theory anyway, I've never actually tried it. You may be best off just sticking with 4.0, as that's what we intended when we designed the MSBuild support for the new viewer.

Answer 2

Just install Microsoft Report Viewer 2010 SP1.

Answer 3

I had a very similar issue. Just all of a sudden I could no longer build a VS2010 project that contained an .rdlc file. I wasn't converting any reports or using a report server, everything was local. I tried creating a brand new project and adding an empty new rdlc report and hit build and it wouldn't work. Just one day it stopped compiling and gave me the following error:
The report definition is not valid. Details: The report definition has an invalid target namespace 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/sqlserver/reporting/2008/01/reportdefinition' which cannot be upgraded.
Turns out the issue was my "C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\ReportingServices\Microsoft.ReportingServices.targets" file had somehow changed. The top of my file was:
<Project xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
<UsingTask TaskName="Microsoft.Reporting.RdlCompile" AssemblyName="Microsoft.ReportViewer.Common, Version=9.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a"/>
And it should have been:
<Project xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
<UsingTask TaskName="Microsoft.Reporting.RdlCompile" AssemblyName="Microsoft.ReportViewer.WebForms, Version=10.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a"/>
I changed that one "Using Task" line in the file and everything builds again. REALLY frustrating and it ate up two days of my life. Hoping posting this comment may help someone else in a similar situation.
Jim Lafler

Answer 4

I have tried re-installing all and it didnt work. Then, I tried updating Microsoft.ReportingServices.targets as per Jim's post but even didnt work for me.
At the end, I just copied Microsoft.ReportingServices.targets from other machine (where it was running without error). And surprisingly, it is working.
The additional difference I noticed while comparing, to change PublicKeyToken along with Version.
This may be the case for me only but Jim's post was much useful.
SFUH

Answer 5

Turns out I did need the .Net 4.0 Framework, and more specifically the 4.x version of MSBuild, which uses the newer version of the Microsoft.ReportViewer.Common library.
So even if you are targeting the 3.5 framework, if you create the rdlc with VS2010 it will expect to be "compiled" using 4.0 tools.

Answer 6

I have the same problem: we using ReportViewer 2012 (version of assemblies starts with 11). Both on local machines and on build machine are installed ReportViewer 2012 package and VisualStudio 2013. On local machines compilation in VS succeeds, but on build machine during queued build MSBuild throws such error:
The report definition is not valid. Details: The report definition has an invalid target
namespace 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/sqlserver/reporting/2010/01/reportdefinition'
which cannot be upgraded.
I tried to modify Microsoft.Common.targets from .NET 3.5 folder in way, that is described in this post, but no effect. Then I opened Microsoft.Common.targets from .NET 4.0 folder, and found there such strings:
<!-- VS10 without SP1 and without VS11 will not have VisualStudioVersion set, so do
that here -->
<PropertyGroup>
<VisualStudioVersion Condition="'$(VisualStudioVersion)'
==''">10.0</VisualStudioVersion>
</PropertyGroup>
Then I realized that problem may be in incorrect value of variable $(VisualStudioVersion), so I added to build definition in section "Process" this MSBuild parameter:
/p:VisualStudioVersion=12.0
And it worked! Build completed successfully.
Hope this will help someone.

Answer 7

Pasting file paths doesn't seem to be going through... how about this:
Was:
TaskName="Microsoft.Reporting.RdlCompile" AssemblyName="Microsoft.ReportViewer.Common, Version=8.0.0.0...
And is now:
TaskName="Microsoft.Reporting.RdlCompile" AssemblyName="Microsoft.ReportViewer.WebForms, Version=10.0.0.0...
James

Answer 8

The NetFx40_LegacySecurityPolicy was enabled in my devenv.exe.config, and when I commented this line out, the project built successfully.
We had enabled the legacy security policy on our team to enable our team to work with DevExpress 7.2 controls from within Visual Studio 2010, but in this case, it shows that the approach we took is not always the best.

Answer 9

I lost 2 full days of development due to a similar issue. On building my project it would succeed, but on rebuild it failed with no errors. On investigating the verbose build log in the Output window it directed me towards a problem with the rdlcompile function (so reporting services local report embedding issue). After trying every thing I finally manage to resolve the issue, but disabling my virus scanner. The Antivirus was somehow interfering with my rebuild and caused the rebuild to fail.
After disabling virus scan, rebuild works 100%

Answer 10

I have same problem on my Visual Studio 2013.
The dll version of reporting service on my project is Version=10.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a
When i checked my ReportingServices targets
C:\Program Files\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v12.0\ReportingServices\Microsoft.ReportingServices.targets
I found the task version is 11.0.0.0
<UsingTask TaskName="Microsoft.Reporting.RdlCompile" AssemblyName="Microsoft.ReportViewer.WebForms, Version=11.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=89845dcd8080cc91"/>
When i changed the task version to 10.0.0.0 corresponding to dll version on my proejct.
<UsingTask TaskName="Microsoft.Reporting.RdlCompile" AssemblyName="Microsoft.ReportViewer.WebForms, Version=10.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a"/>
It' worked.

Answer 11

I just removed this file from my file system. The reports are simply ambedded no need to be compiled.
c:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\V11.0\ReportingServices\Microsoft.ReportingServices.targets
this worked fine for me and for my build server.