One of my clients was doing a remote installation of SQL Server via command prompt. During the testing phase, they encountered an error. In this blog, we would learn how to fix error The Reporting Services catalog database file exists.
When they contacted me, they already found my earlier blog on the same error.
SQL SERVER – FIX: Rule “Reporting Services Catalog Database File Existence” Failed
I asked them complete log to see the error and here it was.
Overall summary:
Final result: Failed: see details below
Exit code (Decimal): -2067921932
Exit facility code: 1214
Exit error code: 1012
Exit message: The Reporting Services catalog database file exists. Select a Reporting Services files-only mode installation.
Start time: 2018-08-08 13:20:46
End time: 2018-08-08 13:21:56
Requested action: Install
But they wanted to check if there is some other solution as they are doing the setup from command prompt remotely. This means that they would need to delete the file to proceed. This would increase their work as they need to parse the log to see the error, check if this is the error then delete those files which I mentioned in my earlier blog and then run the setup again. Rather than that, they wanted an easy way to “just deploy it without error”
WORKAROUND/SOLUTION
I tried explaining to them that this error would not be seen in new/fresh installation. The error would be seen if they have done a prior installation of SQL on the machine with Reporting Services. But they wanted to know the “easy” workaround.
Here is the command which they were using
cmd /c setup.exe /q /IAcceptSQLServerLicenseTerms /Action=Install /ConfigurationFile=”C:\SQLMedia\SQLInstall.ini”
I looked into the ini file which they were using and found a solution for them. The config file has no setting provided for RSINSTALLMODE. Due to this setup was taking DefaultNativeMode. Below is explained in Microsoft documentation
If the installation includes the SQL Server Database engine, the default RSINSTALLMODE is DefaultNativeMode.If the installation does not include the SQL Server Database engine, the default RSINSTALLMODE is FilesOnlyMode. If you choose DefaultNativeMode but the installation does not include the SQL Server Database engine, the installation automatically changes the RSINSTALLMODE to FilesOnlyMode
So, I asked them to add the following line in SQLInstall.ini file.
RSINSTALLMODE=FilesOnlyMode
Now, if I read the error message, it also tells me the same. After this, the setup deployment was going fine even if SSRS files were there. Have you faced a similar issue with SQL prompt installation via command prompt?
Reference: Pinal Dave (https://blog.SQLAuthority.com)
First appeared on SQL SERVER – Install Error – The Reporting Services Catalog Database File Exists. Select a Reporting Services files-only mode installation