SSRS encryption keys are broken

ssrs-2016

I had an SSRS service account password expire. This is on an Azure Windows server.

I've tried the following:

  • Updating the password caused "The report server can’t access or use the encryption key"
  • Attempting to delete the key via all the normal methods fails.
  • Manually deleting the key (keys table) doesn't give me an option to re-create a new one.

The only solution I can think of at this point is un-installing and reinstalling SSRS.

Is there a better way, or is this approach even likely to work?

Best Answer

Ended up not trying the uninstall/reinstall of SSRS.

Here's what got me working:

  • Stop SSRS service
  • detach reporting service databases
  • restart SSRS -- it complains about missing DBs
  • stop SSRS
  • reattach
  • restart SSRS
  • Using SSRS configuration wizard, re-point SSRS to its databases
  • Now I was able to delete the encryption keys

This is obviously a hack solution and fails to identify what went wrong in the first place, but it worked

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