SQL Express and Reporting Services Catalog

  • Article

SQL Server Express with Advanced Services SP1 shipped a while ago and it includes Reporting Services.  There is a bit of an annoying issue though.  In the Express SKU, the database engine automatically creates databases with AutoClose on.  This behavior means that when all of the connections to the database are closed, the database shuts itself down (in order to reclaim resources) and it will automatically open itself when a user connects to it. 

Not such a big deal, right?  Except for two things:

  1. Opening the database generates a message in the event log
  2. The Reporting Services Windows Service polls the catalog to check for events. 

This means that you end up with a ton of spam in your event log about the database opening.  Not good times.  There are a couple of solutions that you may want to try:

  1. If you are actually using Reporting Services, I would recommend disabling AUTO_CLOSE on both your ReportServer and ReportServerTempDB databases.
  2. If you are not actually using Reporting Services for anything, then I would recommend shutting off the Report Server Windows Service.