SSRS report definition is newer than Server

Question

I created some reports in Visual Studio 2015 with all the latest updates. However, when I try to deploy the reports I get this message:

The definition of this report is not valid or supported by this version of Reporting Services.
11:40:28 Error
The report definition may have been created with a later version of Reporting Services, or contain content that is not
11:40:28 Error
well-formed or not valid based on Reporting Services schemas. Details: The report definition has an invalid target
11:40:28 Error
namespace 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/sqlserver/reporting/2016/01/reportdefinition' which cannot be upgraded.

The first lines of the .rdl file are set up like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Report MustUnderstand="df" 
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sqlserver/reporting/2016/01/reportdefinition" 
xmlns:rd="http://schemas.microsoft.com/SQLServer/reporting/reportdesigner" 
xmlns:df="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sqlserver/reporting/2016/01/reportdefinition/defaultfontfamily">

Can I change the schema definition? If so, to what? I tried just changing 2016 to 2014 or 2012, but neither worked.

Is there a place I can go to see valid definitions?

Answer 1

I actually ran into a similar problem where a change I needed to make resulted in an "Undocumented Error/Invalid RDL Structure" error in 2016, so I edited the RDL file so I could open it in an earlier version and make my changes. Not too hard, but you need to make a couple of tag edits.

For new reports you should probably just use an older version, but for existing reports you can do this: (I reverted to 2008)

• Change the Report tag:
  • Remove MustUnderstand="df"
  • Change the xmlns value to "http://schemas.microsoft.com/sqlserver/reporting/2008/01/reportdefinition"
  • Delete the xmlns:df attribute.
• Delete the entire "ReportParametersLayout" block.
• Delete the "df" tag and its content.
• Delete the "ReportSections" and "ReportSection" opening and closing tags (not the content).

Actually wrote some superhackish code to do this as part of a blog post, but the manual edit is simple enough.