Reporting Services Error?

Question

When running a report in preview I get the following error The definition of the report is invalid , the tablix 'Tablix11' contains an invalid TablixMember. The sort Expressions element is not allowed if Group is omitted.

I have never come across this error before and cant understand what is causing it.

Answer 1

The error can be replicated by creating a simple Tablix and looking at the underlying XML.

When you create a Tablix with a group, the underlying RDL XML will include something like this:

        <TablixRowHierarchy>
          <TablixMembers>
            <TablixMember />
            <TablixMember>
              <Group Name="Group1">
                <GroupExpressions>
                  <GroupExpression>=Fields!val.Value</GroupExpression>
                </GroupExpressions>
              </Group>
              <SortExpressions>
                <SortExpression>
                  <Value>=Fields!val.Value</Value>
                </SortExpression>
              </SortExpressions>
              <TablixMembers>
                <TablixMember>
                  <Group Name="Details3" />
                </TablixMember>
              </TablixMembers>
            </TablixMember>
          </TablixMembers>
        </TablixRowHierarchy>

If you remove the entire Group element, this will give the same error you're seeing:

If you also remove the SortExpressions element this will allow the report to render without error.

However - it's impossible for me to say how your RDL file got in this state in the first place. Given that hacking XML to get things running is seldom a good idea, my recommendation would be to start the tablix from scratch instead of hacking things to a working state - you might just be introducing more problems.

But at least hopefully now you can see why the error might be occurring.