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reporting-servicescharacterlimit

SSRS report description character limit

The Description property field of an SSRS report accepts a text description that appears when a user clicks the "..." in the upper right corner of the deployed report's tile displayed on the report server. What's the exact limit on the number of characters that can be placed in the Description property? Trial & error suggests it's about 425 characters, but I'd like to know exactly. It's frustrating that you can [apparently] put as many characters as you like in the Description property field without getting a warning until you deploy the report, at which point you may get a "The Description field has a value that is not valid" message. I chased my tail for a while trying to figure out if I had put an illegal character the Description property field, until I realized that the message was probably telling me that I had exceeded the character limit--but what's the actual limit?

Solution

  • 512

    The Description field has a length of 512 characters in the Catalog table of ReportServer but the SSRS property will let you enter any number of characters without error.

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    When A report is deployed to a report server with more than 512 characters, it gives an error:

    The Description field has a value that is not valid.

    On the other hand, if you change the Description Property and deploy the report over a current report, the Description field IS NOT UPDATED and it does deploy.