Flow - BI Reports don't work. "500 - Internal server error" when running a report

Article Number:000020964 | Last Updated:7/13/2023 1:52 PM

Scope/Environment

Flow BI Reports

Symptoms/Context

The BI Reports in Flow don't work. When attempting to run any report, the error "500 - Internal server error" is shown:
User-added image

Resolution

If your system is hosted by RWS, simply open a support case via the support gateway and provide details about the issue.

Otherwise if your instance of Flow is hosted on-premise / self-hosted, check the following log file on the Flow server (requires direct access to the server - contact your IT department for assistance):
C:\Program Files\Donnelley\MultiTrans Flow 64\runtime\logs\bi_reports_all.log

This log file may contain more details about the problem. You may also find a non-specific "500" error like so:

No retrievable exception 'java.io.IOException: Server returned HTTP response code: 500 for URL http://...

In the case of a 500 error being returned by the database server, a database administrator can check the log files in the following folder on the database server for further details:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services\SSRS\LogFiles

There are many factors that could cause the reporting services to return an error, but here are a few things to check:

If SSRS is configured to use an Execution Account and the password for that account has recently been changed, you must also update the password in the Report Server Configuration Manager tool on the database server.
Check the user's permissions in Flow via Providers > Manage > Details. Make sure they have all the "BI Reports" access rights selected. They may have access to some reports but not others. E.g. They may have access to production reports but not financial reports:
Check with a database administrator whether there are any database triggers that are configured to run whenever the reports are accessed. If a trigger is written incorrectly, this can cause all BI Reports to fail even if SSRS and Flow are both configured correctly.
Check whether the Flow database has recently been renamed. If it has, consider renaming it back to its previous name (Flow will also need to be re-configured and restarted accordingly), or alternatively a database administrator can access the SSRS web portal and update the Data Sources to reflect the new database name.

Root Cause

The password for the SSRS Execution Account has been changed but the new password was not entered in the Report Server Configuration Manager tool
The user may not have sufficient access rights in Flow
There may be a faulty database trigger configured on the database server which should either be fixed or removed
The Flow database was renamed but the data sources in SSRS are still configured to use the old database name

Reference

MultiTrans Flow Installation (includes installation and configuration steps for SSRS):
https://docs.rws.com/785465/801621/sdl-multitrans/multitrans-flow-installation

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