Something that has plagued the Report Center for a while, tonight I got chance to sit down and have a look at what was causing the problem.

If you have exported the repx files previously for this report, it may be a better idea to just import it instead of doing the below. This is meant for situations where you are “stuck” and cannot get into the report because of this error:

The below is relatively advanced – I am not responsible for any damage/problems you cause to your system by modifying the below.

The error:

“There was an error loading the report data for report id xyz An assembly with the same simple name ‘ReportCenterPlugin, version xyz, has already been imported. Try removing one of the references or sign them to enable side by side”

The problem is either the report center plugin version stored in the report, or the assembly location/reference path in the report.

  1. Open a completely blank report designer (click report designer in the report center)
  2. Publish the report as “Temp” (it doesn’t matter that it has no content in it)
  3. Open SQL and open the ltreports table
  4. Find the row with your Temp report on it, and open the field ReportData
  5. Pay attention to the following, and copy the variables highlighted in the screenshot below into a notepad window (you only want the path nothing surrounding it):
  6. One of these variables is the report center plugin DLL version the other is the assembly location for that
  7. Find your broken report in the same table and open the same field. TAKE A COPY OF THIS FULL BLOB BEFORE YOU CHANGE IT.
  8. Replace the three sections highlighted below with the data you put in the notepad window previously, it’s a change of one version (may not be necessary if it’s already the same) and a change of two of the assembly locations:
  9. OK it, close the report center, re-open and see if the report runs.