SQL Server Report 2008 R2 Report Services - debug a custom assembly

Question

How do I debug an assembly that's being used by a Report Services report running through SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services?

• I'm trying to debug using VS2012
• It looks like the reports were created in VS2008 (VS9)
• The assembly is targeted to .NET 3.5
• I'm developing on my own dev machine and want to debug on this
• One of the expressions in my report calls a method in a custom .dll
• I've built the dll in debug mode, and deployed it, plus the .pdb file, to the default location (in my case, C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\PublicAssemblies)
• I'm setting the breakpoint in VS2012 for the assembly code, which is contained in a distinct project
• I run up the report in Firefox, then attach to the ReportingServicesService.exe process
• I carry out some actions in the report that should trigger the code
• The breakpoint isn't hit

Is there anything else I need to do to debug?

Answer 1

Got it. Here's what else I needed to do:

• Open the report solution in VS2008
• Open the custom assembly project in VS2012
• Attach to process from VS2012, but attach to devenv.exe for the VS2008 instance
• Click the report 'preview' tab in VS2008 - this runs the report, which is now hooked up to the VS2012 debugger :)

Here's some MSFT documentation on this (doesn't strictly relate to SQL Server 2008 R2):

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms153693.aspx