I came across an interesting problem today whilst working on a new build IIS7 server with SQL Server 2008 reporting services. No matter what I tried navigating to the reports directory resulted in a:
HTTP Error 503. The service is unavailable.
After working through a few tests like putting a basic aspx file in the application reports directory, checking permissions, application pools to no avail I wondered what could be wrong.
SQL Server Reporting was installed but not running so the "reports" problem was sounding suspicious.
Work around:
- Run "Reporting Services Configuration Manager"
- If reporting services are disabled you'll need to run them for a minute
- Click on "Report Manager URL" , change it something else and apply
- You can now disable reporting services if need be
Problem solved, hope this helps someone else!