A Server Certificate Could Not Be Validated for URL - SQL Server Reporting Services 2012

If you ever get the following error during the system checks of the CRM installer, check to see if you can even access the Report Manager URL from the SSRS server:

A Server Certificate Could Not Be Validated for URL: http://reportservername/ReportServer 

When checking the Report Manager URL (http://reportservername/Reports) using HTTP - not HTTPS - you may see the following error:

The underlying connection was closed: Could not establish trust relationship for the SSL/TLS secure channel.

You will probably also get a certificate error accessing the Report Service URL (http://reportservername/ReportServer) which will end up resulting in a 404 error screen if you proceed. So why is SSRS looking for SSL/TLS when using HTTP?

The answer is rather simple – it’s configured to do so. Here is how to change that:

1. Go to the Report Server directory. Typically it is {Drive}:\MSRS11\Reporting Services\ReportServer

2. Open the rsreportserver.xml file in notepad or other editing software.

3. In this configuration file, look for or run a find for SecureConnectionLevel. It should be about 12 lines from the top. You will likely see this key set to a value of 2.

4. Change the value to 0 so that the line reads:
<Add Key=”SecureConnectionLevel” Value=”0” />

5. Save and close the file. Restart the SQL Reporting Services service and try accessing the Report Manager URL once more. You should now get the site as expected over HTTP.

6. Go back to your CRM server and re-run the installation wizard.

Of course, the alternative to going this route is to actually provide SSRS with an SSL certificate and access it over HTTPS only but some may not want the added hassle or cost.