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MahsaTavana's avatar
MahsaTavana
New Member
2 months ago
Solved

Power BI Report Server Cannot Create SSL Certificate Binding on Windows Server 2025

Hello,   I am trying to configure HTTPS for Power BI Report Server on a Windows Server 2025 machine.   Environment:   - Power BI Report Server (latest available version) - Windows Server 2025 ...
  • Zanqueta's avatar
    2 months ago

    Hi MahsaTavana 
    I am not fully certain, but based on the information provided, the issue is very likely caused by the incomplete certificate chain, and not by Power BI Report Server or Windows Server 2025 itself.
    Key points addressing your questions

    Can an incomplete certificate chain cause HTTPS binding to fail in PBIRS?
    Yes. An incomplete certificate chain can and does cause SSL binding failures. Even if the certificate:


    Is installed correctly,
    Has a valid private key,
    And the URL reservation succeeds,

    the SSL binding step can fail if Power BI Report Server cannot validate the full trust chain up to a trusted root certificate.

    Does Power BI Report Server require the full certificate chain?
    Yes. Power BI Report Server relies on Windows HTTP.sys for SSL binding. HTTP.sys requires the full certificate chain to be resolvable at the machine level. This means:


    The leaf certificate must be in Local Computer > Personal
    The intermediate CA certificate(s) must be in Local Computer > Intermediate Certification Authorities
    The root CA certificate must be in Local Computer > Trusted Root Certification Authorities

    Your certutil -verifystore my output and the Certificate Path error clearly indicate that the intermediate CA (Certum Domain Validation CA SHA2) is missing. This breaks chain validation and prevents binding.

    Is Windows Server 2025 a known blocker?
    No. There is no known limitation specific to Windows Server 2025 regarding HTTPS configuration for Power BI Report Server. The behaviour you are seeing is consistent with:


    HTTP.sys certificate validation rules
    PBIRS SSL binding requirements on previous Windows Server versions as well

    What is most likely happening

    URL reservation succeeds because it does not validate certificates.
    Certificate binding fails because HTTP.sys cannot build a trusted certificate chain.
    PBIRS reports a generic binding failure, even though the root cause is certificate trust.

    Recommended next steps

    Obtain the intermediate CA certificate for
    Certum Domain Validation CA SHA2
    Install it into:
    Local Computer > Intermediate Certification Authorities
    Verify that the root CA is trusted.
    Reopen Report Server Configuration Manager and retry the HTTPS binding.

    Once the chain is complete, the certificate binding step should succeed without further changes.
    Additional note on wildcard certificates
    Wildcard certificates (such as *.imidro.gov.ir) are supported by Power BI Report Server as long as the hostname used to access the server matches the wildcard pattern exactly.

    Conclusion
    Yes, an incomplete certificate chain is sufficient to cause the SSL binding failure you are seeing. Power BI Report Server requires the full chain (leaf, intermediate, and root) to be installed at the machine level before HTTPS configuration can complete successfully.


    DISCLAIMER: While I wrote a draft of this answer, I used Copilot to create a longer, more detailed step-by-step description to make it easier to apply.