Dynamics Community Forum Thread Details

BC 27.0 on-prem Could not ensure side service is alive"

Environment

Business Central 27.0 on-premises (platform 27.0.41766.0)
Windows Server, single host running three BC Server instances
Install path: D:\Program Files\Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central\270\Service\

What we were doing

We needed to give the server outbound internet access through our corporate proxy. We configured it by setting machine-level environment variables:

HTTP_PROXY = http://proxy.internal.local:8080
HTTPS_PROXY = http://proxy.internal.local:8080
NO_PROXY = localhost;127.0.0.1;*.local

Everything kept working normally for several hours after the change. Then Business Central broke — reporting stopped working across all three instances at once.

The error

The Microsoft-DynamicsNAV-Common/Admin event log fills with event ID 701, category Reporting, roughly every 15 seconds, on every instance:

(SideServiceProcessException): ParentException: SideServiceProcessException
Could not ensure side service is alive:
D:\...\270\Service\SideServices\Microsoft.BusinessCentral.Reporting.Service.exe
ExceptionStackTrace:
at Microsoft.Dynamics.Nav.Runtime.ReportingProcessStartup.InitializeReportingServiceConfiguration()
at Microsoft.Dynamics.Nav.Runtime.SideServiceProcessClient.TryStartService()
InnerException:
RootException: NavNCLOperationCanceledException
Error Code: 22928073
Could not connect to the reporting service in time.
ExceptionStackTrace:
at Microsoft.BusinessCentral.Reporting.Client.ReportingServiceGrpcClient.EnsureConnectivityAsync()

What is the supported way to configure an HTTP proxy on a Business Central on-premises server?
Are machine-level HTTP_PROXY / HTTPS_PROXY variables supported at all, or should we use WinHTTP (netsh winhttp set proxy) or per-instance configuration?
Is there any documentation on the side services (SideServices\, ReportingServiceIsSideService, ReportingServiceEstablishConnectionTimeout, SideServiceProcessAliveCheckRate)?
I can only find ReportingServicePort on Microsoft Learn — the rest seems undocumented.
Has anyone else hit this after introducing a proxy on a BC on-prem host? I

Categories:

Dynamics 365 Business Central

Hello,

This strongly points to the machine-level proxy variables affecting the BC reporting side-service communication, especially because all three instances failed together: Microsoft documents that .NET HttpClient on Windows automatically reads HTTP_PROXY/HTTPS_PROXY, but importantly NO_PROXY must be comma-separated and * wildcards aren't supported, so NO_PROXY=localhost;127.0.0.1;*.local isn't valid for .NET proxy bypass; use something like NO_PROXY=localhost,127.0.0.1,::1,<server-name>,.internal.local and restart all BC Server services so the processes inherit the corrected environment. I wouldn't switch directly to netsh winhttp set proxy, because Microsoft doesn't document WinHTTP as the Business Central Server proxy configuration mechanism and .NET HttpClient follows its own proxy resolution rules. BC documentation confirms that ReportingServicePort is specifically used for internal communication between the BC Server instance and the separate reporting process, which fits your timeout exactly. I also couldn't find ReportingServiceIsSideService, ReportingServiceEstablishConnectionTimeout, or SideServiceProcessAliveCheckRate in the supported BC Server configuration documentation, so I would treat them as internal/undocumented settings and not modify them. As the first test, completely remove the machine HTTP_PROXY/HTTPS_PROXY variables, restart the three BC services, and confirm reporting works; if it does, reintroduce the proxy with the corrected comma-separated NO_PROXY. If it still fails after that, test on the latest BC 27 cumulative update and raise Microsoft support rather than changing those undocumented SideService settings.

Regards,
Oussama Sabbouh

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