What is wrong when you get an "Unrecognized configuration section runtime" configuration exception.

Question

In particular from this web.config:

<configuration>
  <configSections>
    <section name="RStrace" type="Microsoft.ReportingServices.Diagnostics.RSTraceSectionHandler,Microsoft.ReportingServices.Diagnostics" />
  </configSections>
  <system.diagnostics>
    <switches>
      <add name="DefaultTraceSwitch" value="3" />
    </switches>
  </system.diagnostics>
  <RStrace>
    <add name="FileName" value="ReportServerService_" />
    <add name="FileSizeLimitMb" value="32" />
    <add name="KeepFilesForDays" value="14" />
    <add name="Prefix" value="appdomain, tid, time" />
    <add name="TraceListeners" value="file" />
    <add name="TraceFileMode" value="unique" />
    <add name="Components" value="all:3" />
  </RStrace>
  <runtime>
    <alwaysFlowImpersonationPolicy enabled="true"/>
    <assemblyBinding xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1">
      <dependentAssembly>
        <assemblyIdentity name="Microsoft.ReportingServices.Interfaces"
              publicKeyToken="89845dcd8080cc91"
              culture="neutral" />
        <bindingRedirect oldVersion="8.0.242.0"
             newVersion="10.0.0.0"/>
        <bindingRedirect oldVersion="9.0.242.0"
             newVersion="10.0.0.0"/>
      </dependentAssembly>
    </assemblyBinding>
    <gcServer enabled="true" />
  </runtime>
</configuration>

Answer 1

You get this error when you are missing an entry in the configSections area. In the above example, you probably need to add a line similar to this:

<section name="runtime" type="your-datatype"/>

Answer 2

It's saying that it's finding the <runtime> tag in you file, but doesn't know what to do with it. It may be in the wrong section.

As <runtime> is a standard web.config element, something screwy is going on. Try removing the RTrace section. If that works, restore the Rtrace section after the runtime section.

Answer 3

It looks like .NET was installed using a corporate re-packaging technology and not all the bits were there. We installed from the original Microsoft image and all is fine.