Network Management

Microsoft (MS) Excel report export error: Maximum length exceeded

Reports that exceed 4 MB receive a "Maximum length exceeded" error due to the default size limit on HTTP requests that can be changed in the web.config file.

First published date

10/25/2018 8:09 PM

Last published date

6/11/2023 3:53 PM

Overview

When exporting a large report to Excel, the following error message will appear:

Maximum request length exceeded.

Product section

Network Performance Monitor

Cause

This error occurs when reports have exceeded 4 MB and cannot be exported due to the default limit on the size of HTTP requests.

Resolution

When running the configuration wizard, perform the following steps:

  1. Log in to your SolarWinds platform as an administrator.
  2. Create a backup of the web config:
    • For 2020.2.6 and below: C:\inetpub\SolarWinds\web.config
    • For 2022.1 and above: C:\Program Files (x86)\SolarWinds\Orion\Web\web.config or C:\Program Files\SolarWinds\Orion\Web\web.config
  3. Open the web.config file, and search for <configuration>.
  4. In the <configuration> section, add the following block:
  <location path="Orion/Reports/AsExcel.aspx">
    <system.web>
      <httpRuntime maxRequestLength="1048576" executionTimeout="600" />
    </system.web>
  </location>
Note: it is advised to find other <Location> tags such as <location path="~/Orion/images"> and place this section above, after the ending location tag (ending tag appears like: </location>)
 
  1. Save the file.

You may need to wait a few minutes before trying to export the report again.

Note: The value specified is 1,048,576  kilobytes.  In cases where you are generating a large report, it is possible that you will still encounter this error.  Avoiding this is possible by splitting the report into multiple smaller reports.