FIX: SELECT Statements With UNION May Cause Error 8618

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This article was previously published under Q225141

BUG #: 55031 (SQLBUG_70)

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SYMPTOMS

When executing two SELECT statements, joined by a UNION clause, you may get error 8618:

The query processor could not produce a query plan from the optimizer because the total length of all the columns in the GROUP BY clause exceeds 8000 bytes.

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WORKAROUND

Avoid the use of the UNION clause by following these steps:

Create a stored procedure that takes each SELECT statement in the UNION and inserts the results into a temporary table.
Once each insert is complete, execute a SELECT statement from the final temporary table.

You can then call the stored procedure to get the results.

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Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in SQL Server 7.0. This problem has been corrected in U.S. Service Pack 2 for Microsoft SQL Server 7.0. For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

254561 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/254561/ ) INF: How to Obtain Service Pack 2 for Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 and Microsoft Data Engine (MSDE) 1.0

For more information, contact your primary support provider.

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