PRB: Unhandled Exception When You Set ADO Property to a String in Visual Basic .NET

View products that this article applies to.

This article was previously published under Q308499

For a Microsoft Visual C# .NET version of this article, see 309047 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309047/EN-US/ ) .

Caution ADO and ADO MD have not been fully tested in a Microsoft .NET Framework environment. They may cause intermittent issues, especially in service-based applications or in multithreaded applications. The techniques that are discussed in this article should only be used as a temporary measure during migration to ADO.NET. You should only use these techniques after you have conducted complete testing to make sure that there are no compatibility issues. Any issues that are caused by using ADO or ADO MD in this manner are unsupported. For more information, see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

840667 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/840667/ ) You receive unexpected errors when using ADO and ADO MD in a .NET Framework application

SYMPTOMS

When you set a property value on an ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) object to a string value, you may encounter the following exception:

Unhandled Exception: System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException (0x800A0BB9): Arguments are of the wrong type, are out of acceptable range, or are in conflict with one another.

Back to the top

CAUSE

When you use ADO in the Microsoft .NET Framework with Component Object Model (COM) interop, ADO properties that formerly accepted either object references or string values now only support object references. As a result, when you try to set a property to a string value, an exception is thrown.

Back to the top

RESOLUTION

To set an ADO property that accepts either an object or a string to a string value in the .NET Framework, use the let_ methods that COM interop generates for imported assemblies. For sample code that demonstrates this, refer to the "More Information" section.

Back to the top

MORE INFORMATION

Steps to Reproduce the Behavior

Start Microsoft Visual Studio .NET.
Create a new Windows Application project in Visual Basic .NET.
Place a Button control on Form1, and change its Name property to btnTest.
In Solution Explorer, right-click References, and then click Add Reference.
On the COM tab in the Add Reference dialog box, click Microsoft ActiveX Data Objects 2.x Library. Click Select to add this reference to the Selected Components section, and then click OK.
If no wrapper is found for the selected library, you receive a warning. Click Yes to generate a wrapper. The ADODB reference is added to the project references.

Copy and paste the following code in the Code window after the "Windows Form Designer generated code" region:

Private Sub btnTest_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, _
                          ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles btnTest.Click
    Dim myConnString As String = _
        "Provider=SQLOLEDB.1;User ID=sa;password=sa;Initial Catalog=pubs;" & _
        "Data Source=mySQLServer"
    Dim mySelectQuery As String = "SELECT * FROM Authors"
    Dim myConnection as New ADODB.Connection()
    Dim myRecordset1 As New ADODB.Recordset()
    Dim myRecordset2 As New ADODB.Recordset()
    Try
        myConnection.ConnectionString = myConnString
        myConnection.open

        'Setting the ActiveConnection to a Connection object will work properly.
        myRecordset1.ActiveConnection = myConnection
        myRecordset1.Open(mySelectQuery)
        MessageBox.Show(myRecordset1(0).value)

        'Setting the ActiveConnection to a Connection string will fail.
        'Comment the next line of code, and uncomment the line that uses
        'the let_ActiveConnection to make the code work properly.
        myRecordset2.ActiveConnection = myConnString
        'myRecordset2.let_ActiveConnection(myConnString)
        myRecordset2.Open(mySelectQuery)
        MessageBox.Show(myRecordset2(0).value)
    Catch ex As Exception
        MessageBox.Show(ex.ToString())
    Finally
        myRecordSet1.Close()
        myRecordSet2.Close()
        myConnection.Close()
    End Try
End Sub

Modify the connection string (myConnString) as appropriate for your environment.
Save your project.
From the Debug menu, click Start, and run your project.
Click the button. When an ActiveConnection property is set to an object (in this case, the Connection object), it returns data properly.
Set the ActiveConnection property to a Connection string. Notice that the code fails with the above-mentioned exception.
Comment out the line that sets the ActiveConnection property to a Connection string. Uncomment the line that uses the let_ActiveConnection method.
Run the project again. Notice that the data is returned properly.