KB2877857 - FIX: "The OLE DB provider '' provided invalid collation" error when an application executes some distributed queries through a linked server in SQL Server 2012 SP1

Applies To
SQL Server 2012 Enterprise SQL Server 2012 Developer SQL Server 2012 Standard

Symptoms

Consider the following scenario:

  • You have Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Service Pack 1 (SP1) installed on a computer.
  • You create a linked server to a NON-MS data source by using a third-party OLE DB provider.
  • A client application executes some distributed queries through the linked server.

In this scenario, you receive the following error message:

Note

Msg 7369, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
The OLE DB provider '<ProviderName>' provided invalid collation.

Resolution

The issue was first fixed in the following cumulative update of SQL Server.

Cumulative update 6 for SQL Server 2012 SP1 /en-us/help/2874879

About cumulative updates for SQL Server

Each new cumulative update for SQL Server contains all the hotfixes and all the security fixes that were included with the previous cumulative update. Check out the latest cumulative updates for SQL Server:

      

Status

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section.