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Snapshot or Logreader agents fail when destination table is empty in SQL Server

  • Article

This article helps you work around the problem that Snapshot or Logreader agents fail when a destination table is empty.

Original product version:   SQL Server 2014, SQL Server 2012
Original KB number:   3144065

Symptoms

In a transactional replication in Microsoft SQL Server, an article in a SQL query has an empty string in a destination table (@destination_table = N"") in a Transact-SQL statement. In this situation, you may receive the following error messages in the specified locations:

  • In the Snapshot agent:

    Value cannot be null.Parameter name: strObjectName

  • In the Logreader agent:

    The process could not execute 'sp_replcmds' on 'SERVER'

  • In the error log file:

    SQL Server Assertion: File: <replrowset.cpp>, line=2853 Failed Assertion = 'dwColLen'.

Note

The third error may be timing-related. If the error persists after you rerun the statement, use DBCC CHECKDB to check the database for structural integrity. Or, restart the server to make sure that in-memory data structures are not corrupted. A dump file is created in the \Log folder that contains the details of the assertion.
The second and third errors are triggered only if publication has the immediate sync option enabled.

Cause

This issue occurs because an empty string is not a valid destination table name.

Workaround

To work around this issue, set a valid destination table name, or remove the invalid destination table name.

Applies to

  • SQL Server 2014 Business Intelligence
  • SQL Server 2014 Developer
  • SQL Server 2014 Enterprise
  • SQL Server 2014 Enterprise Core
  • SQL Server 2014 Express
  • SQL Server 2014 Standard
  • SQL Server 2014 Web
  • SQL Server 2012 Business Intelligence
  • SQL Server 2012 Developer
  • SQL Server 2012 Enterprise
  • SQL Server 2012 Enterprise Core
  • SQL Server 2012 Express
  • SQL Server 2012 Web
  • SQL Server 2012 Standard