SQL Server Q&A

Symptoms
If you specify an empty string for the STANDBY option when you perform a RESTORE, the STANDBY option is ignored and the RESTORE statement performs a recovery of the database. Any subsequent RESTORE of transaction logs returns the following error message:

Server: Msg 4306, Level 16, State 2, Line 1
The preceding restore operation did not specify WITH NORECOVERY or WITH STANDBY. Restart the restore sequence, specifying WITH NORECOVERY or WITH STANDBY for all but the final step.
Server: Msg 3013, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
Backup or restore operation terminating abnormally.
Resolution
Provide a valid filename and path for the STANDBY file.

Symptoms
When you try to insert an empty string into Memo, Text, nText or Blob columns by using the OLE DB .NET data provider, you receive the following exception:

An unhandled exception of type ‘System.InvalidOperationException’ occurred in system.data.dll If you handle this exception within a try-catch block, you receive the following information:

System.InvalidOperationException
System.Data.OleDb.OleDbException: Multiple-Step OLE DB operation generated errors. Check each OLE DB status value, if available. No work was done.
Resolution
To work around this problem: For strings, insert a space that has a length greater than zero (such as ” “), instead of using an empty string.If the database has an Allow Nulls setting, select Allow Nulls for the columns in the database, and treat nulls as empty strings.