SQL Server Q&A

Symptoms
The following error message may appear in the SQL Server Log Shipping Monitor View Restore History window:

[Microsoft SQL-DMO (ODBC SQLState: 42000)] Error 3154: [Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][SQL Server]The backup set holds a backup of a database other than the existing ‘pubs_test’ database.
[Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][SQL Server]RESTORE LOG is terminating abnormallyThe preceding error message occurs if: You configure multiple databases for log shipping.You back up the transaction logs for the databases to the same folder.The database names only differ by “_tlog” in the name. For example, pubs_test and pubs_test_tlog.
Resolution
The RESTORE job that runs on the secondary server incorrectly parses the transaction log backup file names and attempts to restore transaction logs that belong to a different database. This behavior does not cause any other problems on the primary or the secondary servers.

Symptoms
You cannot restore to a point in time within the first transaction log backup for a database when you use SQL Server Enterprise Manager to perform the RESTORE operation.
In SQL Server 7.0, despite the value entered by the user, the GUI always defaults to the time at the end of the first transaction log.
In SQL Server 2000, the following error message occurs if you enter a point in time within the first transaction log:

The time specified is less than the minimum point in time allowed. Time corrected. After the user clicks OK to close the message box, you find that the end time of the transaction log has replaced the time entered earlier.
The subsequent execution of the RESTORE command restores the database to the end of first transaction log backup.
Resolution
SQL Server 2000To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Microsoft SQL Server 2000. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
290211?(http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290211/EN-US/) INF: How to Obtain the Latest SQL Server 2000 Service Pack
SQL Server 7.0To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Microsoft SQL Server 7.0. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
301511?(http://support.microsoft.com/kb/301511/EN-US/) INF: How to Obtain the Latest SQL Server 7.0 Service Pack

Symptoms
In Microsoft SQL Server 2005, when you create an additional full-text catalog, the population process stops responding. Additionally, you may find the following error message that is logged in the Application log:

An index corruption was detected in component ShadowMerge
If you run the following statement to enable the full-text tracing, and examine the Msftesql.xml log file, you find an exception is logged:

exec sp_fulltext_service ‘FTE_RetailTracingEnableFlag’, 1The exception record resembles the following:

<TRC time=”Time” tagname=”Exceptions” pid=”0×17d4″ tid=”0×174c“>
<MSG>
<Exception>
<HR>0xc0041800</HR>
<eip>49A09DBA</eip>
<module>d:\s3fte_main\babylon\tripoli\cindex\widset.hxx</module>
<line>1750</line>
</Exception>
</MSG>
</TRC>
Resolution
This issue occurs because one or more of the current Full-Text indexes is corrupted. The corruption prevents the master merge from running. Because the master merge cannot run, the chunk buffers become full.When the chunk buffers become full, you cannot create additional full-text catalogs because the full-text search service cannot obtain an available chunk buffer.

Symptoms
If all of the following conditions are true, a restore to a point-in-time leaves the database in a loading state (unrecovered) and does not stop at the requested time: You perform the restore through SQL Enterprise Manager (SEM).You restore one backup file (device) at a time, and you specify a “Point in Time” to stop in the last transaction log you restore.
Resolution
A restore to a point-in-time from Enterprise Manager does not stop at the requested time because Enterprise Manager automatically changes the point-in-time value to the backup time of the last transaction log.
A mechanism in the restore to a point-in-time leaves the database in a loading state if there are no log entries after the time you specify, to allow you to apply more transaction logs if you want.

Symptoms
If a transformation failure function returns DTSTransformstat_OK, the errors are logged to the transformation exception log and the transformation exception source log files.
NOTE: The DTS package itself ignores the errors and the Max Error Count value is not incremented.
Resolution
To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Microsoft SQL Server 2000. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in theMicrosoft Knowledge Base:
290211?(http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290211/EN-US/) INF: How to Obtain the Latest SQL Server 2000 Service Pack

Symptoms
When you perform a backup or restore operation and the transaction log is greater than four gigabytes (or 2^32 bytes), the LogMgr::ValidateBackedupBlock method may cause the following error when it computes the offset of the log block in the physical file:

Error 3241 Severity 16 State 1
The media family on device ‘%ls’ is incorrectly formed. SQL Server cannot process this media family.
Resolution
LogMgr::ValidateBackedupBlock computes the log sequence number (LSN) block ID in 4-byte arithmetic (rather than 8-byte) which causes a DWORD overflow.