Symptoms
If you use ADO to insert a new record through a client-side recordset into a SQL Server table that has a non-nullable datetime field with a default value, you receive the following error message if you do not supply a value for the datetime field:

Run-time error ‘-2147217887 (80040e21)’: Multiple-step operation generated errors. Check each status value. This error occurs whether you use the OLE DB Provider for SQL Server or the OLE DB Provider for ODBC Drivers. The error message may differ when you use Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC) version 2.5 Service Pack 1 (SP1) or earlier. This error does not occur with a server-side cursor.
Resolution
This error occurs in the Client Cursor Engine when it attempts to convert the value of type DBTYPE_DBTIMESTAMP to DBTYPE_VARIANT.