Binaryworld - How to Fix Inconsistent Metadata Errors (SQL Server 7.0) ... [ SQL Server -> Linked Server ]

Why does changing a table on a SQL Server 7.0 server cause "OLE DB provider 'SQLOLEDB' supplied inconsistent metadata. An extra column was supplied during execution that was not found at compile time." to occur when query the table from a SQL Server 2000 server via link to other.

BASIC UNDERSTANDING OF THE PROBLEM:

OK here is what I discovered. In SQL Server 7.0 when a column is deleted, the syscolumns table keeps the original ordinal position listed instead of adjusting to what the table looks like now.

For example, table 1:

ColName OrdPos
----------- ---
Col1     1
Col2     2
Col3     3
Col4     4
Col5     5
Col6     6

In SQL Server 7.0 when you remove Col3, Col4 a result of Ordinal Position in the syscolumns table would look like this:

ColName OrdPos
----------- ---
Col1     1
Col2     2
Col5     5
Col6     6

SQL Server 2000 though will actually reset the values and the output looks like this

ColName OrdPos
----------- ---
Col1     1
Col2     2
Col5     3
Col6     4

OK when you link from SQL Server 2000 to SQL Server 7.0 the link will run several request one being

Click here to copy the following block

sp_columns_rowset N'yourTblNamehere', N'dbo', NULL

and it apparently reads the ORDINAL POSITION column which when is first built is in order by when you delete items it is no longer with SQL 7 so it outputs

THE ERROR MESSAGE:

Server: Msg 7353, Level 16, State 1, Line 1

OLE DB provider 'SQLOLEDB' supplied inconsistent metadata. An extra column was supplied during execution that was not found at compile time.

WHAT I DID:

(note: testing was done on all versions of SQL Server 7.0 with each SP level thru 3)

First I opened Profiler and connected to the remote server to watch the calls being made and looked at the items it ran, testing each until I saw sp_columns_rowset as the only column related item. Then running I noticed the ORDINAL POSITION output was not consecutive which made me curious so I deleted and re-added the table with the final version the table was in and ran the process again. This time the ORDINAL POSITION output was consecutive and when I ran my query from the other server it worked fine. So I removed another column from before then end of the table and ran query again and got output again. Then I went back and look at the ORDINAL POSITION output of sp_columns_rowset and again not consecutive. So I decided to try under SQL 2000, and noticed that whenever I changed the columns that the ORDINAL POSITION reset and remained consecutive. Now I decided must be that output for is the cause of the error and decided to manually change the values in the syscolumns table myself. Ran my remote query again, which ran without error.

OK so I know the problem and potential how to fix, but the fix is a bit of a headache. That is where the following came from. I decided the best way to quick fix was to build a process I can run to handle it quickly for me. To use just load into master (as you will probably use it often to clean

up) and run like so:

Click here to copy the following block

EXEC master.dbo.sp_configure 'allow updates', '1' RECONFIGURE WITH OVERRIDE --//Allow to modify sys tables
go
Exec Telecomcorp..sp_FixColOrder 'DistrictInfo'
go
EXEC master.dbo.sp_configure 'allow updates', '0' RECONFIGURE WITH OVERRIDE --//Dont Allow to modify sys tables

Anyway here is the fix code and I will send this entire message to Microsoft to follow up on. Hopefully they will provide a better fix for this in SP4 if I can get in soon enough.

THE PROCEDURE:

Click here to copy the following block

-------------------------------------Procedure Begins Here----------------------------------------

/*
* Procedure Name: sp_FixColOrder
* Full Name: Fix Column Order
* Desc: Fix column order listing in syscolumns table for specified table.
* Notes: For use with SQL 7 only, not tested elsewhere. Procedure makes use of
* changing value in system table which can cause issues and even though
* I have tested I make no guarantees on the effects of this procedure.

--Example:

EXEC master.dbo.sp_configure 'allow updates', '1' RECONFIGURE WITH OVERRIDE --//Allow to modify sys tables
Exec Telecomcorp..sp_FixColOrder 'DistrictInfo'
EXEC master.dbo.sp_configure 'allow updates', '0' RECONFIGURE WITH OVERRIDE --//Dont Allow to modify sys tables

*/

CREATE PROCEDURE sp_FixColOrder
@table sysname
AS
DECLARE @SQLState VARCHAR(2000)

--Configure server to allow ad hoc updates to system tables EXEC master.dbo.sp_configure 'allow updates', '1' RECONFIGURE WITH OVERRIDE
/*Build string to update object, the only reason I build a string is the allow updates exec does not allow straight SQL to occurr.*/

SET @SQLState = 'UPDATE
syscolumns
SET
colid = TruePos,
colorder = TruePos
FROM
syscolumns

INNER JOIN
(SELECT
[name],[id],
colorder, (SELECT COUNT(*) + 1 FROM syscolumns ic WHERE ic.colorder < c.colorder AND ic.[id] = c.[id]) as TruePos
FROM syscolumns c WHERE [id] = OBJECT_ID(''' + @table + ''')
) AS CalcVals ON syscolumns.[name] = CalcVals.[name] AND syscolumns.[id] = CalcVals.[id] AND
syscolumns.colorder = CalcVals.colorder'

EXEC (@SQLState)

--Configure server to disallow ad hoc updates to system tables EXEC master.dbo.sp_configure 'allow updates', '0' RECONFIGURE WITH OVERRIDE