Distribution task failed

[A.V.Narayanan]

Hi
When doing a bulk copy from an ASCII data file into SQL Server with a
char column that does not allow nulls, and where the data file does
not have data for that column (intending to insert default value bound to
the column), the rows are copied successfully, but the following message is
displayed once for each row:

Attempt to bulk-copy an oversized row to the SQL Server.
This happens only if the column is a char datatype and is defined as not
null and the data file does not contain any data for that column. This does
not happen if the column is of type varchar.
WORKAROUND
You can create a temporary table with the char column defined as allowing
nulls, BCP in data into that table and then insert data from the temp table
to the actual table with non-null char column using an INSERT statement.
Another workaround is to define the column as varchar instead of char.
Hope this helps. Do get back to me if you still have any problem.Also let
me know if this has helped you.
Regards
A.V.Narayanan
Aditi Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
224/16, Ramana Maharishi Road <mail to:nar...@aditi.com>
Bangalore-560080 <visitus at:http://www.aditi.com>

Clint Good <cli...@vipnet.com.au> wrote in article
<34695DE2...@vipnet.com.au>...
> Hi all
>
> I have the following error message whenever the distribution task is
> run.
>
> 'Attempt to bulk-copy an oversized row to the SQL Server.Failed while
> bulk copying into 'Mytable'.
>
> It seems pretty weird to get this message because the tables in the
> subscribing database were created by scripts generated from the
> publisher database.
>
> Has anyone seen this, or have any idea on what maybe causing it ?
>
> Thankyou
> Regards
> Clint.
>

[Clint Good]

Hi A.V.Narayanan

Unfortunately I'm out of the office for a couple of days and will not
get an opportunity to test this straight away.

However I have buggered around with the system tables a bit and this
sounds exactly like what could be
causing the problem. Although the tables are defined exactly the same
way now, at some stage some fields which I did not want to be null I
changed their definitions in syscolumn, but might not have updated the
field values for records that were already in there.

I'll give you the verdict soon :)
Thanks again
Regards
Clint.