Linked SQL Server database giving "inconsistent metadata" error

Question

I am currently running a third-party software suite, which uses SQL Server as its database. I have a second instance of SQL Server running in a different location, and some apps that I am building in that instance SQL Server needs to access some data in the third-party software. So, I created an ODBC connection between the boxes, and set up the third-party SQL server as a linked server on my version of SQL Server. As a test, I ran something like the following statement from my SQL server, accessing one of the third-party's tables:

SELECT * FROM LinkedServerName.SchemaName.dbo.TableName

To which I recieved this error:

OLE DB error trace [Non-interface error:  Column 'TableRowVersion' (compile-time
ordinal 4) of object '"SchemaName"."dbo"."TableName"' was reported to have a
DBCOLUMNFLAGS_ISROWVER of 0 at compile time and 512 at run time].

Msg 7356, Level 16, State 1, Line 1

OLE DB provider 'MSDASQL' supplied inconsistent metadata for a column. Metadata
information was changed at execution time.

This error is the same for any other table I try to access. What does this error mean, and is there a way around it?

Answer 1

I've had this happen a few times. The one workaround I found was to use OPENQUERY.

SELECT * FROM OPENQUERY(LinkedServerName, 'SELECT * FROM DBName.Schema.Table')

Also, the select you posted above has an incorrect 4 part name (could just be a typo but I wasn't sure). It should be LinkedServerName.DBName.SchemaName.TableName

Answer 2

Server: Msg 7356, Level 16, State 1, Line 1 

OLE DB provider 'MSDASQL' supplied inconsistent metadata for a column. 
Metadata information was changed at execution time.

If you use a four-part name syntax to query the data from the linked server database, you may receive this error message. To work around this problem, you can use the OPENQUERY syntax to query the data from the linked server database. You can turn on trace flag 7300 to receive more detailed information about this error message. To turn on trace flag 7300, run the following Transact-SQL statement:

DBCC TRACEON(7300)