Trying to export Azure SQL DB - get strange VARBINARY(MAX) error... none in DB

Question

Recently I have been unable to export my SQL Azure DB within the same subscription and data centre.

The error I get is:

"Error encountered during the service operation. Could not export schema and data from database. One or more errors occurred. One or more errors occurred. One or more errors occurred. One or more errors occurred. One or more errors occurred. varbinary column at ordinal 65 should be preceded by DATALENGTH(col) in the SqlDataReader supplied."

There are no VARBINARY columns in the DB. I have checked this using:

SELECT table_name [Table Name], column_name [Column Name]
FROM information_schema.columns where data_type = 'VARBINARY'

The only significant change is that I am using the encrypted column type (deterministic) for some columns. Would this prevent an export and produce this type of error?

At present I am unable to export. I can copy a DB however.

I would appreciate any advice please.

EDIT

On further research, I feel the encrypted columns are preventing the export, as having removed the encryption from all columns, I am now able to export the DB. I am now trying this via SSMS's "Export Data Tier" feature. I have also raised this with MS. Still ongoing.

EDIT2

I have diagnosed that the cause of my problem is the use of VARCHAR(8000) instead of VARCHAR(MAX) as the data type for the encrypted column. Hoping not to need to change these types to VARCHAR(MAX).

Alberto Morillo · Accepted Answer · 2018-09-20 14:09:06Z

1

Currently Sql Serializer does not support nvarchar column with length 4000 on encrypted column. That is the reason you are receiving that error. I have received information that this limitation is going to be removed.

edited Sep 20, 2018 at 14:09

answered Sep 20, 2018 at 4:15

Alberto Morillo

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6 Comments

SamJolly Over a year ago

Thank you for this.However my issue is with varchar(8000), varchar(max) works. Are you saying that anything over varchar(4000) would be a problem? I have also heard that it is an issue and due to be fixed within about 2 months

Alberto Morillo Over a year ago

Microsoft engineers are working on it. I use this thread you created to bring their attention to this topic but they already have an item created to work on this.

Alberto Morillo Over a year ago

Thank you for reporting this and the detailed information you provided.

DigiBanks99 Over a year ago

Is this still an issue?

Alberto Morillo Over a year ago

@DigiBanks99 I no longer have access to the Microsoft Engineers that were working on that.

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