Received an invalid column length from the bcp client for colid 6

Question

I want to bulk upload csv file data to sql server 2005 from c# code but I am encountering the below error -

Received an invalid column length from th

Answer 1

I got this error message with a much more recent ssis version (vs 2015 enterprise, i think it's ssis 2016). I will comment here because this is the first reference that comes up when you google this error message. I think it happens mostly with character columns when the source character size is larger than the target character size. I got this message when I was using an ado.net input to ms sql from a teradata database. Funny because the prior oledb writes to ms sql handled all the character conversion perfectly with no coding overrides. The colid number and the a corresponding Destination Input column # you sometimes get with the colid message are worthless. It's not the column when you count down from the top of the mapping or anything like that. If I were microsoft, I'd be embarrased to give an error message that looks like it's pointing at the problem column when it isn't. I found the problem colid by making an educated guess and then changing the input to the mapping to "Ignore" and then rerun and see if the message went away. In my case and in my environment I fixed it by substr( 'ing the Teradata input to the character size of the ms sql declaration for the output column. Check and make sure your input substr propagates through all you data conversions and mappings. In my case it didn't and I had to delete all my Data Conversion's and Mappings and start over again. Again funny that OLEDB just handled it and ADO.net threw the error and had to have all this intervention to make it work. In general you should use OLEDB when your target is MS Sql.