Knowledge Base

You receive error messages when you perform a distributed transaction when you have a SQL Server 2000 virtual server in a Windows Server 2003 clustered environment

Article ID: 889706

Article Last Modified on 4/7/2006

APPLIES TO

Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition
Microsoft SQL Server 2000 64-bit Edition
Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Developer Edition
Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition

SYMPTOMS

When you have a Microsoft SQL Server 2000 virtual server in a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 clustered environment, distributed transactions may not be completed successfully. When the distributed transaction is performed, you receive the following error message:

Server: Msg 8501, Level 16, State 3, Line 1 MSDTC on server 'VirtualServerName' is unavailable.

Additionally, from your Microsoft Transaction Server (MTS) application, you receive the following error message when you connect to SQL Server:

Error: -2147168228 Microsoft ODBC SQL Server Driver [MSDTC] MSDTC on server 'VirtualServerName' is unavailable.

Note In these error messages, VirtualServerName is the SQL Server 2000 virtual server name.

Sometimes, you may also receive the following error message:

Server: Msg 7391, Level 16, State 1, Procedure spStoredProcedure, Line 58
The operation could not be performed because the OLE DB provider 'SQLOLEDB' was unable to begin a distributed transaction. [OLE/DB provider returned message: Connection failure] OLE DB error trace [OLE/DB Provider 'SQLOLEDB' ITransactionJoin::JoinTransaction returned 0x8004d01c].

CAUSE

This problem occurs when the following conditions are true:

This SQL Server 2000 virtual server is in a Windows Server 2003 clustered environment.
The Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator (MSDTC) resource and SQL Server 2000 virtual server are not in the same cluster group.
The MSDTC resource starts after the SQL Server virtual server has started.

Note This problem does not occur in Windows 2000 Server clusters.

RESOLUTION

A supported hotfix is now available from Microsoft. For more information about how to obtain this hotfix, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

821751 Availability of Windows Server 2003 COM+ 1.5 Rollup Package 1

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section.

MORE INFORMATION

For more information, click the following article numbers to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

301600 How to configure Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator on a Windows Server 2003 cluster

294209 How to rebuild or move MSDTC used with a SQL failover cluster

817064 How to enable network DTC access in Windows Server 2003

Additional query words: SQL2000, 8004d01c, 0x8004d01c

Keywords: kbtshoot kbprb KB889706

Microsoft KB Archive/889706

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