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Asked: 2026-05-11T05:04:46+00:00

I have a MSSSQL stored procedure performing a distributed transaction that looks like this:

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I have a MSSSQL stored procedure performing a distributed transaction that looks like this:

SET XACT_ABORT ON; SET NOCOUNT ON;  BEGIN TRY   BEGIN DISTRIBUTED TRANSACTION     insert into LNKSRV.INST.dbo.zz (id, val) values (1, 'a');   insert into LNKSRV.INST.dbo.zz (id, val) values (2, 'b');     COMMIT TRANSACTION END TRY BEGIN CATCH   if (XACT_STATE() <> 0)    BEGIN     ROLLBACK TRANSACTION;   END   print ERROR_MESSAGE();   print ERROR_LINE();   print ERROR_SEVERITY();  END CATCH

This works fine.

If I add this 3rd insert statement:

  insert into LNKSRV.INST.dbo.zz (id, val) values ('error', 'b');

…it fails correctly — the transaction is rolled back on the remote server and control passes to the CATCH block and I get information about the error (can’t convert ‘error’ to int).

But if I add this insert statement:

  insert into LNKSRV.INST.dbo.zz (id, val) values (-1, 'b');

..and I have a check contraint on the remote table requiring values > 0 in the id column, then things do not work as I expect. The transaction DOES roll back, but control DOES NOT transfer to the catch block. Instead, execution just dies and this is printed to the output window:

The Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator (MS DTC) has cancelled the distributed transaction

Why? I need to log these errors in the catch blog.

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1 Answer

  1. Since the distributed transaction coordinator is handling this, when the transaction fails on the distributed part of the transaction, the DTC sends a message in the form of an attention, which stops your code from executing, and which the TRY/CATCH cannot process.

    SQL Server can detect on your end when you are trying to insert an incorrect data type into a table (even on a remote instance) but the constraint is processed on the linked server, which causes the attention to be sent to DTC and your TRY/CATCH to be ignored.

    For more information see the first ‘Note’ section in the ‘Using TRY…CATCH in Transact-SQL’ section of SQL Server 2008 Books Online, located at:

    http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms179296.aspx

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