FIX: MS DTC Limited to 16 Nodes in Single Distributed Transaction (295086)

SYMPTOMS

When you use Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator (MS DTC) to run a single distributed transaction, the maximum number of remote nodes is limited to 16. If you try to perform a transaction that has more than 16 nodes, you may receive the following error message:

Server: Msg 7391, Level 16, State 1, Procedure customer, Line 3 The operation could not be performed because the OLE DB provider 'SQLOLEDB' was unable to begin a distributed transaction. [OLE/DB provider returned message: New transaction cannot enlist in the specified transaction coordinator.]

CAUSE

This problem occurs because Microsoft SQL Server 2000 "scale-out" technology (distributed partition views, or DPV) allows only 16 nodes in a federated database environment.

RESOLUTION

To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Windows 2000. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

260910 How to Obtain the Latest Windows 2000 Service Pack

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article. This problem was first corrected in Windows 2000 Service Pack 2.