3120963 - Primary KBA : 'Invalid column length' message followed by stack trace - SAP ASE

• ASE error log reports an 'Invalid column length' message.
• Followed by a stack trace that includes keyword collocate and often also LeSubst & getnext.
• There may be some or many messages in the log, sometimes affecting all queries on a particular table making that table unusable for application users.
  
  
• The message can be raised with different lengths and includes the row format which is linked to the table locking scheme (APL / DOL).
• A generic example of the message contains these elements:
  
  Invalid column length: <column-length>.
  Value must be between 0 and <maximum-column-length> at offset <column-offset> for '<row-format>' row with minimum row length of <minimum-column-length>."
  
  
• Examples of each type of row format look like (the size values shown will vary)
  
  Invalid column length:    27. Value must be between 0 and 16 at offset -1 for 'all-pages' row with minimum row length of 10.
  Invalid column length: 8196. Value must be between 0 and 4 at offset -6 for 'data-only' row with minimum row length of 8.

SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise (ASE). Not version specific.

collocate+0x1d4(),  sortdes, datapage , collocate+0x1d4 , "Invalid column length" , 'all-pages' , row "minimum row length"  , "data-only"  msg 290024 , KBA , BC-SYB-ASE , Sybase ASE Database Platform (non Business Suite) , How To