What can I do to resolve a "Row not found or changed" Exception in LINQ to SQL on a SQL Server Compact Edition Database?

Question

When executing SubmitChanges to the DataContext after updating a couple properties with a LINQ to SQL connection (against SQL Server Compact Edition) I get a "Row not found or changed." ChangeConflictException.

var ctx = new Data.MobileServerDataDataContext(Common.DatabasePath);
var deviceSessionRecord = ctx.Sessions.First(sess => sess.SessionRecId == args.DeviceSessionId);

deviceSessionRecord.IsActive = false;
deviceSessionRecord.Disconnected = DateTime.Now;

ctx.SubmitChanges();

The query generates the following SQL:

UPDATE [Sessions]
SET [Is_Active] = @p0, [Disconnected] = @p1
WHERE 0 = 1
-- @p0: Input Boolean (Size = 0; Prec = 0; Scale = 0) [False]
-- @p1: Input DateTime (Size = 0; Prec = 0; Scale = 0) [9/4/2008 5:12:02 PM]
-- Context: SqlProvider(SqlCE) Model: AttributedMetaModel Build: 3.5.21022.8

The obvious problem is the WHERE 0=1, After the record was loaded, I've confirmed that all the properties in the "deviceSessionRecord" are correct to include the primary key. Also when catching the "ChangeConflictException" there is no additional information about why this failed. I've also confirmed that this exception get's thrown with exactly one record in the database (the record I'm attempting to update)

What's strange is that I have a very similar update statement in a different section of code and it generates the following SQL and does indeed update my SQL Server Compact Edition database.

UPDATE [Sessions]
SET [Is_Active] = @p4, [Disconnected] = @p5
WHERE ([Session_RecId] = @p0) AND ([App_RecId] = @p1) AND ([Is_Active] = 1) AND ([Established] = @p2) AND ([Disconnected] IS NULL) AND ([Member_Id] IS NULL) AND ([Company_Id] IS NULL) AND ([Site] IS NULL) AND (NOT ([Is_Device] = 1)) AND ([Machine_Name] = @p3)
-- @p0: Input Guid (Size = 0; Prec = 0; Scale = 0) [0fbbee53-cf4c-4643-9045-e0a284ad131b]
-- @p1: Input Guid (Size = 0; Prec = 0; Scale = 0) [7a174954-dd18-406e-833d-8da650207d3d]
-- @p2: Input DateTime (Size = 0; Prec = 0; Scale = 0) [9/4/2008 5:20:50 PM]
-- @p3: Input String (Size = 0; Prec = 0; Scale = 0) [CWMOBILEDEV]
-- @p4: Input Boolean (Size = 0; Prec = 0; Scale = 0) [False]
-- @p5: Input DateTime (Size = 0; Prec = 0; Scale = 0) [9/4/2008 5:20:52 PM]
-- Context: SqlProvider(SqlCE) Model: AttributedMetaModel Build: 3.5.21022.8

I have confirmed that the proper primary fields values have been identified in both the Database Schema and the DBML that generates the LINQ classes.

I guess this is almost a two part question:

1. Why is the exception being thrown?
2. After reviewing the second set of generated SQL, it seems like for detecting conflicts it would be nice to check all the fields, but I imagine this would be fairly inefficient. Is this the way this always works? Is there a setting to just check the primary key?

I've been fighting with this for the past two hours so any help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

Thats nasty, but simple:

Check if the data types for all fields in the O/R-Designer match the data types in your SQL table. Double check for nullable! A column should be either nullable in both the O/R-Designer and SQL, or not nullable in both.

For example, a NVARCHAR column "title" is marked as NULLable in your database, and contains the value NULL. Even though the column is marked as NOT NULLable in your O/R-Mapping, LINQ will load it successfully and set the column-String to null.

• Now you change something and call SubmitChanges().
• LINQ will generate a SQL query containing "WHERE [title] IS NULL", to make sure the title has not been changed by someone else.
• LINQ looks up the properties of [title] in the mapping.
• LINQ will find [title] NOT NULLable.
• Since [title] is NOT NULLable, by logic it never could be NULL!
• So, optimizing the query, LINQ replaces it with "where 0 = 1", the SQL equivalent of "never".

The same symptom will appear when the data types of a field does not match the data type in SQL, or if fields are missing, since LINQ will not be able to make sure the SQL data has not changed since reading the data.