Managing Full SQL Server Transaction Logs

You are viewing documentation for an older version of Secret Server. If you are using Secret Server Cloud visit the current version of this documentation here. If you are using Secret Server On-Premises choose the version that matches yours from this list.
For release dates, end-of-support timelines, and upgrade guidance, see the Secret Server Product Lifecycle page.

SQL Server maintains a history of all operations in a transaction log. If this transaction log becomes full, you may receive one or more of the following errors:

System.ArgumentException: Cannot add two background tasks with the same name.

Thycotic.Data.DataAccessorException: The transaction log for database '{database}' is full. To find out why space in the log cannot be reused, see the log_reuse_wait_desc column in sys.databases

By default, a transaction log can grow to an unrestricted size, but some may become full in the following circumstances:

  • The drive where the transaction log file is kept is out of disk space.

  • The transaction log file hits its growth limit.

Potential Solutions

  • Back up the log.

  • Free up disk space so that the log can grow automatically.

  • Move the log file to a disk drive with sufficient space.

  • Increase the size of the log file.

  • Add a log file on a different disk.

  • Complete or kill a long-running transaction.

  • Switch to simple recovery mode and truncate the log.

For more detailed information on transaction logs in SQL, see Manage the size of the transaction log file.