Managing Full SQL Server Transaction Logs

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.