Action Microsoft.Crm.Setup.Server.AddServerAction failed. Exceeded column length: Column Name

Hi,

In my last installation of Dynamics CRM I faced 2 (related) issues:

The first one, during validation system checks:

“The instance name must be the same as computer name”

This issue was due to computer name were different from SQL Server name. The reason: it was a VM, copied from another one which already had SQL Server installed.

I found a solution to this problem in this post by Zhongchen Zhou. Zhongchen suggests to drop invalid server name and add the one that matches with the computer name, by this way:

SP_DROPSERVER "INVALID SERVER NAME"

SP_ADDSERVER "CORRECT SERVER NAME", local

restart SQL Server instance

This was helpful and I could sort out the system checks and go on with installation. But…while installing, I came across a new error which I couldn’t sort out:

“Action Microsoft.Crm.Setup.Server.AddServerAction failed. Exceeded column length: Column Name”

Eventlog…

I tried several things, double checking that both my computer and SQL Server name matches, privileges and so on. Nothing useful.

But I noticed that in my case, my computer name had more than 15 characters, which is the NetBIOS limitation.

So, my solution was: change computer name so length <15 characters, restart, and run again SP_DROPSERVER and SP_ADDSERVER so SQL Server name matches computer name, restarting SQL service.

After doing so, I could successfully install Dynamics CRM 2011.

Hope it helps to save somebody else’s time.

PP [twitter: @pabloperalta]

UruIT Dynamix | Excellence in Dynamics CRM Nearshoring Services.