This comes to my desk once in a while when we try to update some of our already established AX2012 environments to SQL Server 2012.
Running Dynamics AX on SQL Server 2012 was not possible when SQL2012 RTM came out. If you installed AX on top of SQL2012 you soon noticed that almost every form you opened had issues and complains about “FASTFIRSTROW” – hint. This is because when AX 2012 Form uses Datasource with hint “FirstFast” and tries to open object for editing it uses SQL Server hint “FASTFIRSTROW”. This hint was deprecated in SQL Server 2008 and removed in SQL Server 2012. Replacement for this hint is “Fast 1” which should be used on all new development. It is funny that this deprecation was overlooked when AX 2012 shipped and finally led to incompatibility with SQL Server 2012.
One example of this being when you try to create new sales order and attach a customer to that:
Few months after SQL Server 2012 was released to web Microsoft announced Combatibility Certification of SQL Server 2012 with Dynamics AX 2012. It says that Customers and Partners will need to apply KB2680186 hotfix for SQL Server 2012 support. Ok, sounds good! After that you either slipstreamed the update with new installations or patched already installed systems if needed. But unfortunately just following the installation instructions was not enough. After patching an old system and restarted AOS you still got the same error.
This is because there is one step left for all-knowing consultants. 🙂 You still need to apply the patch to take effect in model store by running “axutil schema“. This minor last step is something I haven’t found anywhere and as a result my old AX2012 installations haven’t been combatible with SQL2012.
So to get your established environment to be compatible you need to apply the patch and run on the AOS server command “axutil schema” in AOS bin-folder (Mine being at: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Dynamics AX\60\Server\vesa\bin).