Problem description / Issue description

When you are trying to do certain activies* with the SQL Server Security Agents you receive the error: "Trace-file creation return code = -12".

  1. Creating a new monitor
  2. Copying (cloning) an existing monitor
  3. Importing a monitor
  4. Modifying an existing monitor

Possible causes

This problem is in most of the cases related to:

  1. Permission issues
    1. The SQL user (or Windows Builtin user) that is trying to create the TRACE file into the remote Windows that hosts the SQL Server that's being monitorized doesn't have enough permissions to do so.
    2. The SQL user (or Windows Builin user) that is trying to create new traces into the SQL Server Engine can't do it.
  2. Corruption of the Tango_Traces table (located into the master database of the SQL Server Engine that's being monitorized) or the SQL Server traces.
  3. Problems with configuration of the PATH where we want to create SQL Server traces (for example if it doesn't exist and can't be created). 


If it's related to a permission issue, you should try to verify that every permission/authorization is properly configured.

If it's NOT related to a permission issue, then do the following procedure: 

  1. Edit the monitor and modify the Path with an existing and valid Path in the remote SQL Server
  2. Export all the monitors related to this remote SQL Server from the Thinkserver Configurator visual interface
  3. Delete all the exported monitors in the step 2, and also all the related DataSources (this should delete any remote trace into the remote SQL server)
  4. Go to the remote SQL Server and verify that the table Tango_Traces into the master Database is empty, if not, delete all entries in it
  5. Import the monitors exported in the step 2 into your Thinkserver Configurator and start them

Additional Information

You can check the Chapter 4 of the User Guide of the SQL Server Security Agents related to the minimum permissions required to run the agents.


Last Modified On: October 18, 2018