What does HRESULT 0x80040E6F (SEC_E_INVALIDACCESSENTRYLIST) mean?

 
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SEC_E_NOOWNER SEC_E_INVALIDOWNER

SEC_E_INVALIDACCESSENTRYLIST

Exact value and result class

SEC_E_INVALIDACCESSENTRYLIST has unsigned value 2147749487 (0x80040E6F) and signed 32-bit value -2147217809. AllStat describes it as “Access entry list is invalid”. In this result, the aggregate access-entry list violates the provider or ACTRL_ACCESS list structure contract.

The high bit is set, so this result is a failure HRESULT. Its facility is 4 (FACILITY_ITF) and its low code is 3695 (0x0E6F). These fields identify an interface-defined result family; they do not identify the provider instance, method, object generation or partial effects.

Contract boundary

OLE DB security administration represents trustees, owners, groups, protected objects and access-entry lists as separate entities. A syntactically valid trustee can still be unknown to a provider, and an allowed permission set depends on the protected object type.

Investigation of this result should start with the provider security interface, effective data-source namespace and exact trustee or access-entry structure supplied. Capture it before ADO, ATL,.NET or a database abstraction layer replaces the native HRESULT with a generic exception.

Conditions that specifically lead to the result

  • Cause 1 for it: entry counts and array pointers disagree.
  • Cause 2 for it: the list mixes unsupported access modes or inheritance data.
  • Cause 3 for it: duplicate or contradictory entries make the aggregate list invalid.

Evidence to collect

A useful it event records provider CLSID and version, process architecture, interface IID and method, object correlation ID, transaction state and the immediately preceding HRESULT. When recording it data involving SIDs, account names, groups, ACL contents and protected object identifiers, use types, lengths, hashes or redacted identifiers rather than secrets or complete business data.

  • Evidence 1 for it: list header, counts and per-entry status.
  • Evidence 2 for it: object type and supported access rights.
  • Evidence 3 for it: normalization results before the provider call.

Diagnostic sequence

  1. Capture raw 0x80040E6F and symbolic it at the native call boundary.
  2. Identify the exact failing stage for it: the aggregate access-entry list violates the provider or ACTRL_ACCESS list structure contract.
  3. Retrieve all OLE DB error records for it before another COM call replaces thread error information.
  4. Compare the live object state and provider-granted capabilities with the input that produced it.
  5. Reduce the operation to the smallest case that preserves the same security contract.
  6. Apply one evidence-backed correction for it and verify that the result is not merely replaced by a neighboring HRESULT.

Corrective actions

  • Action 1 for it: validate the entire list before submission.
  • Action 2 for it: canonicalize duplicate trustee entries.
  • Action 3 for it: split unsupported object-specific entries from valid grants.

Retry and recovery

Retry rule for it: retry after rebuilding a structurally valid list containing only supported entries. A it retry is safe only when the relevant input, object generation, capability or external state has changed. Before replaying a modifying call that returned it, determine whether rows, schema objects or URL resources were partially created or changed.

Do not turn it into an unbounded retry loop. Preserve cancellation for it and use a fresh provider object when the failed call may have left local state ambiguous.

Practical scenario

An ACL serializer emits a count larger than its decoded entry array; validating the container prevents it. Keeping it with the method and object state makes this scenario diagnosable instead of reducing it to “database error”.

Difference from nearby HRESULT values

SEC_E_INVALIDACCESSENTRY identifies one invalid permission entry, while it identifies the aggregate list. Telemetry and remediation for it should keep these outcomes distinct.

Developer and operations guidance

Code handling it should release COM objects in ownership order, retain per-row, per-column or per-property statuses, and log granted capabilities rather than only requested options. While handling it, opaque values such as HACCESSOR, HROW, HCHAPTER, DBID components and provider handles must remain scoped to the object that issued them.

Operational dashboards for it should group by provider version, interface, method and normalized failure stage. A it event must not expose passwords, tokens, full connection strings, unrestricted command text or raw row contents.

Official Microsoft references

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