What does HRESULT 0x80040E39 (DB_E_BADCOPY) mean?

DB_E_BADCOPY

Meaning

Windows documents DB_E_BADCOPY as “Errors detected during the copy”. Here, an OLE DB copy operation completes with one or more copy-specific errors.

Specific conditions that produce the result

• Cause 1: one source object cannot be read.
• Cause 2: a destination object rejects metadata or data.
• Cause 3: partial copy work encounters provider-specific failures across multiple items.

Relevant OLE DB contract

This result must be interpreted against this contract: OLE DB objects follow both COM lifetime rules and provider-specific state contracts; open dependents, ownership transfer, aggregation, callbacks and namespace identity must be traced from the exact interface call rather than inferred from a wrapper exception.

Start with the COM object that returned the result and every dependent interface or provider-owned resource involved in the call when investigating this result.

Evidence to collect before changing the system

• Evidence 1: the source and destination identities.
• Evidence 2: per-item status and all OLE DB error records.
• Evidence 3: which objects were created before the failure.

Corrective actions

• Action 1: inspect individual copy results before deciding rollback.
• Action 2: remove or repair only failed destination objects.
• Action 3: make recovery idempotent when some items may already exist.

Practical incident

A namespace copy creates two child objects and fails on a third because of permissions; recording per-item results enables safe continuation instead of blindly repeating the entire operation after it.

Retry and recovery policy

Retry rule: retry only after identifying failed items and accounting for any partial destination state.

Difference from related HRESULT values

DB_E_ERRORSOCCURRED is a generic all-elements-failed aggregate, while DB_E_BADCOPY specifically describes errors encountered during a copy operation.

Official Microsoft references

• Microsoft: overview of OLE DB
• Microsoft: OLE DB interfaces
• Microsoft: IErrorRecords