getting "bad connection handle" after arcpy.SelectLayerByAttribute_management()

Question

I've switched my TOC source to a version in our SDE server. I then execute a simple python script to select rows by attribute. The selection works, but then all redraws of the map throw up a dialog box titled "ArcMap Drawing Errors". The box contains a line for each feature class in the version (there are 6 of them), each line followed by the text: "Bad connection handle".  These errors don't show up on redraw until after running the Python script with the SelectLayerByAttribute_managment function.

Any clues how I can fix these bad connection handles? I don't even know how to diagnose what the problem is.

:George Riner

Sonoma State University

WilliamCraft · Answer

In the past, I have seen this error message occur when a connection was attempted with an older version of the SQL Server client communications software that is not supported.

DarylHochhalter · Answer

I am getting this error after using the popup menu to import multiple feature classes into an SQL geodatabase dataset from a file geodatabase. I have to close ArcCatalog and then the problem is gone until I import something else. ArcGIS for server 10.4, SQL 2014, on Windows Server 2012 R2

MicahBabinski · Answer

Hi George. That's frustrating! Have you installed the SQL Server native client on the computer in question? I remember having trouble connecting to SQLServer SDE in the past and I believe that fixed it. This ArcGIS Help page has some other things to check for when experiencing problems connecting to SQL Server with ArcGIS. It might be worth a look.

Good luck!