Error creating geodatabase: User, group, or role 'dbo' already exists

[RobLingle]

Hi all,

I'm having some issues trying to create a geodatabase. In Catalog, I select 'New geodatabase...', enter a name, and click OK. A "Creating geodatabase" progress bar comes up briefly, and then I get an alert:
Error creating this geodatabase. User, group, or role 'dbo' already exists in the current database.

At this point, the new database has been created in SQL Server, I can add a connection under "Database Connections", and I can create a feature class. If I add the new feature class to ArcMap, I notice that the "Type of features stored" and coordinate system are empty even though I specified those when creating the FC. If I attempt to edit the layer, I get "The workspace containing this data cannot be edited".

The database connection properties say I'm using ArcSDE Workgroup Server 10.50.1600.1 (= 10.1?) on Microsoft SQL Server Express Addition with Advanced Services. I'm using Windows authentication to connect to SQL Server and my account has roles 'public' and 'sysadmin'. I'm using Desktop 10.1.

Any ideas?

[KimPeter]

Yeah, that command is active on the database context menu, which has confused people.  However, having the software do the check when you open the menu would be expensive performance-wise.  So the tool just fails when you pass it the Workgroup license instead.  Since opening the context menu is done far more frequently than running the Enable tool, we figured we'd go for the better menu performance. Everything's a trade-off. 🙂