title: Problem running DELETE statement against linked server in SQL Server 2008
body: <p>I'm having a problem running this query:</p>
  
  <pre><code>DELETE FROM [IRPROD]..[BUDGET_USER].[GL_EXP]
  WHERE FISCAL_YEAR = 2010
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>IRPROD is a linked server to an Oracle 10g database. It's linked using the Oracle OleDB provider. There are ~79000 records that need to be deleted. Running this query it deletes 54. Running it again gives me this error message.</p>
  
  <pre><code>Msg 7399, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
  The OLE DB provider "OraOLEDB.Oracle" for linked server "IRPROD" reported an error. The provider reported an unexpected catastrophic failure.
  Msg 7330, Level 16, State 2, Line 1
  Cannot fetch a row from OLE DB provider "OraOLEDB.Oracle" for linked server "IRPROD".
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Obviously, "catastrophic failure" is something bad. But the weird thing is that I can run SELECT and INSERT statements all day and it works fine. I do have permissions to delete the rows. Also, if I link the table through Access I can delete the records. </p>
  
  <p>Any ideas? </p>