Obscure Data Sync Error

 Here's another entry for the obscure, random error file.  It's one of those situations where there's not any other articles out there that match the error message that occurred in Tableau CRM (formerly Einstein Analytics). 

So here's the background and resolution for when your data sync jobs start randomly failing with an "Something went wrong while executing the remoteSync" error.

I built a set of data sync processes that pulled data from a Microsoft Azure SQL Database using a Database Connector.  With the connection details in hand, it was fast and easy to setup.  Best of all, the process reliably ran multiple times a day for several years.  Well, at least until it didn't.

All of the sudden, every process execution began failing a few days ago.  To make it even more fun, the logs only provided a super obscure error message, that don't lend much help.

Something went wrong while executing the remoteSync_<object name> node: Specified object <object name> is invalid: Request was never execute

As any good developer would do, I quickly searched the internet for relevant articles with the error message, which yielded no results.

Next, it was time to triage possible causes. Although, I would have expected a different error message, perhaps there was an issue connecting to the SQL database.  If the username, password, schema or even firewall rules had changed, there could be issues accessing the data.  

I decided to try connecting to a new object with data sync.  I was able to connect, select the object and preview the data.  However, launching the job produced an immediate error, with the same message as the existing jobs.

It seemed like the only options would be to open a case with support and wait.  Then I learned that the customer made a few Salesforce Session Setting changes to implement security best practices. While these didn't seem related, it gave me a few more options to look into.

I found a quasi-related post about Security Settings may cause Salesforce External Connection in Tableau CRM (Einstein Analytics) to fail. Unfortunately, the article discussed syncing between two Salesforce orgs, and not Azure SQL. The error message it referenced was also different.  

However, it did point to disabling "Lock sessions to the IP address from which they originated" as a resolution.  This was one of the changes the customer made, as they enabled Lock sessions to the IP address.

With this information in hand (but still skeptical), I asked the customer to change back the setting. To my surprise, it resolved the issue.  The data sync began running again. While follow-up is needed with Salesforce to see if this is a by design or a side-effect, it resolved the immediate issue and got the data flowing again.