"An Unexpected Database Error" in Symantec Messaging Gateway version 10.9.1

Products

• Messaging Gateway

Issue/Introduction

When creating a filter policy in Symantec Messaging Gateway, you might encounter the following error: 
An unexpected database error has occurred. Please contact your system administrator.

The Control Center logs show this error:
java.sql.SQLSyntaxErrorException: (conn=X) Data too long for column 'match_string' at row 1

Cause

The match_string field in the database has a 255-character limit for ASCII strings. However, the change of the decoding of non-ASCII characters in SMG 10.9.1 causes each non-ASCII character to be expanded 7 times in length.

• If the string exceeds 255 characters (ASCII or non-ASCII), this error is expected, as described in Article 390618.
• If the string contains non-ASCII characters, more than 37 non-ASCII characters will cause the string to exceed the 255-character limit due to the expansion, triggering the error.

Resolution

To avoid this issue:

1. Limit ASCII strings to 255 characters.
2. Limit non-ASCII characters to 37 (to stay within the expanded limit).

Note: If this behavior changes in future releases, this article will be updated accordingly