Data Connector Import Tasks Fail with DateTime Conversion or SQL Text Incompatibility Errors

Products

• IT Management Suite

Issue/Introduction

After upgrading to IT Management Suite (ITMS) 8.8, Data Connector import rules that previously completed successfully may begin failing.

Customers may report errors similar to:

Failed to convert the value '14/05/2026' to the required DateTime data type.
Unable to parse as DateTime: '14/05/2026' (String)

NS logs may also show SQL-related failures:

The data types text and text are incompatible in the equal to operator.

This issue is typically observed in Data Connector resource import rules that populate custom data classes and use date values such as <Start Time> or imported date fields.

 

Symptoms

You may observe one or more of the following:

• Resource import task fails unexpectedly
• Date conversion errors during Data Connector execution
• SQL exceptions in NS logs
• Import rules that worked before upgrade no longer succeed

Environment

ITMS 8.8, 8.8.1
Data Connector Solution

Cause

This issue involves two separate but related failures discovered after upgrading to ITMS 8.8:

1. Date parsing failure
   • Data Connector fails to interpret date strings in regional formats such as DD/MM/YYYY.
   • Systems using non-English locale settings (for example pt-BR) are more likely to reproduce this issue.
2. SQL datatype comparison limitation
   • Data Connector attempts to compare SQL columns defined as text or ntext.
   • Microsoft SQL Server does not support equality comparisons against these legacy datatypes.

A fix was identified as the intended resolution path for the parsing issue and related Data Connector handling improvements.

Resolution

A fix has been targeted for our next ITMS Release: ITMS 8.8.2

A pointfix is available for those with ITMS 8.8.1 Release. See CUMULATIVE POST ITMS 8.8.1 POINT FIXES

Validation

After remediation:

1. Re-run the import rule.
2. Confirm no parsing exception.
3. Confirm no SQL datatype exception.
4. Review Notification Server (NS) logs.

Expected result:

Import completes successfully

No occurrences of:

Failed to convert the value...

or

The data types text and text are incompatible...