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title Database Engine: Breaking Changes
titleSuffix SQL Server 2025 Preview
description Breaking changes to database engine features in SQL Server 2025 Preview.
author MikeRayMSFT
ms.author mikeray
ms.reviewer randolphwest, mathoma
ms.date 09/15/2025
ms.service sql
ms.subservice release-landing
ms.topic conceptual
helpviewer_keywords
breaking changes 2017 [SQL Server]
monikerRange >=sql-server-2017 || >=sql-server-linux-2017

Breaking changes to Database Engine features in SQL Server 2025 Preview

[!INCLUDE sqlserver2025]

This article describes the breaking changes to features in the SQL Server Database Engine introduced with [!INCLUDE sssql25-md]. These changes can break applications, scripts, or functionalities that are based on earlier versions of [!INCLUDE ssNoVersion].

Linked server connections fail after an upgrade

[!INCLUDE sssql25-md] includes changes to encryption that introduce a breaking change to linked servers. These changes can break applications, scripts, or functionalities that are based on earlier versions of [!INCLUDE ssNoVersion].

When you upgrade from previous versions of SQL Server to [!INCLUDE sssql25-md] with Microsoft OLE DB Driver 19, existing linked server configurations might fail. Different default values for the encryption parameter might cause this failure unless a valid certificate is provided.

In [!INCLUDE sssql25-md]:

For information about how to connect securely to [!INCLUDE sssql25-md] instances, see TDS 8.0.

Replication components fail after an upgrade

[!INCLUDE sssql25-md] includes changes to encryption that introduce a breaking change to Transactional, Snapshot, Peer-to-peer and Merge replication.

Replication components might fail after an upgrade to [!INCLUDE sssql25-md] from all previous versions of SQL Server if your SQL Server instance:

  • Is configured as a replication publisher.
  • Has a remote distributor in the replication topology.
  • Isn't configured with a trusted certificate.

You might see the following behavior after the upgrade:

  • Replication continues to succeed but changes to the publication fail.
  • Replication Monitor in SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) fails.
  • Agent status in the SSMS UI fails.

A remote distributor uses a linked server for communication between the publisher and distributor. The secure default introduced in [!INCLUDE sssql25-md] of the OLEDB 19 provider requires that TrustServerCertificate=False.

You can resolve this issue preemptively before you start the upgrade, or you can resolve the issue if replication components fail after an upgrade.

Before starting the upgrade

If you know that your SQL Server instance is going to encounter this issue after an upgrade, you can preemptively mitigate the failure by configuring the SQL Server instance to use a public commercial certificate or a certificate from an internal certificate authority.

This is the recommended option for maximum security.

Failed components after an upgrade

If your replication components fail after an upgrade, you can still configure the SQL Server instance to use a public commercial certificate or a certificate from an internal certificate authority.

Alternatively, you can choose the less secure option to override the secure default of the OLEDB 19 provider and set trust_distributor_certificate=yes so the distributor trusts the self-signed certificate.

To override the new secure default, use the sp_changedistributor_property stored procedure to set the trust_distributor_certificate option to yes:

exec sp_changedistributor_property @property = N'trust_distributor_certificate', @value = N'yes'

[!INCLUDE sql-25-repl-distributor-info]

Adding a remote replication distributor fails

[!INCLUDE sssql25-md] includes changes to Encryption that introduce a breaking change to Transactional, Snapshot, Peer-to-peer and Merge replication.

When configuring a distributor for replication, the Sp_adddistributor stored procedure fails when:

  • The publisher is a [!INCLUDE sssql25-md] instance.
  • The distributor is remote.
  • The distributor isn't configured with a trusted certificate.

You might see the following error when running sp_adddistributor on the publisher instance:

OLE DB provider "MSOLEDBSQL19" for linked server "repl_distributor" returned message
"Client unable to establish connection".
Msg -2146893019, Level 16, State 1, Line 21
SSL Provider: The certificate chain was issued by an authority that is not trusted.

A remote distributor uses a linked server for communication between the publisher and distributor. The secure default introduced in [!INCLUDE sssql25-md] of the OLEDB 19 provider requires that TrustServerCertificate=False.

To resolve this issue, configure the distributor SQL Server instance to use a public commercial certificate or a certificate from an internal certificate authority.

Alternatively, you can choose the less secure option to override the secure default of the OLEDB 19 provider and set TrustServerCertificate=True so the distributor trusts the self-signed certificate. To override the default, use the trust_distributor_certificate parameter when calling the sp_adddistributor stored procedure:

exec sys.sp_adddistributor @trust_distributor_certificate = 'yes';

[!INCLUDE sql-25-repl-distributor-info]

Remote log shipping monitoring can break

[!INCLUDE sssql25-md] includes changes to encryption that introduce a breaking change to log shipping. You might encounter these issues when you upgrade.

Log shipping monitoring can break if the monitor is a remote [!INCLUDE sssql25-md] instance when other SQL Server instances in the log shipping topology use a previous version.

For information about how to connect securely to [!INCLUDE sssql25-md] instances, see TDS 8.0.

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