"Table variable already exists." error when installing on Windows/IIS7/MSSQL

By katannshaw on 24 Feb 2012 at 22:42 UTC

I'm a Drupal newbie, and since we're a Microsoft shop here, I decided to try out the Drupal for Windows install at http://www.microsoft.com/web/drupal.

I finally was able to get Drupal 7 installed using the Commerce Guys version after a lot of assistance from Mr. Alex Pilotti, but when I went to run the install.php, I ran into an error on the "Verify Requirements" section. It says: "Table variable already exists.".

I found my instance if Drupal database in MS SQL Server 2008 Express, and a bunch of tables are already there, including dbo.variable. But why would I get that error in that stage of installation?

Thanks for any help.

Comments

Either through your trial and

Jaypan commented 25 February 2012 at 02:16

Either through your trial and error you somehow partially installed Drupal into the database, or mssql has it's own table named {variable}. If it's the second, I have no idea how you would fix that, I know nothing about mssql. If it's the first, then clear out all your database tables, and try again.

Now I get "HTTP Error 500.0: Module or ISAPI error occurred"

katannshaw commented 27 February 2012 at 15:04

Thanks for the reply. I did what you said by removing all of the talbles, and starting over on the install. But now when it gets to that section, I get an http 500 error, and this is what it states the issues is: "500.0 - Module or ISAPI error occurred."

The error (seen below) states that the error occurred with the FastCgi Module. Do you or anyone have any clues why this error would occur upon installation? Thanks.

*****ERROR BEGINS*****

HTTP Error 500.0 - Internal Server Error
The page cannot be displayed because an internal server error has occurred.
Most likely causes:

IIS received the request; however, an internal error occurred during the processing of the request. The root cause of this error depends on which module handles the request and what was happening in the worker process when this error occurred.
IIS was not able to access the web.config file for the Web site or application. This can occur if the NTFS permissions are set incorrectly.
IIS was not able to process configuration for the Web site or application.
The authenticated user does not have permission to use this DLL.
The request is mapped to a managed handler but the .NET Extensibility Feature is not installed.

Things you can try:

Ensure that the NTFS permissions for the web.config file are correct and allow access to the Web server's machine account.
Check the event logs to see if any additional information was logged.
Verify the permissions for the DLL.
Install the .NET Extensibility feature if the request is mapped to a managed handler.
Check the failed request tracing logs for additional information about this error. For more information, click here.

Detailed Error Information:
Module FastCgiModule
Notification ExecuteRequestHandler
Handler PHP53_via_FastCGI1
Error Code 0xc0000005
Requested URL http://localhost:12345/install.php?profile=standard&locale=en
Physical Path C:\Users\MYUSERNAME\Documents\My Web Sites\Drupal 7.2 Developer release\install.php
Logon Method Anonymous
Logon User Anonymous
Request Tracing Directory C:\Users\MYUSERNAME\Documents\IISExpress\TraceLogFiles\DRUPAL 7.2 DEVELOPER RELEASE
More Information:
This error means that there was a problem while processing the request. The request was received by the Web server, but during processing a fatal error occurred, causing the 500 error.

View more information »

Microsoft Knowledge Base Articles:
294807

*****ERROR ENDS*****

Katherine Shaw, Front-end Developer, Lullabot

A 500 error is an error on

Jaypan commented 29 February 2012 at 07:29

A 500 error is an error on the server level, before Drupal is even initiated. These errors will leave a message in the error log on the server - you should check in there and see what the error is.

It ended up being a bug with

katannshaw commented 7 March 2012 at 21:56

It ended up being a bug with the install, which was fixed with the help of Mark Brown. So all is good with the world, and the install worked:)

Now I'm on to learning Drupal 7...

Thanks for your reply!

Katherine Shaw, Front-end Developer, Lullabot

Table variable already exists.

j-pmic commented 14 March 2012 at 04:03

I run into the same issue where I'm able to start the install.php program and after verification it stop at Table variable already exists. I see that the table is created. i tried to drop that table in the SQL Server database but then I will get the error message on an other table.

If I drop all the tables from the SQL database and start again it will again stop at the same place.
It will also give me

Notice: Undefined property: DatabaseConnection_sqlsrv::$defaultPrefix in DatabaseConnection_sqlsrv->prefixTablesCallback() (line 176 of C:\inetpub\beavertix.com\includes\database\sqlsrv\database.inc).
Notice: Undefined property: DatabaseConnection_sqlsrv::$defaultPrefix in DatabaseConnection_sqlsrv->prefixTablesCallback() (line 176 of C:\inetpub\beavertix.com\includes\database\sqlsrv\database.inc).
Notice: Undefined property: DatabaseConnection_sqlsrv::$defaultPrefix in DatabaseConnection_sqlsrv->prefixTablesCallback() (line 176 of C:\inetpub\beavertix.com\includes\database\sqlsrv\database.inc).

You said that there was a bug, can you share the solution ?
What should I do

Sorry for not responding

katannshaw commented 29 March 2012 at 18:28

Sorry for not responding sooner. Hopefully you've already found a solution.

I was told that there was a bug in the install with the database.inc file. It should be fixed now, so if you go to http://www.microsoft.com/web/drupal and click on one of the two buttons to install Drupal, you should be good. If it still doesn't work for you, let me know, and I'll ask around. Good luck.

Katherine Shaw, Front-end Developer, Lullabot

"Table variable already exists." error solved

slgprakash commented 29 May 2012 at 09:04

I could get this work by deleting the settings.php under sites/default and copying back the default.settings.php to settings.php.

I hit this error when I wanted to re-install the drupal when the DB server crashed. First time I ran this, was using MSSQL 2005 and hit some error. After that when I tried to re-configure the db server to another MSSQL 2008R2, it would give this error even before it went to the DB config screen.

Guru

Same Error

drupal4rocky commented 3 July 2012 at 16:36

I am trying to setup Drupal with IIS 7.5, SQL Server 2008 and Drupal 7.14.
I have setup IIS, PHP and other requirements as per instructions.
I have setup the SQL Server PDO driver and modified that in the php.ini.

When I go to install Drupal by going to the install.php the first time the setup ended with just an empty screen, not error no confirmation just an empty blank screen. I tried to redo the install and then I got the "Table variable already exists" error. So I deleted all the tables in the database and tried again and I still get the same error.

I am thinking this may be a bug in the install script.

Rocky.

Table variable already exist

swara05 commented 4 September 2012 at 12:21


  I also Have This Error 
 

      Hii..im newbie to drupal and trying to install drupal on windows...i complited the process of up to verify requirnments.& when i turn in to setup database stage and give the db name,password ,username and clil\k on continue it gives me error of appache encountred error "the eeror report" and then it send the error of table variable already exist" 

    I feel very hang nw..Plse any help wiil appriciated 


                           Thanx............

Drupal Error: “Table variable already exists”

itshaseebanwar commented 17 January 2014 at 02:20

Error: “Table variable already exists” How to fix if it occurs during fresh installation of Drupal.

Please visit the below link:

http://thesstech.com/how-resolve-error-%E2%80%9Ctable-variable-already-e...

Thanks itshaseebanwar.. A

swara05 commented 12 February 2014 at 10:19

Thanks itshaseebanwar.. A great article to help cover this error.

Drupal Installation

rkrobert04 commented 6 September 2014 at 08:06

Am getting this Error message: "Table variable already exists." drupal 7.x in windows

This may help

jaesperanza commented 3 June 2015 at 22:00

Had a similar issue on local machine, Windows, XAMPP. Fixed by:

1. Copying the default.settings.php as the new settings.php
2. Deleted all tables (drop) from the initial database created on failed installation
3. Cleared browser cache
4. Re-run installation again

Hope this works for you.

My solution

dylanpierce commented 25 July 2016 at 13:49

Was banging my head against the wall with this error message too, because clearly my database was wiped and recreated.

Yet the "Table variable exists" error continued on installation.

My solution was to :

1. Remove both the sites/default/settings.php and sites/default/default.settings.php
2. Download the sites/default/default.settings.php from the drupal github page.
3. Drop my database and recreate it
4. Run the installer

There must be a PHP variable set when installing drupal7, hopefully this has been fixed in the later versions.