SQL Server error 4928 - no replication or CDC - sql-server

Question

I'm trying to rename a column but I'm getting this error:
Msg 4928, Level 16, State 1, Procedure sp_rename, Line 547
Cannot alter column 'appraisal_id' because it is 'enabled for Replication or Change Data Capture'.
Msg 0, Level 20, State 0, Line 0
A severe error occurred on the current command. The results, if any, should be discarded.
No replication is configured. At some point CDC was enabled on the database and a few tables (including the table I'm trying to rename a column on), but it is currently disabled on the database. I'm assuming it was disabled on the database without first disabling it on each table, and that's causing this problem. I would say this is a SQL Server bug.
As a workaround, I can re-enable CDC on the database, disable it on the table, and then disable it on the database, then I can rename the column.
I'm trying to find out which tables have this problem (our database has 3500 tables), so I can fix this once and for all and avoid this in future. I don't see anything in any of the system tables (I checked sys.tables, sys.objects, sysobject, sys.columns, syscolumns) that indicates this table has CDC enabled. All the relevant columns (is_published, is_schema_published, is_merge_published, is_tracked_by_cdc) have value 0.
Any idea where SQL Server stores this information ?
I'm using SQL 2008 and 2008 R2; the problem occurs on both.
You can reproduce the problem with the script below:
CREATE DATABASE TestCDC
GO
USE TestCDC
GO
CREATE TABLE dbo.fish(
fish_id int NOT NULL
, name nvarchar(100) NOT NULL
, CONSTRAINT XPKfish PRIMARY KEY (fish_id))
GO
EXECUTE sp_cdc_enable_db
GO
EXECUTE sys.sp_cdc_enable_table
#source_schema = N'dbo'
, #source_name = 'fish'
, #capture_instance = 'my_capture'
, #role_name = NULL
, #filegroup_name = NULL
GO
EXECUTE sp_cdc_disable_db
GO
EXECUTE sp_rename 'dbo.fish.name', 'fish_name'

Answer 1

I'm assuming you have figured this out since but I just came across this problem again and perhaps people would like a good answer on this thread.
It seems that if you disable CDC on the database level it does disable it everywhere but these errors keep occurring.
In order to overcome this problem the trick is to:
Activate CDC on the DB level
EXECUTE sp_cdc_enable_db
GO
Activate CDC on the table
EXEC sys.sp_cdc_enable_table
#source_schema = N'dbo',
#source_name = N'MyTable',
#role_name = N'MyRole',
#supports_net_changes = 1
GO
Disable CDC on the table
EXEC sys.sp_cdc_disable_table
#source_schema = N'dbo',
#source_name = N'MyTable',
#capture_instance = N'dbo_MyTable'
GO
Disable CDC on the DB level
EXECUTE sp_cdc_disable_db
GO

Answer 2

I don't have access to an instance with CDC enabled to test this, but based on the text of the internal procedure used to enable cdc (usefully made accessible here), it might be that one or more tables in the cdc schema contain the information - I'd suggest cdc.change_tables as a starting point.

Answer 3

In sys.tables, there are two columns that will tell you whether the server thinks the table is replicated or enabled for cdc (regardless of the database status for those features). Do the ff:
select name, is_tracked_by_cdc, is_replicated
from sys.tables
where is_tracked_by_cdc = 1
or is_replicated = 1
If either is true, you will have to enable the database feature in question (e.g. CDC), disable the feature for any tables that have it, then re-disable the feature at the database level.