SQL Server error on update command - “A severe error occurred on the current command”

Question

Running the following query in SQL Server Management Studio gives the error below.

update table_name set is_active = 0 where id  = 3

Answer 1

This seems to happen when there's a generic problem with your data source that it isn't handling.

In my case I had inserted a bunch of data, the indexes had become corrupt on the table, they needed rebuilding. I found a script to rebuild them all, seemed to fix it. To find the error I ran the same query on the database - one that had worked 100+ times previously.