ALTER TABLE DROP COLUMN failed because one or more objects access this column

Question

I am trying to do this:

ALTER TABLE CompanyTransactions DROP COLUMN Created

But I get this:

Msg 5074, Level 16, Stat

Answer 1

The @SqlZim's answer is correct but just to explain why this possibly have happened. I've had similar issue and this was caused by very innocent thing: adding default value to a column

ALTER TABLE MySchema.MyTable ADD 
  MyColumn int DEFAULT NULL;

But in the realm of MS SQL Server a default value on a colum is a CONSTRAINT. And like every constraint it has an identifier. And you cannot drop a column if it is used in a CONSTRAINT.

So what you can actually do avoid this kind of problems is always give your default constraints a explicit name, for example:

ALTER TABLE MySchema.MyTable ADD 
  MyColumn int NULL,
  CONSTRAINT DF_MyTable_MyColumn DEFAULT NULL FOR MyColumn;

You'll still have to drop the constraint before dropping the column, but you will at least know its name up front.