BCP Batch File Produces Sporatic Corrupt Data

Matt writes "Greetings! Warning, I'm a rookie. I wrote a stored procedure to pull data in order to do a nightly export/import from one system to another. I have a batch file that looks like this:

bcp "exec WinSNAP_retrieveStudents '0607'" queryout c:WinSNAPData06.txt -c -U user -P password

Sometimes, the file works and I get perfectly formed data, with everything just as I've requested (mostly basic demographic information: names, addresses, etc.).

But, other times the output file contains nothing but garbage characters, like this:

剒乏†††††††††ठ䅍啎䱅†††䴉㐉㐷‰䕓䄠䅐䡃⁅剄

The file size looks right, but it contains nothing but characters like this from beginning to end. I can find no pattern as to why/when good data gets pulled versus the corrupt data. I can run the batch file one minute and get good data, and run it the next minute and it's all corrupt. We have the batch file scheduled late at night when no users are online, and I get the same results -- one day it works, the next it doesn't.

Forgive me if this is a well-documented issue -- my searches so far haven't turned up a thing!

Thanks much for any advice you can provide!!

Matt Smith
DeSoto County School District
Arcadia, FL"