# Limitation and considerations

When using a Microsoft SQL Server database as a target in a Replicate task, The following imitations apply:

* When Use BCP for loading tables is selected in the endpoint settings' Advanced tab (the default), the following limitations apply:

  * Full-sized LOB columns are not supported in Batch optimized apply change processing mode. You can work around this limitation by [limiting LOB column size in the task settings](https://help.qlik.com/en-US/replicate/May2026/Content/Global_Common/Content/SharedEMReplicate/Customize%20Tasks/target_metadata.htm), clearing the Use BCP for loading tables option, or switching to Transactional apply mode.

  * If following large object types are empty in the source database (0 bytes), they will not be empty after Full Load:

    * BLOB will be written as 0x0000 (2 bytes)

    * TEXT (VARCHAR(max)) will be written as 0X00 (1 byte)

    * NTEXT (NVARCHAR(max)) will be written as 0x0000 (2 bytes)

    Information noteIf these types are empty during Change Processing, they will be correctly written to the target as empty (0 bytes).

  * Triggers are not executed.

  For more information on the Use BCP for loading tables mode, see [Setting advanced connection properties](https://help.qlik.com/en-US/replicate/May2026/Content/Replicate/Main/SQL%20Server/SQLServerDBTarget_AdvProps.htm).

* When both the Batch optimized apply and Limit LOB size to options are enabled, BLOB columns on the target will be truncated to a quarter of the size specified in the [Limit LOB size to](https://help.qlik.com/en-US/replicate/May2026/Content/Global_Common/Content/SharedEMReplicate/Customize%20Tasks/target_metadata.htm) field, while CLOB columns will be truncated to half the specified size.

* If you need to replicate 4-byte emoji characters, use a transformation to convert the data type from WSTRING(n ) to WSTRING ( n\*2 ).