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Valerie_Armstro
Valerie_Armstro
Level 9
October 28, 2014
Question

Salesforce Sync Error: UNABLE_TO_LOCK_ROW

  • October 28, 2014
  • 15 replies
  • 10368 views
This morning, I had a Marketo notifcation that Marketo was unable to update Lead in Salesforce.  The error details were: UNABLE_TO_LOCK_ROW: unable to obtain exclusive access to this record.  Any ideas on what may have thrown this error?

Thanks, Community!
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Valerie_Armstro
Valerie_ArmstroAuthor
Level 9
November 5, 2014
Hi Keith,

The best I have found is these explanations in the SFDC community (here and here).  I think the second one gives a good example of what can cause this error to occur.  However, our mostly affected net new leads so I'm still not 100% certain what caused it, but I'm thinking it may have been due to a miscellaneous trigger or Apex job running because our error happened around 1AM. 

As Kenny suggested, you may want to ask your SFDC Admin if any new API integrations or AppExchange apps were added to your instance recently. 
A
Anonymous
November 7, 2014
I just received this error this morning.  I'm wondering if it may have to do with the recent Salesforce Winter '15 release.
Valerie_Armstro
Valerie_ArmstroAuthor
Level 9
December 2, 2014

I encountered the same error again early last week, only this time there were more records affected. I reached out to SFDC Support myself and received a lengthy reply (if you'd like to read through it yourself, let me know and I'll pass it along) about what could cause this error, but no specifics about what is causing the lock row error.

The good news is that if you sync the records again, you shouldn't see the error again from SFDC. As Kenny said, this is usually caused when the Data Loader/API are trying to do some operation on a record while another user in the UI/tool/integration are also attempting to do work on the same record at the same time. However, if you continue to get this error, you'll need to reach out to SFDC to have them monitor it and provide them with the following information:

  • ​The user being used to make the API (Insert/Update/Upsert/etc. call)
  • What is this call trying to accomplish?
  • What triggers this call?
  • How many times did this happen? When did you first see it?
  • Is this happening consistently/sporadically?
    A
    Anonymous
    June 30, 2015

    We are also having this problem with more and more frequency. I have submitted a case, but want to know if there is a way to have Marketo send you an alert when this happens. I only notice because leads that I upload aren't showing up in our SFDC campaigns.  Any ideas on how to get alerted on this error?

    Valerie_Armstro
    Valerie_ArmstroAuthor
    Level 9
    June 30, 2015

    Hi Tracie Liao​,

    If you go to Notifications, there is a Subscribe button where you can select which type of notifications you would like to receive an email alert about. You'll want to subscribe to the CRM Sync notification type.

    More info here: Understanding Notifications - Marketo Docs - Product Docs

      A
      Anonymous
      June 30, 2015

      Thanks Valerie. I am subscribed to those and have received them for other

      Sync Errors, but never for this particular error about locked rows. I just

      imported a list that had ~30 of these errors and didn't receive a

      notification.

      Tracie Liao

      Sr. Demand Generation Manager | CloudPassage

      tliao@cloudpassage.com

      Follow us on Twitter <http://twitter.com/cloudpassage> and LinkedIn

      <https://www.linkedin.com/company/cloudpassage>

      On Tue, Jun 30, 2015 at 11:09 AM, Valerie Armstrong <

      M
      mzzee
      Level 4
      October 1, 2019

      What's the best way to create a list or report of records that are being affected by this?

      Ken_Ozawa3
      Ken_Ozawa3
      Level 1
      November 27, 2019

      I don't know if this is the "best" but you can do a "is a memer of X" and "is not a member of SFDC campaign (target)

      so for example, I have a static list, which should have been the total list, and there were those who did successfully go into SFDC campaign through the flow and a few who failed. - so I created a smart list - Is a member of the static list, but not in the SFDC campaign, and you will know who failed the sync. 

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