I can not read sqlaudit file generated in SQL 2019 from SQL2016

Question

I am trying to read xxx.sql audit file(which has been generated by sql 2019) form sql server 2016 version and I am getting below error:

Msg 33201, Level 17, State 1, Line 31 An error occurred in reading from the audit file or file-pattern: 'g:\Data\Filelogging_xxxxxxx-xxxxxxxx.sqlaudit'. The SQL service account may not have Read permission on the files, or the pattern may be returning one or more corrupt files.

But Permission is checked, and all are fine

Also, file is not corrupted because I can retrieve data from this file using SQL 2019(not from SQL 2019)

Please help me to resolve the issue with troubleshoot steps ...thanks ..

Answer 1

Extended Events files don't have the file format officially documented, however there are different versions per SQL Server major version. This essentially means that, just like databases, XE data is not backwards compatible.

You'll need to use a 2019 instance to read it, if you want to read it with T-SQL, or you can use the .NET XE library that ships with SQL to write a .NET application to parse it.