SQL Server Error 4208

Error number

4208

Severity

16 (user-correctable error)

State

1

Product

Microsoft SQL Server Database Engine

Versions

All supported SQL Server versions (2016 to 2025), Azure SQL Managed Instance (where you can take log backups yourself)

Category

Backup & Restore

Last reviewed

24 October 2026

What it means

Error 4208 means you tried to back up the transaction log of a database that uses the SIMPLE recovery model, where log backups do not exist.

In the SIMPLE recovery model SQL Server truncates the transaction log at checkpoints by itself, so the log never holds an unbroken record of changes since the last backup. A log backup would have nothing complete to save, and it could never be applied during a restore, so the engine rejects BACKUP LOG outright with 4208 and the statement ends with Msg 3013 ... BACKUP LOG is terminating abnormally. Nothing is written.

Read the message as a mismatch between the backup plan and the database setting, not as a failure of the backup itself. The question to answer is which side is wrong: either the database really should be SIMPLE (and the log backup job should leave it out), or someone needs point-in-time restore and the recovery model has to be FULL. The same check applies to a tail-log backup WITH NORECOVERY: in SIMPLE there is no tail to save.

Common causes

• A log backup job or maintenance plan includes every user database, and some of them use SIMPLE recovery (often because the model database is SIMPLE, so new databases inherit it).
• Someone switched the database to SIMPLE, for example to shrink a large log, and the scheduled log backups now fail.
• A restore runbook or the SSMS restore dialog tries to take a tail-log backup of a SIMPLE database before restoring over it.
• A database was restored or created from a script that sets SIMPLE recovery, on a server where log backups are expected.

Diagnose it

Read-only These queries only read metadata and dynamic management views. They do not change data, permissions or configuration, so they are safe to run first.

SELECT name, recovery_model_desc, log_reuse_wait_desc
FROM sys.databases
WHERE name IN (N'AppDb', N'model');

SELECT TOP (10) type, recovery_model, backup_start_date, backup_finish_date, is_copy_only
FROM msdb.dbo.backupset
WHERE database_name = N'AppDb'
ORDER BY backup_finish_date DESC;

SELECT name, recovery_model_desc, state_desc
FROM sys.databases
WHERE recovery_model_desc = 'SIMPLE'
  AND database_id > 4
ORDER BY name;

How to fix it

Each fix is labelled with what it changes. Try read-only checks and the least invasive fix first, and test changes outside production.

-- Back up a SIMPLE database with full (and optionally differential) backups instead
BACKUP DATABASE AppDb
TO DISK = N'D:\Backups\AppDb_diff_20261023.bak'
WITH DIFFERENTIAL, CHECKSUM;

ALTER DATABASE AppDb SET RECOVERY FULL;

BACKUP DATABASE AppDb
TO DISK = N'D:\Backups\AppDb_full_20261023.bak'
WITH CHECKSUM;

BACKUP LOG AppDb
TO DISK = N'D:\Backups\AppDb_log_20261023_1400.trn'
WITH CHECKSUM;

BACKUP DATABASE AppDb
TO DISK = N'D:\Backups\AppDb_before_restore.bak'
WITH COPY_ONLY, CHECKSUM;

Examples

Log backup of a SIMPLE recovery database

-- Throwaway database in SIMPLE recovery
ALTER DATABASE AppDb SET RECOVERY SIMPLE;
BACKUP LOG AppDb TO DISK = 'NUL';   -- NUL discards the output; the error comes first

Msg 4208, Level 16, State 1, Line 3
The statement BACKUP LOG is not allowed while the recovery model is SIMPLE. Use BACKUP DATABASE or change the recovery model using ALTER DATABASE.
Msg 3013, Level 16, State 1, Line 3
BACKUP LOG is terminating abnormally.

A working log chain, then a switch to SIMPLE

Lab only: DISK = 'NUL' discards the backups, which is never acceptable for real backups. The last statement is the tail-log backup a restore runbook would take; it fails the same way.

ALTER DATABASE AppDb SET RECOVERY FULL;
BACKUP DATABASE AppDb TO DISK = 'NUL';
BACKUP LOG AppDb TO DISK = 'NUL';                    -- works in FULL

ALTER DATABASE AppDb SET RECOVERY SIMPLE;           -- for example, to shrink the log
USE master;
BACKUP LOG AppDb TO DISK = 'NUL' WITH NORECOVERY;   -- tail-log backup before a restore

Msg 4208, Level 16, State 1, Line 7
The statement BACKUP LOG is not allowed while the recovery model is SIMPLE. Use BACKUP DATABASE or change the recovery model using ALTER DATABASE.
Msg 3013, Level 16, State 1, Line 7
BACKUP LOG is terminating abnormally.

How to prevent it

Decide the recovery model per database with whoever owns the data, write it down, and let backup jobs read sys.databases rather than a hard-coded list: log backups for FULL and BULK_LOGGED, full and differential backups for everything. Check the recovery model of model, because new databases copy it.

Do not switch production databases to SIMPLE to manage log size; schedule log backups more often instead (see error 9002 for why a log fills up). Each switch ends the log chain, and point-in-time restore is impossible across it.

Common questions

Learn more on CodeWithSQL

• SQL transactions and ACID explained
• Working with large databases

Official documentation

• Recovery models (SQL Server)
• View or change the recovery model of a database
• Transaction log backups (SQL Server)

Last technically reviewed 24 October 2026; examples and diagnostics run on SQL Server 2025 (17.0.1145.4). Message text checked against the engine's sys.messages catalogue.