Possible bug in Synapse Serverless external tables

Question

Sometimes querying an external table gives an error:
Msg 102, Level 15, State 1, Line 1
Incorrect syntax near 'NOT'.

Definitely not a syntax error on my side. The error can happen from a query like this:
SELECT * FROM "external_table"

This error has happened twice and disappears after a while, so it is only temporary but annoying.

Answer 1

I've just received confirmation from MS support that this is indeed a bug in serverless. I believe a fix is in the works no ETA or further information about the scope.

Supposedly there might be a back end fix that can remediated but you need to work with MS Support to enable.

Answer 2

for some more details on this: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/synapse-analytics/sql/resources-self-help-sql-on-demand#incorrect-syntax-near-not

I still see it occasionally, usually it is transient. In extreme cases, dropping and recreating the external table seems to fix this.