The Messaging Engine failed to retrieve the configuration from the database. Details:"80070057"

I recently encountered an intermittent repeating error in BizTalk 2013 R2, logged in the Windows Application Event Log.

Error   BizTalk Server    5641

The Messaging Engine failed to retrieve the configuration from the database. Details:"80070057".

Not much detail to go by!  These sorts of errors relate to talking to the ESSO database, but don't go into any more detail.

Unfortunately, no amount of DTC logging could pin down the issue and in the end I had to raise this one with Microsoft.  It took them a while to narrow it down, but in the end it was pinned down to a corrupt Receive Location configuration in SSO.

It wasn't corrupt enough to cause the service to fail, so there were no other signs of issues.  And there was no way of finding out what was triggering the error without detailed traces being performed and being analysed with Microsoft's in-house tools.

If you get this error and don't have an agreement with Microsoft or fancy paying the money, then you might be able to resolve it by undeploying all your applications and redeploying them.  In the end the issue was resolved by a simple recreating the port, but knowing which one is tricky.