Missing table(s) when upgrading from BC 16.5 to 25.15

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Posted on by Jakob Gillinger

Crossposting from mibuso.

I am attempting to upgrade an on-premise instance of Business Central 16.5 to 25.15. However, when attempting to synchronize System Application, the following error occurs:

Table 4152 Temp Media :: The table 'Temp Media' cannot be located. Removing tables is not allowed unless they are temporary or are being moved by migration to another app.

The table in question is present in v16.5 and later minor versions, but missing in the later version of System Application, but the official guide for upgrading on-premise Business Central makes no mention of adjusting for removed tables. This isn't listed in the known issues and the compatibility matrix for upgrades also states that I should be able to upgrade to any minor version of v25.
I've previously managed to upgrade other databases from v14 to v25 without issues, and using ForceSync during the upgrade process usually results in missing data, so I should be able to do this using the "Add" sync mode alone. This error even occurs when attempting to upgrade the demo database from the installation DVD, so it's unrelated to any customizations of the database. Why am I encountering the error despite following the official guide, and how can I resolve it?

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Dynamics 365 Business Central

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OussamaSabbouh 17,503 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

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Hello,

This error happens because System Application changed ownership of internal tables between v16 and v25, and Temp Media (table 4152) was removed from the System App in later versions; when you jump directly from 16.5 to 25.x, the System App sync sees the missing table as an illegal removal and fails, even though the table still exists in the database and this also reproduces on the demo DB. The upgrade guide doesn’t call this out because Microsoft assumes supported hop upgrades, where intermediate versions run internal cleanup logic that detaches Temp Media correctly. The supported fix is to upgrade through an intermediate version (e.g., 20 or 21), sync and run upgrades, then move to 25.15; only as a last-resort on-prem workaround should you manually delete table 4152 from SQL before syncing, since it’s non-persistent.

Regards,
Oussama Sabbouh

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Jakob Gillinger 84 on at

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Thank you, I assumed something like that to be the cause. I'll try upgrading to BC v21 first and will report my findings.

That being said, I find it strange that the guide assumes hop upgrades considering the upgrade path article is telling me to directly move to v25.15.

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Jakob Gillinger 84 on at

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I can confirm that the intermittent upgrade to BC21 did resolve the issue.

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