The full message will also contain “The version number cannot be greater than the current version number”.
Behaviour
I have an SSIS package installed in an SSISDB which is on a server that run SQL Server 2012 (server A) and it needed to be copied to another 2012 instance (server B). My workstation has SQL Server 2014 and I connect to the 2012 instance on the target server using my workstation instance.
I connected from my workstation to Server A and exported the SSIS package into the required ‘ispac’ file. Then changed my connection to point to Server B and imported the ispac file. So for both the export and import I was using my SQL Server 2014 to connect to SQL Server 2012 instances.
The export and import run without any issues, but when the associated job executed that ran the SSIS package on Server B, it failed. In this case the important part of the error report was:
“Package migration from version 8 to version 6 failed with error 0xC001700a. the version number in the package is not valid. The version number cannot be greater than the current version number.”
Cause
Exporting the SSIS package by using SQL Server 2014 (even though it is connecting to a 2012 instance) appears to have changed the ‘PackageFormatVersion’ property within the dtsx file, form ‘6’ to ‘8’. You can see this by opening the dtsx file in an editor such as Notepad++. Editing that value back to ‘6’ merely corrupts the package, so there are probably further changes made within the file.
Solution
Connect to the required instance using SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) that matches that version in order to complete this export/import. In my case I could remote onto the required servers and use the SSMS for SQL Server 2012 that was installed there. The export and import worked as expected and this time the SSIS package ran without issue.
Notes on SQL 