The Missing Database

Have you ever seen the following error in your SQL error log:

Error: 18456, Severity: 14, State: 38.
Login failed for user '\'. Reason: Failed to 
open the explicitly specified database. [CLIENT: XXX.XX.XX.XXX] 

Since the error message doesn´t give you which database is missing 
we must find it out.

I found an excellent article by Sadequl Hussain on MSSQL Tips 
which have helped a lot.

Regards

Stefan

SQL Server 2008 R2 Evalutation has expired

I had an interresting case today. Someone had installed SQL Server 2008 R2 evalutation edition and then the server had gone into production after the installer had left the building. Nobody knew that it was evaluation version that were used. Today the evalutation period expired and the server stopped!!!!

After some troubleshooting we found what happened and started to think about what to do. Luckily there were an easy way out without using the backups and reeinstalling.

The link below explains what to do.
http://blogs.technet.com/b/sqlman/archive/2010/03/16/sql-server-2008-upgrading-to-standard-enterprise-edition-from-evaluation-edition.aspx

After doing the necessary steps the SQL Service started fine but the SQL Agent didn´t. I got an wmi error when i tried to change the agent service back to automatic. Apparently this is a bug in SQL Server which appears after the service have been set disabled and you can read about it here.

Maybee this can be of any help to somebody in the future.

Stefan

Msg 952, Level 16, State 1, Database 'Databasename' is in transition.

Today I got an interesting error from one of our db servers. The index maintenance job had failed and in the log I got the following error: Msg 952, Level 16, State 1, Database 'Databasename' is in transition.
When I tried to access the database in SSMS it was not available.

When I ran sp_who2 I saw that there were one session blocking an alter database command from one user. The user blocking had a session open to the database that were unavailable.
I also saw in the sql server logs that the same user had set the database offline the day before. Now it were stuck in between online and offline.

To solve the problem I just killed the blocking session and then the database went offline without any problems.

Recreate ctx_cpsuser

Recently we have virtualized a lot of our machines and because of the overhead the virtualization creates we needed more citrix servers to handle the same amount of users we had. We cloned a couple of the citrix servers to get them up quickly and exact the same.

One problem we got was that the printers wouldn´t create and that was because we needed to recreate the ctx_cpsuser account that runs the citrix print manager service.

Here´s an article on how to handle it.

Stefan

SQL Server benchmarking series Introducing SSDs (Part 2: sequential inserts)

Paul S. Randall has published the second part in benchmarking SSD disks with SQL Server. Great fun reading and these tests are real useful for us who don´t have the equipment our selves for testing.


Read the full blogpost here

How to uninstall a hotfix or Service Pack via the Recovery Console

I had a problem with a computer after installing Windows XP servicepack 3 and the computer restarted and I couldn´t even log into safemode. Looked around and found this article, which can be useful sometime.


How to uninstall a hotfix or Service Pack via the Recovery Console


Regards
Stefan

SQL Server benchmarking series part 5 and introducing SSD

You can read the 5th part in the Benchmarking series here.
The first post about the introduction to SSD disks.
The second post about SSD disks.

I recently bought a SSD to my stationary computer and the result were amazing, even the incredibly slow outlook were fast. I will increase the memory in the computer with 2gb and see what the result will be on the performance tests that I did.

Enjoy the reading I do.

Regards
Stefan