DBCC CHECKIDENT call never returns

I am calling DBCC CHECKIDENT from a VB App through ADO. The call is not
returning, even after a day. If I do the same call through Query Analyser it
takes about a minute to run.
Can anyone think of anything that might affect the use of DBCC CHECKIDENT. I
cant check for deadlocks, because the Current Activity tab in Enterprise
Manager is locked up, presumably because of a deadlock of some kind...
Thanks in advance,
Fred Forsyth.
Development Manager
The reason EM is "locked up" is certainly not due to a deadlock. SQL Server
automatically resolves deadlocks in a few seconds. It might be due to
blocking though. What permissions does the vb app have? To run DBCC
CHECKIDENT you must be sa or dbo.
Andrew J. Kelly SQL MVP
"Fred Forsyth" <fred.forsyth.nospam@.nospam.rcp.co.uk> wrote in message
news:%23nkjGb6BGHA.4076@.TK2MSFTNGP14.phx.gbl...
>I am calling DBCC CHECKIDENT from a VB App through ADO. The call is not
>returning, even after a day. If I do the same call through Query Analyser
>it takes about a minute to run.
> Can anyone think of anything that might affect the use of DBCC CHECKIDENT.
> I cant check for deadlocks, because the Current Activity tab in Enterprise
> Manager is locked up, presumably because of a deadlock of some kind...
> Thanks in advance,
> Fred Forsyth.
> Development Manager
>
|||Fred Forsyth (fred.forsyth.nospam@.nospam.rcp.co.uk) writes:
> I am calling DBCC CHECKIDENT from a VB App through ADO. The call is not
> returning, even after a day. If I do the same call through Query
> Analyser it takes about a minute to run.
> Can anyone think of anything that might affect the use of DBCC
> CHECKIDENT. I cant check for deadlocks, because the Current Activity tab
> in Enterprise Manager is locked up, presumably because of a deadlock of
> some kind...
Current Activity gets block if some process has create tables within a
transaction that still is open.
Use sp_who or sp_who2 to check for blocking. Check the Blk or BlkBy column.
If this column has a non-zero value, the spid on this row, is blocked by
spid in the Blk column.
Erland Sommarskog, SQL Server MVP, esquel@.sommarskog.se
Books Online for SQL Server 2005 at
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/pro...ads/books.mspx
Books Online for SQL Server 2000 at
http://www.microsoft.com/sql/prodinf...ons/books.mspx
|||Some further investigation has shown that the VB process is blocked
waiting on a checkpoint to complete, and that there is a system process
that is attempting to checkpoint the database but is blocked by the VB
process. (I can this through select * from sysprocesses).
I suspect that the reason for the need to checkpoint is that the I
removed the log files from the databases, and then run the dbcc command
on them, and that this is what is causing the problems. I think my test
case is at fault, because in the real world the original log files
would be there (they are very big, hence the reason I removed them).
|||The log files are pretty important and it is never a good idea to remove
them.
Andrew J. Kelly SQL MVP
<fredforsyth@.gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1135870204.499678.310830@.f14g2000cwb.googlegr oups.com...
> Some further investigation has shown that the VB process is blocked
> waiting on a checkpoint to complete, and that there is a system process
> that is attempting to checkpoint the database but is blocked by the VB
> process. (I can this through select * from sysprocesses).
> I suspect that the reason for the need to checkpoint is that the I
> removed the log files from the databases, and then run the dbcc command
> on them, and that this is what is causing the problems. I think my test
> case is at fault, because in the real world the original log files
> would be there (they are very big, hence the reason I removed them).
>
|||(fredforsyth@.gmail.com) writes:
> Some further investigation has shown that the VB process is blocked
> waiting on a checkpoint to complete, and that there is a system process
> that is attempting to checkpoint the database but is blocked by the VB
> process. (I can this through select * from sysprocesses).
> I suspect that the reason for the need to checkpoint is that the I
> removed the log files from the databases,
You did what? Never, never do that again! If you remove the log file,
you are gambling with your database. There is a fair chance that you
will have to remove the data file as well, because it will not be
accessibe.

> I think my test case is at fault, because in the real world the original
> log files would be there (they are very big, hence the reason I removed
> them).
You can shrink a log file with DBCC SHRINKFILE, but don't do this with a
production database, unless the log file has grown because of some
one-off operation.
For a production database, you should also backup the transaction log
regulary. If you don't care about up-to-the-point recovery, you can set
the database in simple recovery mode.
Erland Sommarskog, SQL Server MVP, esquel@.sommarskog.se
Books Online for SQL Server 2005 at
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/pro...ads/books.mspx
Books Online for SQL Server 2000 at
http://www.microsoft.com/sql/prodinf...ons/books.mspx