SQL DBA Blog: Home
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SQL Server Backup Failed or the Restore Is Stuck
Three incidents that look alike and share nothing: a BACKUP that failed, a RESTORE that failed, and a restore that is still running. This page routes each one to the post that owns it.
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SQL Server Disk Is Full or the Log Will Not Truncate
A routing page for every out of space incident on SQL Server: which drive, which file, what log_reuse_wait_desc is telling you, and why shrinking comes last.
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msdb Is Growing: Purge Backup, Job and Mail History Safely
Which msdb history table is actually holding the space, why one far back cutoff makes sp_delete_backuphistory hang, and the date stepped purge that finishes.
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SQL Agent Job Failed: Finding the Step That Actually Broke
The job outcome row never carries a cause. Read the step row in msdb.dbo.sysjobhistory first, then route the real message to the owner, proxy, permission, path or truncation behind it.
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Login Failed or Permission Denied in SQL Server
A router for every SQL Server login and permission failure. Find your error number, read the real 18456 state from the ERRORLOG, and go straight to the page that owns the fix.
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Cannot Bulk Load, Access Is Denied (Error 4861): It Is the Service Account, Not You
BULK INSERT fails with 4861 and Access is denied on a file you can open in Notepad. With a SQL Server login the file is opened by the service account, not by you. The reproduction, the operating system error codes that mean something else, and the double hop.
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Execution Timeout Expired: Whose Timeout It Is, and What the Server Was Doing
Msg -2 comes from the client library, not from SQL Server. Here is how to tell the execution timeout from the connection timeout, find out whether the query was blocked when the client gave up, and why raising the timeout is not a fix.
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Locked Out of SQL Server: Regain Sysadmin When Nobody Has It
Nobody has sysadmin, sa is disabled or its password is gone, and the instance is still running. The supported recovery is single-user mode, and it needs local admin on the box, not a SQL permission.
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Restore From a Newer SQL Server Version (Error 3169)
The backup is from a newer version of SQL Server than the server restoring it, and no option changes that. What the two version numbers mean, why attach fails with 948, and the routes that work.
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SSMS “Saving Changes Is Not Permitted”: The Two Ways Out, and Why the Guard Exists
SSMS refuses to save your Table Designer change because it needs the table dropped and re-created. Write it as ALTER TABLE instead, and here is what the re-creation would have cost, measured on 300,000 rows.
- Cannot Connect to WMI Provider: SQL Server Configuration Manager Will Not Open
- SQL Server Configuration Manager: Where to Find It and What a DBA Uses It For
- DBA Scripts: Get Failed Login Summary
- Query Was Fast Yesterday, Slow Today: Find What Changed
- The Current Transaction Cannot Be Committed (Error 3930)
- Sort and Hash Spills to TempDB: Find the Query and Fix the Grant
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