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Problem connecting to an instance of a SQL Server Cluster
I was asked to try and find out why a web server could not communicate with the database. After checking all the usual network configurations I was beginning to despair. Together with the sys-admin we...
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Counting the occurrences of a character in a column
I needed to count the number of periods in a nvarchar column and, as usual, there is no specific help in SQL’s string library. I don’t want to go the CLR route as it’s a maintenance script and can’t...
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Installing SQL 2005 on Vista
When you install SQL Server on Vista none of your accounts are added to sys admin role, so you may find it difficult to connect the database server! To get around this problem you should run the SQL...
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How to connect to a SQL2008 machine
Ok I admit it, I’m a developer and configuring access to SQL Server is not my bag (baby). SQL 2005 had a nice big Surface Area Configuration button than just allowed access from clients, so I ignored...
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SQL Server with external drives – pending recovery
When you are developing a SQL Server database you might want to use External Storage devices. Beware of a couple of slight gotchas. When you restart your machine SQL Server may start before the drives...
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SQL Server – The log cannot be rebuilt because
I had the blood-drawn-from-face moments when a database stated is was ‘pending recovery’. Ultimately the transaction log file was broken. Actually I didn’t care about that because I knew it was pretty...
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How to Backup SQL to Azure Storage
SQL Server 2016 allows you to backup a database to Azure Storage. I found the information about this to be disjoint at best. So, if you want to do an old style (non-snapshot) backup of a database this...
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How to check the progress of SQL Server Shrink Database
Periodically run; SELECT GetDate(),percent_complete, start_time, status, command, estimated_completion_time, cpu_time, total_elapsed_time FROM sys.dm_exec_requests where command = ‘DbccFilesCompact’
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Problem shrinking tempdb – could not be moved because it is a work table page
SQL holds a lot of cached information in tempdb. Until it’s cleared it won’t allow tempdb to be shrunk. So here’s a quick script you might have some joy with (obviously be aware that you will suffer...
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Monitoring the progress of CreateIndex
One of the frustrating aspects of SQL Server is the lack of progress indicators. One such command falling into this pit is CreateIndex. However, this is a great link for a solution;...
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