Steve Fenton

If you attempt to create a user in SQL Server and get the following error: You can only create a user with a password in a contained database You probably didn’t quite configure your database as you intended. You can use the script below to fix it up (substitute DatabaseNameHere with your actual database name. […]

If you are working on an older application that has a lot of logic inside of the SQL database in jobs, procedures, and functions – you may find that your job schedules cause a repeating wave of SQL compilation peaks. If you suspect jobs may be the cause, you can use a query to find […]

Want to know who deleted rows from your SQL database? The script below joins up delete transactions with users in order to find out who just deleted something. Because this comes from the transaction log, you’ll only find stuff that is still available in there. This means it will be affected by retention/recovery modes. If […]

The following query will get you the database size and log file size for all databases on a SQL Server instance.

If you have a blocking query, you probably follow a set of manual steps a bit like this… Run sp_who2. Follow the “blocked by” SPIDs until you find a root-SPID (one that is blocking, but not blocked). Run DBCC INPUTBUFFER with the SPID to see what query is being run After doing this twice in […]

Sometimes you need to filter and sort the records you get from sp_who2. You can’t do this directly, but you can use a temporary table to do it. — Create an intermediate table to put all the results CREATE TABLE #spootoo ( SPID INT, Status VARCHAR(1000) NULL, Login SYSNAME NULL, HostName SYSNAME NULL, BlkBy SYSNAME […]

Here is a quick SQL script that will get back information on SQL availability groups, including the role of each server. This can help you find the primary server in an availability group. IF SERVERPROPERTY (‘IsHadrEnabled’) = 1 BEGIN SELECT AvailabilityGroup.name AS AvailabilityGroupName, ReplicaClusterStates.replica_server_name as ServerName, ReplicaStates.role_desc as ReplicaRole, Listeners.dns_name as DnsName FROM sys.availability_groups_cluster AS […]

I have a script I use to find table sizes in SQL server. Sometimes, though, I need to find the rough table size of a massive table without the need for absolute precision. SQL server has a procedure for finding out the number of rows, space, and index size of a table; and it can […]