SQL Server Case of the Week: The Transaction Log of Your Snapshot Replication Publisher Database Won’t Truncate… But Why?
December 12, 2025
Quick Summary When snapshot replication is configured with schema replication enabled, DDL changes are sometimes marked for replication but never marked for truncation, creating a false “undistributed command” that prevents log truncation and causes uncontrolled growth. The solution was to add a log reader agent using sp_addlogreader_agent on the publisher to mark all replicated commands for truncation. Context The SQL
Troubleshooting SQL Server Failover Cluster Instance Weirdness
November 21, 2025
Case of the Week: Quick Summary Two of the four clients’ SQL Server Failover Cluster Instances (FCIs) did not fail over to the secondary node. Context This is a SQL Server 2019 with four load-balanced FCI’s running on two physical servers with 64 CPUs, 4TB of memory, and a Pure Storage array on the backend.
SQL Server Case of the Week: FCI in AWS with SIOS Won’t Failover
November 7, 2025
Quick Summary We received an on-call call from a client who was attempting to run a failover from on a SQL Server Failover Cluster Instance to another but the failover wouldn’t move to the secondary. They tried things, were using the things we had taught them about failing over for their patching or for other
Curious Case of SQL Server Shutting Down Whenever a Job Runs.
October 17, 2025
This is a post in our new Case of the Week series — short write-ups from the real SQL Server issues our team of 17 SQL Server experts helps clients solve every day. Case of the Week: Quick Summary A client reported that their SQL Server service was “randomly shutting down”. They would restart SQL
SQL Just Stops When Running OPENROWSET Query
October 15, 2025
Sometimes people install Office onto a SQL Server to get the drivers for the ability to import data from Excel into SQL Server Tables. This should never be done on a production, or any, server because it can cause many other problems for SQL, one of which is the purpose of this blog. For example,
SQL Server Partition Management Job Failure After Migration to Availability Group.
October 10, 2025
This is the first post in our new Case of the Week series — short write-ups from the real SQL Server issues our team of 17 SQL Server experts helps clients solve every day. Case of the Week: SQL Server Partition Job Failure after Migration from AWS FCI to AWS AG. Quick Summary A client
It’s Not Your Emergency!
December 17, 2020
The best EMTs and Medics are the ones who realize, “This isn’t my emergency,” early enough. You’ll be a better DBA or technologist the quicker you learn the freedom that comes from that line of thought. (Also, a warning – in this post, I talk about – in vague terms and no medical specificity about
SQL University – Troubleshooting Week
October 4, 2011
I was about to write another bunch of comments on why I think troubleshooting skills are important. I’ve changed my mind – I’ve done that before. So let’s start SQL University Troubleshooting week off with a couple reminders from past posts that say what I wanted to say this week already. If You Can’t Troubleshoot