FIX: SPID May Stop Responding with Status of SPINLOOP During a Rollback Operation

A SQL Server process might stop responding during the rollback of a transaction where a change to columns (rows, dpages, and so forth) in the sysindexes system table is logged and needs to be reversed.

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in SQL Server version 6.5. This problem has been corrected in the Post Service Pack 5a Update for Microsoft SQL Server version 6.5. To install the Post Service Pack 5a Update, you must have either SQL Server 6.5 SP5 or SP5a installed.

For information about how to download and install the SQL Server 6.5 Service Pack 5a, refer to the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: If you already have SQL Server 6.5 SP5 or SP5a installed, you can download the Post SP5a Update from the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: For more information, contact your primary support provider.

Any transaction that might require a change to information in the sysindexes system table such as number of rows or pages in a table might encounter this problem if a transaction is rolled back. Typically, this includes SQL commands such as INSERT, DELETE, TRUNCATE TABLE, and so forth.

When this problem occurs, the value of the column sysprocesses.status for the server process ID (SPID) shows a value of SPINLOOP. Any locks that this SPID has obtained are held and can block other users. The SPID cannot be terminated with the Transact-SQL KILL command. You must re-start the server to clear out this SPID.