FIX: SQL Server Might Take a Long Time to Recover After an Abrupt or Unexpected Server Shutdown

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SYMPTOMS

If a server that is running SQL Server experiences an abrupt shutdown, it may take a database a long time to recover at start up if all the following conditions are true:

The shutdown occurs shortly after an extremely large increase in transaction rate, and checkpoint has not run since the transaction rate increased dramatically.
When SQL Server unexpectedly shut down, there were several active transactions (more than several thousand).
SQL Server was not shut down "cleanly." Some examples of this type of shutdown include a SHUTDOWN WITH NOWAIT command, a sudden hardware failure, or a power outage that affected the server.
The sp_configure stored procedure setting recovery interval is set to a non-default value (the default value is 0).

The last item in the list (recovery interval set to a value greater than 0) is not required for the problem to occur; however, you will probably not experience this situation when recovery is interval is set to 0.

The conditions required for you to experience this problem are extremely narrow and only apply to a small subset of long recovery cases. In particular, if database recovery is taking a long time because the SQL Server service was cycled in the middle of a single, or a small number of large transactions (for example, index creation, index rebuilds, or large insert, update, or delete jobs), this issue is probably not contributing to the problem. In order for there to be a high chance that this problem will occur, there must be an extremely large number of transactions (typically more than 10,000) active at the moment that SQL Server is abruptly stopped.

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MORE INFORMATION

Even in situations where all these conditions are met, it is not always a good idea to apply this fix when a long-running recovery is occurring. The reason it is not a good idea is that applying the fix and enabling the trace flag that you need requires you to stop and restart the SQL Server service. Stopping and restarting the service will abort the active recovery process. Much of the work that has already been completed in recovery will have to be repeated when you restart SQL Server. Therefore, the overall recovery time might increase.

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RESOLUTION

Service pack information

To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Microsoft SQL Server 2000. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

290211 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290211/ ) How to obtain the latest SQL Server 2000 service pack

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Hotfix information

After you apply the hotfix that is described in this article, start SQL Server by using trace flag 3428 as a startup parameter.

The English version of this hotfix has the file attributes (or later file attributes) that are listed in the following table. The dates and times for these files are listed in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). When you view the file information, it is converted to local time. To find the difference between UTC and local time, use the Time Zone tab in the Date and Time tool in Control Panel.

   Date         Time   Version         Size             File name
   -------------------------------------------------------------------------
   26-Feb-2003  03:41  2000.80.777.0      29,244 bytes  Dbmslpcn.dll     
   25-Apr-2003  02:12                    786,432 bytes  Distmdl.ldf
   25-Apr-2003  02:12                  2,359,296 bytes  Distmdl.mdf
   30-Jan-2003  01:55                        180 bytes  Drop_repl_hotfix.sql
   07-Apr-2003  19:15  2000.80.801.0   1,557,052 bytes  Dtsui.dll        
   24-Apr-2003  02:51                    747,927 bytes  Instdist.sql
   30-Jan-2003  01:55                      1,402 bytes  Inst_repl_hotfix.sql
   08-Feb-2003  06:40  2000.80.765.0      90,692 bytes  Msgprox.dll      
   01-Apr-2003  02:07                      1,873 bytes  Odsole.sql
   05-Apr-2003  01:46  2000.80.800.0      62,024 bytes  Odsole70.dll     
   02-Apr-2003  21:48  2000.80.796.0      57,904 bytes  Osql.exe         
   02-Apr-2003  23:15  2000.80.797.0     279,104 bytes  Pfutil80.dll     
   04-Apr-2003  21:27                  1,083,467 bytes  Replmerg.sql
   04-Apr-2003  21:53  2000.80.798.0     221,768 bytes  Replprov.dll     
   08-Feb-2003  06:40  2000.80.765.0     307,784 bytes  Replrec.dll      
   01-Apr-2003  02:23                  1,084,828 bytes  Replsys.sql
   16-Apr-2003  22:39                    115,892 bytes  Sp3_serv_uni.sql
   07-Apr-2003  17:44                     25,172 bytes  Sqldumper.exe    
   19-Mar-2003  18:20  2000.80.789.0      28,672 bytes  Sqlevn70.rll
   24-Apr-2003  05:39  2000.80.811.0     176,696 bytes  Sqlmap70.dll     
   08-Feb-2003  06:40  2000.80.765.0      57,920 bytes  Sqlrepss.dll     
   30-Apr-2003  23:52  2000.80.816.0   7,540,817 bytes  Sqlservr.exe     
   08-Feb-2003  06:40  2000.80.765.0      45,644 bytes  Sqlvdi.dll       
   26-Feb-2003  03:41  2000.80.777.0      29,244 bytes  Ssmslpcn.dll     
   26-Feb-2003  03:41  2000.80.777.0      82,492 bytes  Ssnetlib.dll     
   30-Apr-2003  23:52  2000.80.816.0      45,132 bytes  Ums.dll          
   28-Feb-2003  01:34  2000.80.778.0      98,872 bytes  Xpweb70.dll

Note Because of file dependencies, the most recent hotfix or feature that contains the files may also contain additional files.

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STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section.This problem was first corrected in Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Service Pack 4.

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