Tag Archives: Tools

SQLDIAG and SQL Server 2012

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SQLDIAG is a data collection utility that is used for collecting T-SQL script output, perfmon data and profiler traces in a consolidated manner. This allows the database administrators for collect a single output without having to configure multiple data collection utilities for capturing the required data.

SQLDIAG has been shipping with the SQL Server product since SQL Server 2005. Now the reason I am writing this post is to talk about a specific issue that you can encounter when you already have a previous version of SQLDIAG installed on your machine along with SQL Server 2012.

Using the command below I am trying to execute a SQLDIAG data collection using a specific SQL Server 2012 SQLDIAG configuration file. The command that I used was to specify the output folder and the default SQLDIAG configuration file available at C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\110\Tools\Binn\SQLDiag.XML:

C:\>sqldiag /O "F:\Temp\SQLDIAG Output" /I "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\110\Tools\Binn\SQLDiag.XML"

The output that I got was:

SQLDIAG Output path: F:\Temp\SQLDIAG Output\

SQLDIAG Invalid SQL Server version specified.  SQL Server version 11 is not supported by this version of the collector

SQLDIAG . Function result: 87. Message: The parameter is incorrect.

The reason for the above issue is that my environment PATH variable has the path for a previous version of SQLDIAG listed before the path of the SQL Server 2012 SQLDIAG. My path variable has the directory “C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Tools\Binn\” listed before “C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\110\Tools\Binn\” which is the default location of the SQLDIAG utility. The PATH variable is updated with the SQL specific directories during a SQL Server installation. In my case, I have a SQL Server 2008 R2 instance installed on my box. So the configuration file which specifies a data collection for a SQL Server 2012 is failing because I am using a SQLDIAG from a SQL Server 2008 R2 installation.

If I executed the following command, then my SQLDIAG initialization will work correctly:

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\110\Tools\Binn\sqldiag.exe" /O "F:\Temp\SQLDIAG Output" /I "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\110\Tools\Binn\SQLDiag.XML"

To summarize, you need to full qualify your SQLDIAG executable path when collecting SQLDIAG data from a machine which has multiple versions of SQLDIAG installed on the machine.

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Visual Studio 2010: Are you being cordial to Report Viewer

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imageIf you are using Visual Studio 2010 and a Windows Forms Application which uses the Report Viewer control, then might have probably been scratching your head when you suddenly lost the capability of using any of the drill-through options in your reports.

The problem happens only after you install Visual Studio Service Pack 1! So, what is the solution… Install an update released for Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1 (KB2549864).

If you are using only the Microsoft Report Viewer 2010 SP1 Redistributable Package, then you need to install the file named “ReportViewer.exe”. If you use Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1, install the file that is named “VS10SP1-KB2549864-x86.exe.” I saw yet another question on this being raised on this again this week… So I thought that a quick blog post on this would be definitely worth the effort!

Reference: Update fixes several Report Viewer issues after you install Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2549864

Brian Hartman’s Blog
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/brianhartman/archive/2011/03/31/visual-studio-2010-sp1.aspx

Addition: 10/22/2014: A number of people have reported that the above link does not work anymore for downloading the hotfix files. You will need to download the hotfix files from the link mentioned below:

Update for Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1 Report Viewer (KB2549864)
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=27231

SQL Server Backup Simulator v2 available now

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SQL Server Backup Simulator is used by CSS to troubleshoot SQLVDI related issues and to identify if the SQLVDI DLL is functioning correctly. Based on the feedback received from the use of the tool and the current troubleshooting needs, we decided to do v2 release for SQL Server Backup Simulator.

The new features for the v2 release are:

  1. Log backup – Now the tool can perform log backups. The tool performs COPY_ONLY backups so that your LSN chain is not broken.
  2. Compression support – Starting from v2, the tool will allow you to take backups with compression enabled for SQL Server 2008 and higher.

The compression option drop-down list has three-options:
a. With Compression: This option will allow you to perform a backup with compression enabled even if the server default is not to use compression for backups.
b. No Compression: This option will allow you to perform a backup with compression disabled even if the server default is to use compression for backups.
c. Server Default: This option uses the server default setting (configuration setting: backup compression default) to perform the backup.

image

Screenshot of the v2 UI

Log Restore option is not currently available in this release. The incorporation of this feature will be evaluated while planning for the next release.

A big thank you to Sakthi [Blog | Twitter] for his assistance on the v2 release.

The latest release can be downloaded here.

Previous posts for Backup Simulator:
SQL Server Backup Simulator v1.0
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sqlserverfaq/archive/2010/10/27/sql-server-backup-simulator.aspx
SQL Server Backup Simulator v1.2
https://troubleshootingsql.com/2011/01/17/sql-server-backup-simulator-cumulative-update/

Tools Tips and Tricks: Round-up

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Last month I ran a blog series on the different Tools that CSS uses for certain troubleshooting scenarios SQL Server related issues. There were 12 posts that covered the use of different tools like Debug Diagnostic, XPerf, tools from Sysinternals, SQLDIAG, SQL Nexus and some debugging tips.

Now it is time to do a SELECT [PostURL], [Summary] FROM [TroubleshootingSQL].[tblBlogSeries] WHERE [Series] = ‘Tools Tips and Tricks’…..

Post#1: Tools Tips and Tricks #1: Process Monitor – Some best practices to be followed when capturing Process Monitor traces to ensure that the data collection doesn’t causes additional performance issues.

Post#2: Tools Tips and Tricks #2: SQL Express RANU instances – Explains how to connect to SQL Express Run As User Instances (RANU) using existing tools.

Post#3: Tools Tips and Tricks #3: Custom Rowsets using SQL Nexus – Another quick tip on using SQL Nexus to import outputs of .sql scripts used to capture diagnostic data using Rowset Importer.

Post#4: Tools Tips and Tricks #4: RML Utilities – Some helpful tips on the use of RML Utilities which is used by SQL Nexus under the hood for importing SQL Profiler traces into a SQL Server database.

Post#5: Tools Tips and Tricks #5: SQLDIAG and RANU – Explains how to capture diagnostic data for SQL Express Run As User Instances (RANU) using SQLDIAG.

Post#6: Tools Tips and Tricks #6: Custom Reports in SQL Nexus – A quick tip on how to create custom reports for SQL Nexus a tool widely used within CSS for analyzing performance diagnostic data collected from a SQL Server instance.

Post#7: Tools Tips and Tricks #7: PsExec as parent and ProcMon as child – Explains how to use PsExec (a tool from Sysinternals) to launch a process remotely and capture data. In this example, I have used Process Monitor as the remote process.

Post#8: Tools Tips and Tricks #8 – Debug Diagnostic and Crash Rules – A walkthrough on using Debug Diagnostic tool for capturing crash dumps and analyzing them using the Crash Analysis rule.

Post#9: Tools Tips and Tricks #9: PSSDIAG Configuration Manager – Explains how to configure PSSDIAG collection using Configuration Manager GUI with a few tips and tricks on tweaking the XML configuration file.

Post#10: Tools Tips and Tricks #10: Caching PDB files locally – Explains how to cache symbol files locally using CDB.exe.

Post#11: Tools Tips and Tricks #11: Debug Diag and Memory leaks – A walkthrough on configuring Debug Diag for tracking memory leaks for a program which can be extended to tracking non-BPool allocations for SQL Server.

Post#12: Tools Tips and Tricks #12: XPerf, Memory usage and much more – A walkthrough on how to use XPerf Heap allocation tracking for identifying memory consumers for a program. Can be extended to SQL Server Out-of-Memory (OOM) issues for non-BPool memory crunch.

Webcast Material for Virtual Tech Days

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In May, I had done a webcast on “Understanding Performance Bottlenecks using Performance Dashboard”. The presentation material is now available on the SQLServerFAQ MSDN blog and the webcast videos are available for download on MSDN. Refer the links below for the presentation deck and webcast video download link.

Managing and Optimizing Resources for SQL Server [PPT | Webcast Download] – Balmukund Lakhani [Blog | @Blakhani]
Optimizing and Tuning Full Text Search for SQL Server [PPT | Webcast Download] – Sudarshan Narasimhan [Blogs @ SQLServerFAQ]
Understanding Performance Bottlenecks using Performance Dashboard [PPT | Webcast Download | QnA]
Cool Tools to have for SQL Server DBA [Webcast Download] – Pradeep Adiga [Blog | @PradeepAdiga]
Learn Underappreciated Features of SQL Server to Improve Productivity [Webcast Download] – Nakul Vachhrajani [Blog]

 

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