Connect Digest : 2009-06-05

Aaron Bertrand June 5th, 2009 SQL Server 1

As I mentioned in last week's digest, I want to make it clear that I am not presenting Connect issues in this format in an attempt to tip the scales or pimp influence votes. I am merely creating exposure for Connect items (bugs or suggestions) that you may not otherwise come across in your daily travels. Please only vote for issues that you feel strongly about, and not using some excuse like, "well, Aaron told me to."

Of course you can apply your own rules and filters for which issues you vote on, for example you may give a lot more weight to a bug that doesn't affect you directly than to a suggestion for a feature you know you will never use. More importantly, I hope that my efforts here raise visibility for Connect itself, as it is a great way to provide feedback directly to the dev team, and in some cases learn about workarounds that aren't published elsewhere.

Anyway, I am a day early, but here are some items for this week that you may want to investigate:

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More SSMS bugs

There have been plenty of Management Studio items in previous digests, but this week fellow MVP Razvan Socol has discovered a few pretty serious bugs, including one thrown onto the already huge pile of problems with the table designer:

#462042 : Incorrect "Duplicate key" error with unique filtered index
Current rating: 4.7 (4 votes)

#462046 : Cannot rename a default constraint for a table in a schema which is not dbo
Current rating: 4.4 (4 votes)

#462053 : The filter expression of a filtered index is lost when a table is modified by the Table Designer
Current rating: 4.7 (4 votes)

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Another TOP 100 PERCENT … ORDER BY issue

Sankar Reddy reported an issue with UPDATE STATISTICS which causes many Sort Warnings on the server. The reason? UPDATE STATISTICS generates a subquery that uses TOP 100 PERCENT … ORDER BY. Yuck!

#457024 : Update statistics, top 100 percent and Sort warnings
Current rating: N/A (0 votes)

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Locking and deadlocks

Fellow MVP James Rowland-Jones has pointed out several possible enhancements to the database engine, tools and documentation that would enhance the process of tracking down and troubleshooting locking/blocking/deadlock issues.

#458076 : Make %%lockres%% a documented feature
Current rating: 4.7 (10 votes)

#458080 : Lock Resource Hash Value not visible in Deadlock Graph Graphical View
Current rating: 4.8 (8 votes)

#458084 : Improve content in BOL for Deadlock Diagnosis
Current rating: 4.4 (6 votes)

#458091 : Change Lock Resource Hashing Algorithm to Reduce Likelihood of Collisions
Current rating: 4.6 (11 votes)

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Results from last week:

#459383 : Add assertion clause to DML statements
4.2/6 to 4.3/11 (+5)

#459208 : SSMS : Object Explorer fails to show database list during attach
NA/1 to 4.2/4 (+3)

#423019 : SQL Server 2008 Activity Monitor Enhancements 
4.7/13 to 4.7/14 (+1)

#352596 : SSMS: Activity Monitor is no longer in Treeview  
4.7/6 (no change)

#361102 : [SSMS 2008 RTM] Restore 2000 Activity Monitor
3.8/6 to 3.8/7 (+1)

#350734 : SSMS : Activity Monitor column headers are too fragile 
4.3/3 (no change)