A couple of issues you might have noticed on Connect

The Cupboards are Bare

Over the weekend, and hopefully due to an event unrelated to April Fools' Day, you may have noticed that most or all of your Connect items have disappeared. At least for the SQL Server connection, you will see items that have been created since Friday, a couple of test items created in 2009 and 2010, and then everything else is from August 2006 or earlier:

 

That represents a LOT of missing Connect items, and I complained about it here. The Connect team's response was to tell me to go start a web-based support incident with the SQL Server team, as it was something that someone over there must have done on purpose (more importantly, they did assure me that the data is not gone, it's just hidden). But why they can't resolve the issue amongst themselves, I'm not sure.

What I am relatively certain about is that they will resolve this soon, though it requires a leap of faith that whatever was done can be undone. Still, I'm seeing many people out there thinking that the issue only affects their own items, when in fact it is affecting everyone. Perhaps this is an intentional and invasive housecleaning, and if it is, then this is a sad day indeed.

In the past few hours, they also took away the "Feedback Superstars" tally from the bottom right of the SQL Server home page; however, don't fret – this is unrelated, and due to an IE9 issue that I filed last night.

The Content is Browser-Specific

A peculiar thing I noticed this morning is that the table of links at the bottom of the SQL Server home page shows different content depending on what browser and OS you are using. Here are just a few examples:

 

I guess if you're on certain browsers, they don't want you in the forums or learning about SQL Server 2005? What browser/OS are you using, and what do you see in the Links table at http://web.archive.org/web/*/https://connect.microsoft.com/sql/?

 

Aaron Bertrand

I am a passionate technologist with industry experience dating back to Classic ASP and SQL Server 6.5. I am a long-time Microsoft MVP, write at Simple Talk, SQLPerformance, and MSSQLTips, and have had the honor of speaking at more conferences than I can remember. In non-tech life, I am a father of two, a huge hockey and football fan, and my pronouns are he/him. If I've helped you out, consider thanking me with a coffee. :-)

6 Responses

  1. Chris Wood says:

    Looks like MS recovered all of them or some of them. I see in my 100 lookups the start is in March of this year.
    Chris

  2. AaronBertrand says:

    IL, I think you are correct, I hadn't noticed that on half of these windows I was logged in, and the rest I was not.
    However, it seems that what happens is the opposite of what I would expect: once I authenticate, they take content away; if I log back out, I get more content.
    On another note, the rest of the Connect database seems to have been restored.

  3. jamiet says:

    I just received the familiar
    "Page Not Found
    The content that you requested cannot be found or you do not have permission to view it. "
    Ordinarily I'd put this down to Connect's usual erratic behaviour but I haven't actually gotten this message in a long time so I'm wondering if its related to the problems you're experiencing here Aaron. Time will tell.

  4. IL says:

    – Chrome 10 on Win7 x86 SP1 (Links #1)
    About SQL Server 2008
    SQL Forums: Find answers to technical questions
    About SQL Server 2005
    – after signing in (Links #2)
    About SQL Server 2008
    Same for IE9. It seems it depends if you logged on or not.

  5. Peter Schott says:

    What they really don't want to tell you is that they're now all in "Closed, will not fix" status. They just found a quicker way to get there. 🙂

  6. mjswart says:

    Wow, I expect the connect items to come back.
    It would be hard to believe that this is anything but a temporary accidental yet huge step backwards which will be corrected soon.
    But still, it's hard not to "fret" a little bit.