Attention users running SQL Server 2008 & 2008 R2!
June 17th, 20134
Attention users running SQL Server 2008 & 2008 R2!
June 17th, 20134
 
 

In April and May, Microsoft released cumulative updates for SQL Server 2008 and 2008 R2 (I blogged about them here and here). They are:

Sometime after that, looks like the next day, both downloads were pulled, allegedly due to an index corruption issue (if you believe the commentary on the Release Services blog post for CU #6) or due to an issue with w3wp.exe (if you believe the label on the hotfix posted directly to the CU #6 article itself). Or perhaps both. At the very least you may see a regression involving index corruption when you rebuild a clustered index online and the plan involves a non-clustered index. I don't have a repro handy.

On June 13th, both articles were updated with new versions of the cumulative updates that no longer exhibit this symptom (sound familiar?). So if you download today, you'll actually get:

Please check @@VERSION. If it reports 10.00.5840, 10.50.2874 or 10.50.4279, please go re-download and re-apply the relevant cumulative update for your branch. If you're on 2008 R2, please see my post where I announce new CUs for the 2008 R2 branches.

In cases like this, I really, really, really wish they would release a new, out-of-band cumulative update (this is a non-issue, now, for R2, but remains an issue for 2008 SP3 customers for another month or so). How many people go back and take another look at the CU article once they have downloaded, installed, and regression tested? Does everyone regression test a full set of online rebuilds that probably don't occur that often? I think many users will simply not see this update and are on the verge of experiencing the symptom – there simply isn't enough visibility when they quietly swap out the versions that the download links yield.

[Cross-posted on sqlperformance.com]

By: 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 husband, a father of two, a huge hockey and football fan, and my pronouns are he/him.

4 Responses

  1. AaronBertrand says:

    Forrest, this is usually not public knowledge and in the past I've always had to chase down the right people *after* the SP has been released.

  2. Forrest says:

    does anyone have any idea what CUs they will roll into SQL 2008 R2 SP3?  Last two sps have been in July timeframe but no word anywhere it seems.
    I would much prefer to stay on a CU just behind the final rollup of SP3, but they never seem consistent if it will be 1-5, 1-6, 1-7 etc.

  3. Markus says:

    Wow… good catch.  I guess I am going to be doing a lot of patching… jeesh.  Thanks.

  4. Argenis says:

    …aaaaand 2008 R2 SP2 CU7 is out: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2844090