A message about the previous post on finding queries in a SQL Memory Dump file: Back in October I did a post on finding queries in SQL Server Memory Dumps.  It has been a popular topic, but some have had difficulties following it.  After reviewing this with a reader, I realized there was an...

NOTE:  This post has been updated in a new post due to an issue found with the steps in this post.  The procedure is the same, but the steps here may only work with 32 bit dumps.  Please read the post located at the address below: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/askjay/archive/2011/02/18/finding...

You can create a memory dump of the SQL Server process space in several ways. There are many external tools that can help you accomplish this such as userdump.exe, debugdiag.exe, and ADPlus.exe. In this post, I’ll cover 3 common ways to accomplish this for SQL Server: The most common way (sqldumper...

From time to time I will get this question from people learning to debug application code. Debugging is an unusual skill and is a combination of art and science. However, IMHO the following 3 items or characteristics are super important for being successful with your debugging: You don’t...

So if you read my previous post on Basic Debugging Concepts and Setup, you are familiar with how to open a SQL Server dump or attach to the SQL Server process (sqlservr.exe). You are also familiar with what symbols are and why we need them. If you missed it, you can read it here: http://blogs.msdn...

In my blog, from time to time I will rely on debugging to explain or prove out a concept. In this context, I am talking about debugging the SQL Server engine itself – not debugging any TSQL code written to run within SQL Server (although I am sure we’ll get into that at some point). To follow...