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SQL Server Diagnostic Information Queries for September 2014

I revised a number of the queries this month in all five versions of the script. I have also added several new queries to the SQL Server 2012 and SQL Server 2014 versions of the script. Here are the current query counts for each version:

SQL Server 2014         72 Queries

SQL Server 2012         69 Queries

SQL Server 2008 R2    65 Queries

SQL Server 2008         59 Queries

SQL Server 2005         51 Queries

Rather than having a separate blog post for each version, I have just put the links for all five major versions in this single post. There are two separate links for each version. The first one on the top left is the actual query script, and the one below on the right is the matching blank results spreadsheet.  

SQL Server 2005 Diagnostic Information Queries

SQL Server 2005 Blank Results

SQL Server 2008 Diagnostic Information Queries

SQL Server 2008 Blank Results

SQL Server 2008 R2 Diagnostic Information Queries

SQL Server 2008 R2 Blank Results

SQL Server 2012 Diagnostic Information Queries

SQL Server 2012 Blank Results

SQL Server 2014 Diagnostic Information Queries

SQL Server 2014 Blank Results

The basic idea is that you should run each query in the set, one at a time (after reading the directions). It is not really a good idea to simply run the entire batch in one shot, especially the first time you run these queries on a particular server, since some of these queries can take some time to run, depending on your workload and hardware.

You need to click on the top left square of the results grid in SSMS to select all of the results, and then right-click and select “Copy with Headers” to copy all of the results, including the column headers to the Windows clipboard. Then you paste the results into the matching tab in the blank results spreadsheet. There are also some comments on how to interpret the results after each query.

About half of the queries are instance specific and about half are database specific, so you will want to make sure you are connected to a database that you are concerned about instead of the master system database. Running the database-specific queries while being connected to the master database is a very common mistake that I see people making.

Note: These queries are stored on Dropbox. I occasionally get reports that the links to the queries and blank results spreadsheets do not work, which is most likely because Dropbox is blocked wherever people are trying to connect.

I also occasionally get reports that some of the queries simply don’t work. This usually turns out to be an issue where people have some of their user databases in 80 compatibility mode, which breaks many DMV queries.

It is also very important that you are running the correct version of the script that matches the major version of SQL Server that you are running. There is an initial query in each script that tries to confirm that you are using the correct version of the script for your version of SQL Server.

If you want to understand how to better run and interpret these queries, you should consider listening to my latest Pluralsight course, which is SQL Server 2014 DMV Diagnostic Queries – Part 1. This course is short and to the point (only 67 minutes), and I think you will enjoy it!

Please let me know what you think of these queries, and whether you have any suggestions for improvements. Thanks!

5 thoughts on “SQL Server Diagnostic Information Queries for September 2014

  1. Hi Glenn,

    Love your queries! Thanks for keeping them fresh.

    Most queries paste well into Excel. But some results become multi-line items in Excel. Do you happen to know how to get around that?

    Thanks
    Mark

    1. Unfortunately, I do not. Saving the results in a SQL Server database or even Access would probably be much better, but I have never taken the time to write the queries in order to do that.

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