Apr 21 2013

SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) Google Search date bug

Category: Google,SQL Server,Technology — Kamlesh @ 8:07 pm

I attended SQLBangalore User Group Meeting yesterday (Facebook | Eventbrite).  We had #WomenInSQL as the Theme for this event.  Pinal Dave surprised everyone by getting Nupur and little Shaivi to the event. We had little Shaivi on stage as the youngest participant of event.  More details/picture available on SQLAuthority post.

Out of the 4 sessions, Deepthi spoke about SSDT (SQL Server Data Tools).  I was keen in trying out this practically, so later in the evening, I went ahead with Google Search to download the SSDT setup.  The search result showed up an interesting result with Date Problem.

Google Search result shows a future date

Google Search result shows a future date

The first entry appears with 03-May-2013 and its using Google India website to render the results.  I navigated to this page and found that the Microsoft website also is using en-in locale to show the details on SSDT download page.

SSDT Download Page (with en-in locale) shows date in Indian format

The date displayed in Quick details section is using Indian date format. My immediate next step was to manually change the locale in browser URL and refresh this page. So I changed en-in to en-us and hit Enter.  The results are below:

SSDT Download Page (with en-us locale) shows date in US format

It now shows date in US format.  Does this mean that Google Search is getting confused with Locale setting and showing up incorrect date in its search result.  Or, there is something wrong with Microsoft Download site date locales.  Leave your comments!

Reference Links:

 

Feb 25 2013

SQL Server 2012 Security Update KB2716442 hangs at MsiTimingAction

Category: SQL Server,Technology,Windows Update — Kamlesh @ 9:33 am

As a best practice, I keep my system up to date with latest security updates.  This time I am bit out-dated; since a month I didn’t run all the Windows Updates.  Recently, SQL Server 2012 released a security update which can be found in Windows Update:

Windows Update showing Security Update for SQL Server 2012 RTM (KB2716442)

The update size is 425.5MB! I get wild after seeing any update which is more than 50MB, because my Internet connection is sometimes unstable, which may cause more trouble if I perform Online Updates. As I keep rebuilding my PC, I always prefer to keep the Offline version of update for reusing it again.  This time again, I downloaded (link) this update from Microsoft Download Center.

I am using SQL Server 2012 64-bit on Windows 8 Pro, so I went and downloaded the 64-bit update file, which is SQLServer2012-KB2716442-x64.exe. When I ran this update manually, it went through series of steps via Wizard and it kept hanging at a place where I saw the message “Instance INSTANCE01: Updating ‘INSTANCE01′: MsiTimingAction“. (INSTANCE01 is the name of Instance I provided during installation earlier)

SQL Server hanging while performing update (KB2716442)

Very surprisingly, this time I didn’t have any option to close or stop this update process (see the red arrows above).  I waited for almost 3 hours, but the progress bar didn’t move. Finally, I rebooted my Windows 8 OS.

Today morning, I tried reruning the update and to my surprise it finished without any problem.

KB2716442 installed successfully

Does this mean that sometimes Rebooting the OS helps to fix/troubleshoot issues? :)

I know that my solution/findings may sound weird for you, but I just thought of sharing this with others.  Meanwhile, I also did some search and have the below additional information:

1) Linvi’s blog (link) on MSDN – This has some steps to solve this problem.  As per this blog post, Linvi suggests to make changes to registry.  I tried peeking into my registry hive HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\110\ConfigurationState, but I found that all my key’s already had the value of 1.

2) View and Read SQL Server Setup Log Files (link) on Technet -  This is good read for finding the problems. I navigated to C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\110\Setup Bootstrap\Log\20130225_072103\ (last folder is the Date/Time stamp, which may vary) and analyzed the log files,  but I could not get any specific hints in any of the log file.  Its a good bookmark for future troubleshooting.

If anyone has got the real way to fix the problem, then I would like to hear from you.  Please leave your comments.

Aug 31 2010

SqlDateTime overflow. Must be between 1/1/1753 12:00:00 AM and 12/31/9999 11:59:59

Category: Microsoft,SQL Server,Technology — Kamlesh @ 12:11 am

Few days back, I discovered this error that SQL Server DateTime can hold only dates between 01-Jan-1753 12:00:00 AM to 31-Dec-1999 11:59:59.  While performing a random data entry in SQL Management Studio, it alerted me this error message:

The text version of Error Message:

—————————
Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio
—————————
No row was updated.

The data in row 1 was not committed.
Error Source: System.Data.
Error Message: SqlDateTime overflow. Must be between 1/1/1753 12:00:00 AM and 12/31/9999 11:59:59 PM.

Correct the errors and retry or press ESC to cancel the change(s).
—————————
OK   Help
—————————

If you are a Web Developer, then it becomes important for you to handle this exception in your application.  Based on the feasibility of your Application Design, you can follow one of these common methods:

  1. Validate the date range using a client side script (Javascript or AJAX)
  2. On the Server Side script – ASP.NET, PHP, JSP etc.
  3. You can also catch this error at the back-end layer, if your design includes Stored Procedures.

So far, I have verified this problem in SQL Server 2005, SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 R2.

Next time, when I get time I will explore any such Date Time value limitation in other popular databases.

I am just guessing that Mainframe Databases will not have such limitations, because they store the data in plain text.  Hope some Mainframe expert reads this posts and confirms my assumption :-)

May 20 2010

Database Size Ranges – Small Medium Large Extra Large

Category: Microsoft,SharePoint 2010,SQL Server — Kamlesh @ 12:01 am

Many times, Application Developers ask this question to a DBA on how to figure out whether the Application Database is Small, Medium, Large or Extra Large.  Here is the ideal database size range which is defined by Microsoft SQL Server.  The same can be used with other Database like Oracle, IBM DB2 etc.

Small - Upto 1Gb

Medium - 1GB to 100GB

Large - 100GB to 1TB

Extra Large – 1TB and above

The above information becomes handy while arriving effort for Migration/Upgrade activities.  In my next post, I will provide details on various SQL Server Databases used by SharePoint 2010.

Update (14-Mar-2013): A new article related to SharePoint 2013 is available here.

May 26 2006

SQL Server History… Nice boxes ;-)

Category: Microsoft,SQL Server — Kamlesh @ 9:05 am

SQL Server software shipping in 5 1/4″ diskettes!!! YES, I found this link where the SQL Server shipment box snaps are available. Its amazing to see its History and tremendous growth.

I have seen it “live” from Ver 6.5 onwards, when it used to be part of BackOffice suite of products.