Tell Me: Griffo Info

Yesterday I received a support call to say that my program was not working. Great, I thought… that tells me a lot!

Finally the user told me which screen he was on and what the message was displayed. It was “Cannot Connect to Database”. This is a program with a MS-SQL 2000 database. Other programs connecting to different databases were working fine, so the Server was running and they could connect OK.

I managed to get hold of the on-site office manager by phone. I managed to get him to re-locate to the server room, and start the Enterprise Manager. He had no SQL skills and had never used any SQL tools before yesterday. After coaching him for what seemed like an eternity, I was able to have him work in the left-hand pane, and navigate the tree structure there in a half useful manner.

At first attempt, we found a SQL Server Group, and under that there were two SQL Server instances running. He reported the first had no databases, and apart from the master model temp etc.. the second had a few that he half recognised. Things were not looking good, I thought.

It looked like I would need to drop by in person.

I got some stuff ready and phoned him again before I dropped by. I had him go back to the server and get me a few more details. In the meantime, I think he had practiced navigating a windows directory tree.. Now he was able to find all my other databases showing under the 1st listed server. Why he could not see these an hour earlier was a mystery.

Now the problem was evident.. The database in question was flagged “Suspect” within MS-SQL Enterprise Manager. So I did a few on-line searches and found several suggested “fixes”. The one that I had on-site manager try was the one involving sp_resetstatus dbnamehere

That did not work!

Then I read that a critical step was to review the SQL log to see what reason shows up there for the “Suspect” database.

On-site this morning, and I hunted down the appropriate log and quickly found the problem.

The data .MDF file was not where MS-SQL expected to find it. Some moron had moved it!

The Fix:

I got permission to STOP the SQL Server, moved the file to the correct folder, and re-started the SQL Server.

Voila… All working again

John Griffiths

I have posted several hints for working with MS-SQL2005 and get many requests for more.

If you are working with SQL-2005 Express or Standard, and have a hint you would like published, then please let me know and I will add it to the site.

The site I post to is www.sqlkey.com/

John Griffiths

Did you ever get a letter from someone that lit your fuse? A friend of mine recently did, and asked for my advice for a response.

I recalled a response that I heard many years ago when I worked in a bank..

The response:

=====================================================

Dear Sir,

I am sitting in the smallest room in the house and I have your letter before me.

Soon it will be behind me.

Yours truly….

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Because my old host seemed to be going very slow very often, I bit the bullet and decided to try move this WordPress based blog to another host I have – this one

There were several steps needed… I found a clear description of these steps with a Google Search.

I followed the steps but had no success at first.

Problem was, that there were differing versions of WordPress, MySQL and PHP on the old and new host.

So, after 3 hours trying to debug log files and PHP and MySQL, I dropped the idea of doing it as per the list I had found online.

I ended up getting it done like this:

1. Install a new WordPress blog on the new host using Fantastico
2. Edit the sql I had retrieved from the old host so that all links etc were pointing to the new host/subdir
3. Jumped into PHPMyAdmin via my cPanel and ran the several INSERT statements covering posts and categories and comments. (I still have a little cleanup to work on here)

Now it all seems up and running.

Need Hosting? I am now using … and I really like their hosting services.

—- Click the Eleven2 button for a great deal. Look for their frequent Discount Coupons.

John Griffiths

I had a domain name that was a free registration with a hosting account that I have.

I did not want to be “locked in” to that host for my site for the extra $10 per year that it would cost me to pay my own domain name registration.

So I set about transferring between registrars.

I did some homework and checked out the process using information from the various registrars, and in particular the one to where I was transferring.

I followed the plans as detailed, and was able to submit the transfer request with no problems.

I was worried that the web site may be unreachable at some stage during the transfer process.

Not so. The process went like clockwork and the site name resolution never missed a beat.

John