Category Archives: SQL

Sorting behavior

Posted on November 24, 2015 by Richard

One of the best parts of my job is explaining database concepts to non-database folks: developers, managers, CEOs, my wife, etc. One lesson I’ve had to explain numerous times is that SQL Server doesn’t guarantee that data will come back … Continue reading →

Posted in Business, DBA, Frustrating errors, SQL, SQL Server Internals, Testing | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Schema changes and row size

Posted on November 16, 2015 by Richard

I was working on a stored procedure that was misbehaving on a rather massive and embarrassing scale. The code seemed solid. The data model made sense. And yet… Every time I ran this proc it crashed and burned. There were … Continue reading →

Posted in SQL, SQL Server Internals | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

SQL Server install fails due to SQL Browser not starting

Posted on February 20, 2013 by Richard

While trying to install SQL Server 2012 as a named instance I got the following error in the error log: Exception type: Microsoft.SqlServer.Configuration.Sco.ScoException Message: Service ‘SQLBrowser’ start request failed. HResult : 0x84bb0001 FacilityCode : 1211 (4bb) ErrorCode : 1 (0001) … Continue reading →

Posted in DBA, Frustrating errors, SQL, SQL Server 2012 | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

SSRS report throws an error that says a parameter doesn’t exist when the report designer clearly shows the parameter exists

Posted on April 26, 2012 by Richard

The order in which the parameters appear in the BIDS Report Data tab can be the difference between your report executing and it failing. Failure to pay attention to this will give you very mysterious error messages! "The Value expression … Continue reading →

Posted in Frustrating errors, SQL | Tagged , , | 15 Comments

Downloading the Results of a Twitter Search using PowerShell and SQL (part 3)

Posted on January 4, 2011 by Richard

Part one of this series is here and part two is here. You’ll need the SQL scripts from part two in order for the code below to work but you can skip part one unless you’re curious to see the … Continue reading →

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Downloading the Results of a Twitter Search using PowerShell and SQL (part 2)

Posted on December 29, 2010 by Richard

I’ve expanded a little on my Twitter project. (See part 1 here.) I adjusted the PowerShell script to page through the data going back as far as Twitter holds the data. There is still a lot to be done. Left … Continue reading →

Posted in PowerShell, SQL | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment