Many of you are familiar with the following error message:
.Net SqlClient Data Provider: Msg 233, Level 20, State 0, Line 0
A transport-level error has occurred when sending the request to the
server. (provider: Shared Memory Provider, error: 0 – No process is on
the other end of the pipe.)
The reason it’s a sucky error message is that it doesn’t do a good job of explaining what happened and it doesn’t suggest any actions to take.
Here’s what happened: You used to have an open connection to a server but you don’t any more. It was closed or killed from the server side. Maybe the server rebooted (or failed-over to another cluster node). You’re talking into one tin can, but nobody’s on the tin can on the other end of the string.
Annoying, but not a problem… open a new connection and try again. If you see this error message from inside SQL Server Management Studio, just hit F5 again (or Alt-X or Ctrl-E depending on preference).
Aaron Bertrand opened this connect issue which indicates that in a future version, Management Studio will retry automatically.
Hey Michael! Yep, I’ve bumped into this little annoyance quite a few times. At no point however did I think to submit it to Connect for a feature change. Its funny how sometimes you just get into the habit of accepting these things rather than taking it a step further and looking to solve the problem. Glad to see some of us are thinking ahead.
Comment by John Sansom — July 23, 2010 @ 4:09 am
[…] Worst error message ever… – I know that I’ve been blocked by this little beauty a few times. Good to see some progress. […]
Pingback by SQL Server Links and news this week | John Sansom - SQL Server DBA in the UK — July 23, 2010 @ 6:42 am
Hey John, That’s Aaron Bertrand who submitted that. I think he’s the most prolific Microsoft Connect issue-submitter I know.
And “little annoyance” is the perfect word for this issue. But it’s those kind of things that keeps a software product from looking “polished”.
Comment by Michael J. Swart — July 23, 2010 @ 8:23 am