2020-02-17: For Valentine's Day, We Got You Less Bugs

We spent Valentine's Day removing the bugs from your chocolates. You're welcome.

To get the new version:

• Download the updated FirstResponderKit.zip
• Azure Data Studio users with the First Responder Kit extension: ctrl/command+shift+p, First Responder Kit: Import.

sp_Blitz Changes

• Improvement: removed spaces from documentation file names for easier publishing in an Azure DevOps Server wiki. (#2273, thanks PierreLetter.)
• Improvement: added new priority 250 data size check. Only shows when @CheckServerInfo = 1. Gives you a quick idea of the size of the server you're dealing with in terms of number of databases and total file size. (#2265)
• Improvement: updated unsupported-build checks now that SQL Server 2014 SP2 is out of support. (#2293)

sp_BlitzCache Changes

• Fix: plans will no longer trigger both the nearly-parallel warning if they're already parallel. This would happen when you had a parallel query whose cost had dropped under the Cost Threshold for Parallelism. (#2234, thanks Erik Darling.)
• Fix: "selects with writes" warning may fire incorrectly for stored procedures. (#2290, thanks Erik Darling.)

sp_BlitzIndex Changes

• Improvement: suggested index names no longer start with IX_. (#2292, thanks Greg Dodd.)
• Improvement: indexes with 0 reads and 0 writes are no longer shown by default in mode 0 and 4. Just lowering the distractions so you can focus on the indexes that are really causing problems. (#2280, thanks Erik Darling.)
• Improvement: unused index warning now also shows the index's number of writes. (#2266, thanks Erik Darling.)
• Fix: some parts of the output were doubling the size of nvarchar columns, like telling you a column was nvarchar(80) when it was really nvarchar(40). (#2285)
• Fix: now handles identity values even larger than BIGINTs, going all the way to DECIMAL(38,0). (#2268, thanks JBarnard84.)

sp_BlitzLock Changes

• Improvement: new @VictimsOnly parameter. If you set it to 1, you only get the deadlock victims. Since all of the queries in a deadlock have the same deadlock graph, this can tighten up your result set by a lot if all you're troubleshooting is the deadlock graph, which is what we're focused on in the Consultant Toolkit. (#2219, thanks Erik Darling.)
• Improvement: better support for identifying when heaps are deadlocked. (#2219, thanks Erik Darling.)
• Fix: object names not always populating correctly. (#2282, thanks Erik Darling.)

sp_DatabaseRestore Changes

• Improvement: removed dependency on Ola Hallengren's maintenance scripts. Ola recently released a version with a new mandatory parameter for his CommandExecute stored proc, which broke sp_DatabaseRestore, and we weren't depending on it for anything complex. (#2269, thanks mKarous for the bug report and Eric Straffen for the code.)

sp_ineachdb Changes

• Improvement: added @exclude_pattern parameter so you can skip databases like the pattern. Accepts wildcards just like the SQL Server LIKE. (Pull #2272, thanks Aaron Bertrand.)

For Support

When you have questions about how the tools work, talk with the community in the #FirstResponderKit Slack channel. If you need a free invite, hit SQLslack.com. Be patient - it's staffed with volunteers who have day jobs.

When you find a bug or want something changed, read the contributing.md file.

When you have a question about what the scripts found, first make sure you read the "More Details" URL for any warning you find. We put a lot of work into documentation, and we wouldn't want someone to yell at you to go read the fine manual. After that, when you've still got questions about how something works in SQL Server, post a question at DBA.StackExchange.com and the community (that includes us!) will help. Include exact errors and any applicable screenshots, your SQL Server version number (including the build #), and the version of the tool you're working with.

2020-01-23: Improvements all over the place!

A couple of times a year, I disconnect from the Internet to sit down with a planning book, my Epic Life Quest, and my future task list. I spend time making sure my day-to-day tasks are still prioritized right. When I do that, I often find out that I've lost focus on a particular task, or I've been spending too much time on something. We only get so many hours in a day, and I gotta figure out where I can be the most effective.

For 2020, one of the things I decided was to update the First Responder Kit just once per quarter instead of once per month. At the time, I was thinking to myself, "These scripts are pretty mature. How many changes can really be left to make?" Uh, as it turns out, a lot, as you can see by this month's changelog! So that plan is out the window - let's keep going with monthly releases, hahaha.

Big shout out to the 8 folks who contributed code & issues for this month's release.

To get the new version:

• Download the updated FirstResponderKit.zip
• Azure Data Studio users with the First Responder Kit extension: ctrl/command+shift+p, First Responder Kit: Import.
• Download the updated Consultant Toolkit in your account
• EU customers: check your email for the updated version from Gumroad, our European distributor

Consultant Toolkit Changes

Updated the First Responder Kit with this month's script updates, plus:

• Improvement: new Indexes Missing tab with the missing indexes from all databases. Same output as running sp_BlitzIndex @mode = 3, and most of this stuff is available in the Indexes M4 tab, but when you have to do a massive index cleanup, it's helpful to be able to slice & dice these in a table.
• Fix: sp_BlitzCache memory grant & spill sorts weren't running on Azure SQL DB. (Thanks, Erik.)

sp_Blitz Changes

• Improvement: added non-default database configs for enable_broker and honor_broker_priority. (#2187, thanks parlevjo2.)
• Improvement: added more-info query when we catch people running unusual DBCC commands. (#2211)
• Fix: updated end-of-support dates for unsupported builds check. (#2221, thanks Matt Saunders.)
• Fix: if you had >50 databases, you'd get the "multiple plans for one query" warning even if you just ran a single query once with sp_MSforeachdb (since it'd put a plan in cache for each query.) If you have >50 databases, we now set the threshold for this warning to be 2x the number of databases. (#2249)

sp_BlitzCache Changes

• Improvement: new warning for Table Spools. (#2235, thanks Erik Darling.)
• Improvement: checkid 999 (plan cache is expiring quickly) now has a URL for more details. (#2214)
• Improvement: the warnings in the 2nd result set now exactly match the warning names in the Warnings column in the top result set, making it easier to look up warnings you don't understand. (#2212)
• Fix: the stale-statistics check was also labeled checkid 999, so moved that to 997. (#2214)
• Fix: each time sp_BlitzCache ran, it was putting an insert-into-#ReadableDBs query into the plan cache, which made demos a little cluttered. (#2253)
• Fix: avoid plan cache pollution by avoiding the use of a random ID when building the output table name. (#2252, thanks Adrian Buckman.)

sp_BlitzFirst Changes

• Improvement: in @expertmode = 1, added these Availability Groups Perfmon counters (plus a few others) to help troubleshoot high HADR_SYNC_COMMIT waits that aren't related to CPU or storage. I haven't added any alerts for specific thresholds though - just showing these counters in the Perfmon section of the @expertmode = 1 output so you don't have to go setting up a Perfmon session. (#2246)
• Improvement: if the high forwarded fetches check fires (#29), look in TempDB for the top 10 tables with >100 forwarded fetches, and include them in the results. I would really like to tell you more, but it turns out it's really hard to identify what code & session is responsible for a temp table.  (#2248)
• Fix: the ##WaitCategories table is no longer repopulated with every run. (#2208, thanks bgpjr.)
• Fix: error when hitting the long-running blocking check. (#2218, thanks sm8680.)
• Fix: when @expertmode = 1, really slow sp_BlitzWho runtimes (like for hundreds of sessions rendering across a slow network pipe) would cause sp_BlitzFirst's samples to be shorter since the sp_BlitzWho runtime was included in the sample time. Now the clock only starts after sp_BlitzWho finishes. (#2244)

sp_BlitzIndex Changes

• Improvement: added @debug parameter that outputs the working temp tables and the dynamic T-SQL used to populate them. (#2229)
• Fix: if you ran it with @GetAllDatabases = 1, @mode = 3, it would run even if you had >50 databases. Now requires @Bringthepain = 1 even for @mode = 3. (#2255, thanks DBAdminDB.)
• Fix: non-partitioned columnstore indexes were reporting as partitioned with duplicate row counts. Root cause is multiple rows in sys.dm_db_index_operational_stats for different hobts for the same columnstore index. (#2228)

sp_BlitzLock Changes

• Improvement: added output to table support. (#2225, thanks DanielSQLDBA.)

sp_BlitzWho Changes

• Improvement: added OPTION (RECOMPILE) hint, and if the SQL Server has >50GB memory, and it's on a recent patch level, we add a max memory grant hint of 1% to reduce sp_BlitzWho's memory grant request. (#2238, thanks Tara Kizer.)

For Support

When you have questions about how the tools work, talk with the community in the #FirstResponderKit Slack channel. If you need a free invite, hit SQLslack.com. Be patient - it's staffed with volunteers who have day jobs.

When you find a bug or want something changed, read the contributing.md file.

When you have a question about what the scripts found, first make sure you read the "More Details" URL for any warning you find. We put a lot of work into documentation, and we wouldn't want someone to yell at you to go read the fine manual. After that, when you've still got questions about how something works in SQL Server, post a question at DBA.StackExchange.com and the community (that includes us!) will help. Include exact errors and any applicable screenshots, your SQL Server version number (including the build #), and the version of the tool you're working with.

2019-12-02: Bugfixes for the Holidays

Nothing too dramatic this release, just a few bug fixes and improvements:

sp_BlitzCache Changes

• Improvement: @Bringthepain = 1 no longer forcibly sets @top to the max. Instead, it's used as a confirmation switch as in the other First Responder Kit procs. For example, if you set @sortorder = 'all' and @top > 10, and you didn't set @SkipAnalysis = 1, then we require you to set @Bringthepain = 1 to make sure you understand that processing will be slow. (#2172)

sp_BlitzFirst Changes

• Fix: typo in query syntax caused "incorrect syntax near 'r'" periodically. (#2135, thanks Igal Drayerman for the bug report and Emanuele Meazzo for the fix.)

sp_BlitzIndex Changes

• Improvement: when you run it for table-level details, like sp_BlitzIndex @TableName = 'Users', the first result set with the list of existing indexes has a new last column with the drop T-SQL. Useful for rapidly building undo/redo scripts. (#2177)
• Fix: when saving the output to table, index definitions longer than 4,000 characters were truncated. Changed output table definition to NVARCHAR(MAX) for the Drop_tsql, Create_tsql, and index_definition columns, and cried just a little. (#2183, thanks Helio Lino de Almeida Filho for the bug report.)

SqlServerVersions Changes

• Improvement: added SQL Server 2019, updated a few versions. (#2181, thanks sm8680 for the bug report and Emanuele Meazzo for the fix.)

sp_DatabaseRestore Changes Awaiting Review

There are two pull requests with improvements, but I'll be honest: I'm not really qualified to do code review on these because I don't personally use sp_DatabaseRestore. (I just don't have a use for it myself since most of my work focuses on performance tuning.) If you can give these authors a hand by testing it and making notes in the Github issues, we can get these merged into the main branch:

• Improvement: add functionality for multiple backup paths
• Improvement: safer string aggregation

For Support

When you have questions about how the tools work, talk with the community in the #FirstResponderKit Slack channel. If you need a free invite, hit SQLslack.com. Be patient - it's staffed with volunteers who have day jobs.

When you find a bug or want something changed, read the contributing.md file.

When you have a question about what the scripts found, first make sure you read the "More Details" URL for any warning you find. We put a lot of work into documentation, and we wouldn't want someone to yell at you to go read the fine manual. After that, when you've still got questions about how something works in SQL Server, post a question at DBA.StackExchange.com and the community (that includes us!) will help. Include exact errors and any applicable screenshots, your SQL Server version number (including the build #), and the version of the tool you're working with.

2019-10-24: Massive Save-To-Table Improvements

This is a pretty doggone big release. There are a lot of improvements to sp_BlitzFirst, sp_BlitzCache, and sp_BlitzWho to prepare for a new release of the First Responder Kit Power BI Dashboard. If you're using that today, I would strongly recommend updating to this new version of the FRK scripts - they fix a ton of bugs and start collecting data in a way that will make joins easier.

Breaking change: if you're logging the data to tables, there's a new JoinKey computed column added to all of the views, and to the BlitzCache, BlitzFirst, and BlitzWho tables to make Power BI Desktop joins easier. These columns will automatically be added by sp_BlitzFirst & friends when you upgrade, but if you're doing any kind of ETL to put all of the Blitz% tables in one central location, you may need to add this column to your central location's tables (and make sure you're not doing SELECT * to ETL the data around.) For questions, feel free to hop into the #FirstResponderKit Slack channel. I'm out on vacation starting Sunday, but I'll stick my head in there from time to time.

To get the new version:

• Download the updated FirstResponderKit.zip
• Azure Data Studio users with the First Responder Kit extension: ctrl/command+shift+p, First Responder Kit: Import.
• Download the updated Consultant Toolkit in your account
• EU customers: check your email for the updated version from Gumroad, our European distributor

Consultant Toolkit Changes

Updated the First Responder Kit with this month's script updates, plus:

• Fix: the Plans CPU ByHash tab wasn't populating if the server didn't have sp_BlitzCache installed.

sp_Blitz Changes

• Fix: new @SkipBlockingChecks parameter defaults to 1. There's a known bug in sys.dm_db_persisted_sku_features, which caused sp_Blitz to be blocked during columnstore index creation. I don't expect Microsoft to fix that one quickly, so we just skip that check by default to be safe. (#2130)
• Fix: if you stored your database files on a UNC path (\\) and wrote your backups on one too, sp_Blitz no longer reports that you're storing backups in the same place as your databases. (#2141)
• Fix: some heaps with 0 reads were reported as being actively used. (#2149, thanks Razvan Socol.)

sp_BlitzCache Changes

• Improvement: @sortorder = 'query hash' now takes a second sort order in a comma-delimited list, like @sortorder = 'query hash, reads' to find the queries with multiple cached plans, sorted by most reads. (#2156)
• Improvement: adds JoinKey computed column (ServerName + CheckDate) to output table to make Power BI Desktop joins easier. (#2162)
• Fix: when called by sp_BlitzFirst, the CheckDates in the output table now match the exact same dates/times as sp_BlitzFirst's output tables (even though it's not exactly when sp_BlitzCache is running.) This enables joins in the Power BI Dashboard since we're filtering by dates/times. This used to work back when we only called sp_BlitzCache with a single sort order, based on your top wait type, but once I switched to @sortorder = 'all', it stopped working. (#2159)
• Fix: when @sortorder = 'all', @MinutesBack was being ignored. This is especially important for folks who use the Power BI Dashboard because with the default Agent job step, this would have resulted in way too much stuff showing up in the plan cache reports, instead of only showing things that executed in the last 15 minutes. (#2168, thanks Matt Rushton.)
• Fix: in @sortorder = 'all' output, the plans with the most spills were being incorrectly shown in the 'memory grant' category. They were still queries you wanted to fix, but the reason WHY they were a problem was wrong. (#2170, thanks Matt Rushton.)

sp_BlitzFirst Changes

• Improvement: new @OutputTableNameBlitzWho logs sp_BlitzWho results to table. (#2159)
• Improvement: new @BlitzCacheSkipAnalysis parameter defaults to 1 to replicate existing behavior, but if you want your sp_BlitzCache output tables to have the full query analysis, you can turn this off in your Agent jobs. I'm not a fan - this makes the Agent job take >30 seconds on even my laptop - but if you want it, there it is. (#2155, thanks Matt Rushton for the idea. The idea is good though!)
• Improvement: BlitzFirst output table has 2 new columns: JoinKey computed column (ServerName + CheckDate) and QueryHash, plus added join keys to the output views to make Power BI Desktop joins easier. (#2162, #2164)
• Improvement: added SQL Server 2017 XTP Perfmon counters. (Yes, they actually hard-code the version numbers into the Perfmon counter name, and 2019 uses the 2017 names.) (#2162)
• Fix: if you passed on a @LogMessage with a @LogMessageCheckDate, we were, uh, ignoring it and just using the current time. (#2135, thanks Matt Rushton.)

sp_BlitzIndex Changes

• Fix: reducing collation errors. (#2126, thanks chaowlert.)
• Fix: more natural sorting for missing index recommendations, by impact. (#2143)

sp_BlitzLock Changes

• Fix: because the system health XE session stores deadlock times in UTC, @StartDate used to assume you knew that. We now assume @StartDate is the server's local time, and we also convert the outputted deadlock dates from UTC to the server's local time too. (#2147, thanks DigitalOhm for the idea.)

sp_BlitzQueryStore Changes

• Fixes: wasn't running on Azure SQL DB, now does. (#2124 and #2136, thanks Paul McHenry.) Remember, though - our support policy on Azure SQL DB is pretty fast and loose since the DMVs change up there without warning.

sp_BlitzWho Changes

• Improvement: added a @CheckDateOverride parameter so this can be called by sp_BlitzFirst and write the exact same CheckDates in the output table. This enables joins in the Power BI Dashboard, which requires joins on exact field contents. (#2159)
• Improvement: adds JoinKey computed column (ServerName + CheckDate) to output table to make Power BI Desktop joins easier. (#2162)

sp_DatabaseRestore Changes

• Improvement: can now specify blocksize, buffercount, and maxtransfersize. (#2127, thanks Frederik Vanderhaegen.)

For Support

When you have questions about how the tools work, talk with the community in the #FirstResponderKit Slack channel. If you need a free invite, hit SQLslack.com. Be patient - it's staffed with volunteers who have day jobs.

When you find a bug or want something changed, read the <a href="https://github.com/BrentOzarULTD/SQL-Server-First-Responder-Kit/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md" target="_blank" rel="noopener norefe...

2019-09-22: sp_BlitzCache Caches Up with SQL 2019

sp_Blitz Changes

• Improvement: added Uninstall.sql for those of you who wanna nuke it from orbit. (#2080, thanks ShawnPOWER for the request and Emanuele Meazzo for the code.)

sp_BlitzCache Changes

• Improvement: new @sortorder = 'query hash' to detect unparameterized queries that are causing you problems. It's really grouping queries together by query hash, then sorting them by CPU. (#2051, thanks Erik Darling.)
• Improvement: now detects selects that caused writes. (#2063, thanks Erik Darling.)
• Improvement: SQL Server 2019's air_quote_actual plans are back! I figured out a workaround to the bugs I was hitting in 2019: if the datalength of the sys.dm_exec_query_plan_stats plan is longer than the normal plan, then I return it - otherwise I return the normal estimated one. (#2109)
• Fix: updated Paul White's blog URLs to his new site. (#2099, thanks Peter Vandivier.)
• Fix: typo caused @Help = 1 output to have one extra result set. (#2111, thanks TheUserNameSelectionSucks (ha!) for the bug report.)

sp_BlitzFirst Changes

• Fix: @CheckProcedureCache was being skipped for some time zones, especially British Standard Time users. I had to fix this before stepping foot on the Isle of Man again, naturally. (#2096, thanks PlanetMatt for the delightfully easy-to-reproduce bug report.)

sp_BlitzIndex Changes

• Improvement: faster compression analysis on partitioned databases. (#2065, thanks Erik Darling.)

sp_DatabaseRestore Changes

• Fix: last month's release broke on case-sensitive systems, fixed. (#2097, thanks sm8680 for the bug report.)

For Support

When you have questions about how the tools work, talk with the community in the #FirstResponderKit Slack channel. If you need a free invite, hit SQLslack.com. Be patient - it's staffed with volunteers who have day jobs.

When you find a bug or want something changed, read the contributing.md file.

When you have a question about what the scripts found, first make sure you read the "More Details" URL for any warning you find. We put a lot of work into documentation, and we wouldn't want someone to yell at you to go read the fine manual. After that, when you've still got questions about how something works in SQL Server, post a question at DBA.StackExchange.com and the community (that includes us!) will help. Include exact errors and any applicable screenshots, your SQL Server version number (including the build #), and the version of the tool you're working with.

2019-08-27: Bug Fixes & sp_DatabaseRestore new features

sp_DatabaseRestore can now restore to Azure blobs and change the database owner after a restore, and everything else gets bug fixes.

To get the new version:

• Download the updated FirstResponderKit.zip
• Azure Data Studio users with the First Responder Kit extension: ctrl/command+shift+p, First Responder Kit: Import.
• Download the updated Consultant Toolkit in your account
• EU customers: check your email for the updated version from Gumroad

Consultant Toolkit Changes

No functionality changes this month, just updating the First Responder Kit with the below changes.

sp_Blitz Changes

• Fix: the power mode check now includes the label for Windows 10's new Ultimate Performance Power Mode, which surely goes up to eleven. (#2044, thanks B. Tyler White for the code.)
• Improvement: added syntax highlighting in the Github repo. (This affects all scripts, not just sp_Blitz.) (#2090, thanks Konstantin Taranov.)

sp_BlitzCache Changes

• Improvement: if 75% of your plan cache is new as of today, raise the priority on the plan cache time summaries to 1 (instead of 254.) (#2052)
• Fix: removing air_quote_actual plans for now. This new feature in SQL Server 2019 & Azure SQL DB simply isn't working consistently even in 2019 CTP 3.2, so disabling for now. (#2022, thanks Jonathon Wyza for the bug report and Shane Holder for the debugging.)
• Fix: skip AG secondary databases that don't allow readable connections. (#2072, thanks Adrian Buckman for the code contribution.)
• Fix: running sp_BlitzCache from multiple sessions no longer duplicates the missing index count on plans. (#2070)

sp_BlitzFirst Changes

• Fix: skip AG secondary databases that don't allow readable connections. (#2072, thanks Adrian Buckman for the code contribution.)
• Fix: was throwing an int overflow on boxes with over 2TB RAM. (#2060, thanks Dan Andrei Stefan for the bug report.)
• Fix: index reorgs were being reported as DBCC operations due to a bug in sys.dm_exec_requests. (#2062, thanks Erik Darling for the bug report.)

sp_BlitzIndex Changes

• Fix: when saving sp_BlitzIndex output to table, if you had an index with a definition over 4,000 characters long, it was throwing the legendary data-would-be-truncated error. Could happen if you had a lot of includes with very long column names, or with columnstore indexes. (#2076, thanks Scotti85 for the bug report.)
• Fix: if the @IgnoreDatabases parameter was broken across multiple lines (like if you copy/pasted from a spreadsheet), they weren't all getting ignored. (#2053, thanks Erik Darling for the bug report.)

sp_DatabaseRestore Changes

• Improvement: new @DatabaseOwner parameter lets you set the database owner after the restore finishes. (#2081, thanks gdoddsy for the code contribution.)
• Improvement: ability to restore to an Azure blob target. (#2067, thanks John McCall for the code contribution.)

For Support

When you have questions about how the tools work, talk with the community in the #FirstResponderKit Slack channel. If you need a free invite, hit SQLslack.com. Be patient - it's staffed with volunteers who have day jobs.

When you find a bug or want something changed, read the contributing.md file.

When you have a question about what the scripts found, first make sure you read the "More Details" URL for any warning you find. We put a lot of work into documentation, and we wouldn't want someone to yell at you to go read the fine manual. After that, when you've still got questions about how something works in SQL Server, post a question at DBA.StackExchange.com and the community (that includes us!) will help. Include exact errors and any applicable screenshots, your SQL Server version number (including the build #), and the version of the tool you're working with.

2019-07-02: Bug Fixes, plus sp_Blitz XML Output

sp_Blitz Changes

• Improvement: easier troubleshooting when implicit transactions are running. (#2042)
• Improvement: @OutputType = 'XML' will now export the entire result set as a single XML field. (#2047, thanks Rich Benner.)
• Fix: fixed link typo on alerts URL. (#2055, thanks Rich Benner.)

sp_BlitzCache Changes

• Fix: excludes readable secondaries on 2016 by default. Otherwise, it was throwing an error when the database wasn't available without specifying read-only intent. (We could probably improve this code to check for that as well.) (#2027, thanks sivey42.)
• Fix: many display fields are now rounded to ints (rather than formatting with the money datatype.) An example of the output is below - the top is before, below is after, showing the new rounded numbers. (#2046, thanks Ian Manton.)

sp_BlitzFirst Changes

• Improvement: easier troubleshooting when implicit transactions are running, and now only shows lead blockers. (#2042)

sp_DatabaseRestore Changes

• Fix: when @BackupPathFull was null, no transaction log backups were being applied. (#2036, thanks Troy Jennings for the bug report & code.)

sp_ineachdb Changes

• Improvement: compatibility with 2008 and R2, VMware snapshots where @@ServerName returns the wrong name. (#2061, thanks sm8680.)

For Support

When you have questions about how the tools work, talk with the community in the #FirstResponderKit Slack channel. If you need a free invite, hit SQLslack.com. Be patient - it's staffed with volunteers who have day jobs.

When you find a bug or want something changed, read the contributing.md file.

When you have a question about what the scripts found, first make sure you read the "More Details" URL for any warning you find. We put a lot of work into documentation, and we wouldn't want someone to yell at you to go read the fine manual. After that, when you've still got questions about how something works in SQL Server, post a question at DBA.StackExchange.com and the community (that includes us!) will help. Include exact errors and any applicable screenshots, your SQL Server version number (including the build #), and the version of the tool you're working with.

2019-04-30: New sp_Blitz Checks, sp_BlitzIndex Skips Databases

This month, lots of improvements and bug fixes, including checking for paused resumable index operations, Evaluation Edition expiration dates, sp_BlitzCache shows the number of duplicated plans for each query, sp_BlitzIndex will skip a list of databases for you, and more.

sp_Blitz Changes

• Improvement: check for First Responder Kit stored procs that are out of date (in case you're updating sp_Blitz, but not its relatives.) (#1994, thanks JeffChulg!)
• Improvement: check for resumable index operations that have been paused. (#2010)
• Improvement: warn on Evaluation Edition expiration dates. (#2017)

sp_BlitzCache Changes

• Improvement: shows the new air_quote_actual plans from sys.dm_exec_query_plan_stats on SQL Server 2019 and Azure SQL DB. (#2019)
• Improvement: show the number of multiple plans for a query in the Warnings column, like "Multiple Plans (105)". (#2026)
• Fix: arithmetic overflow when calculating terribly bad total reads for a plan. (#2018, thanks IanManton for the bug report.)
• Fix: Azure SQL DB wasn't allowed to sort by memory grants or spills because we were checking version numbers rather than sys.all_columns to check if the necessary columns exist. (#2015)
• Fix: the output table wouldn't get created when called with @sortorder = 'all.' The table would get populated if it already existed, it just wouldn't get created for the first time. (#2009)

sp_BlitzFirst Changes

• Improvement: when we call sp_BlitzCache in the 15-minute Agent job for the Power BI Dashboard, we now run it with @SkipAnalysis = 1, @sortorder = 'all'. This runs faster (because it doesn't analyze the plan XML looking for anti-patterns), and simultaneously gets you more query plans because we sort by all methods, every time. (#2009)

sp_BlitzIndex Changes

• Improvement: new @IgnoreDatabases parameter lets you skip a comma-delimited list of database names. We use that same logic to populate databases with over 100 partitions, which means @GetAllDatabases = 1 works normally, but skips databases with over 100 partitions (and shows them in the output list as to why they were skipped.) To examine those, use @Bringthepain = 1. (#1944, thanks Richard Hughes for the idea and Rich Benner for the starting point for the code.)

sp_BlitzLock Changes

• Fix: remove a collation error. (#2014, thanks Gerald-Abacus!)
• Fix: now works (slowly) on Amazon RDS, which doesn't support some tricky hints. (#2037)

sp_BlitzQueryStore Changes

• Fix: fixed error "The multi-part identifier "s.is_cursor" could not be bound." (#2024)

sp_ineachdb Changes

• Fix: now it actually does stuff even if you don't specify @Help = 1. I tell you what, people, this is how I can tell you're not using this proc yet, hahaha. (Pull #2035, thanks Aaron Bertrand.)

For Support

When you have questions about how the tools work, talk with the community in the #FirstResponderKit Slack channel. If you need a free invite, hit SQLslack.com. Be patient - it's staffed with volunteers who have day jobs.

When you find a bug or want something changed, read the contributing.md file.

When you have a question about what the scripts found, first make sure you read the "More Details" URL for any warning you find. We put a lot of work into documentation, and we wouldn't want someone to yell at you to go read the fine manual. After that, when you've still got questions about how something works in SQL Server, post a question at DBA.StackExchange.com and the community (that includes us!) will help. Include exact errors and any applicable screenshots, your SQL Server version number (including the build #), and the version of the tool you're working with.

2019-03-20: Bug Fixes and a New sp_BlitzCache String Search

This month, just half a dozen bug fixes, plus a new parameter for sp_BlitzCache to search the plan cache for specific strings. 

sp_Blitz Changes

• Fix: ignore backups-on-same-drive rule on Linux since it's harder to detect mount points over there. (#1995, thanks UCJonathan for the bug report and Brandon (bsquidwrd) for the code.)

sp_BlitzCache Changes

• Improvement: new @SlowlySearchPlansFor parameter lets you look for strings in the plan cache. Useful for when you wanna figure out what query is asking for a particular missing index, find out which query is using an index, or which query is calling a function. This one's very new and untested, so if you find stuff, drop us a line in a new issue. (#2000)

sp_BlitzFirst Changes

• Fix: when calling sp_BlitzCache, it was passing an invalid @sortorder parameter, and since sp_BlitzCache started purposely throwing sev 16 errors in the #1945 enhancement, that caused the sp_BlitzFirst Agent jobs to fail.(#1983, thanks Bill Mrazik for the bug report.)

sp_BlitzIndex Changes

• Fix: saving results to table was broken in last month's release. Doh! (#1988, thanks Matthew Monroe for the report & fix.)
• Fix: simplified missing index recommendations - they no longer say "with high impact" or "with low impact." (#1991)

sp_DatabaseRestore Changes

• Fix: the @StoPAt value was not being honored when @ContinueLogs = 1. (#1986, thanks Troy Jennings for the report & fix, and ZLThomps1 for the assist.)
• Fix: if you asked to restore diffs and logs, but no diffs were taken yet, the logs were being skipped too. (#1998, thanks Frederik Vanderhaegen.)

2019-02-19: The Rich Benner Memorial Release

I hereby christen this the Rich Benner Memorial Release. He's still alive, it's just that we'll always remember him for the work he put into this month's version. (I'm kidding, of course. We won't remember him. (I'm kidding. Rich will appreciate the humor in that.))

Across-the-Board Changes

• Improvement: you can now call the procs with @VersionCheckMode = 1, and they'll just set their version number & date output variables, then immediately return without doing any work. (#1949, thanks Jeff Chulg for the great idea and implementation.)

Here it is in action:

And the code for your copy/pasta delight:

DECLARE @Version VARCHAR(30), @VersionDate DATETIME2;

EXEC dbo.sp_Blitz 
    @VersionCheckMode = 1,  
    @Version = @Version OUTPUT, 
    @VersionDate = @VersionDate OUTPUT ;

SELECT @Version as Version , @VersionDate as VersionDate;

sp_Blitz Changes

• Improvement: new check for SSAS, SSIS, SSRS services running. (#1943, thanks Rich Benner.)
• Improvement: added Azure SQL DB's POOL_LOG_RATE_GOVERNOR as a poison wait. (#1971.)
• Fix: updated out-of-support version list to mark that SQL 2012 pre-SP4 is now an unsupported build. (#1967, thanks Rich.)
• Fix: typo in check IDs where check 222 was reporting that it was 114. (#1964, thanks Rich.)
• Fix: typo in documentation where checks 203 and 224 were swapped. (#1966, thanks Rich.)

sp_BlitzCache Changes

• Improvement: autocorrect for sort orders. If you pass in something that's kinda-sorta-near a real sort order, we correct it. (#1945, thanks Rich Benner.)
• Improvement: Azure SQL DB and Hyperscale compatibility. (#1935)
• Fix: faster performance when you have a lot of missing indexes. We were missing a field in a join between two temp tables. (#1956, thanks Ron MacNeil for the eagle eye.)
• Note: in this release, #1935 also renamed all of the ##bou_ temp tables without bou, so just ##BlitzCacheResults. This was done to reduce the BOU branding in the Consultant Toolkit in case your customers start reading the scripts.

sp_BlitzFirst Changes

• Improvement: in the headline-news result set, batch requests/sec and wait time per core per second are now shown as decimals instead of integers. (#1940, thanks Rich Benner for being the perfect class attendee who actually improves the tools during the class.)
• Improvement: added Azure SQL DB's POOL_LOG_RATE_GOVERNOR as a poison wait. (#1971.)

sp_BlitzIndex Changes

• Improvement: better index naming - removed the table name from the index to tighten up execution plan visualization. (#1938, thanks Rich Benner for doin' it again.)
• Fix: to work around a bug in sys.dm_db_stats_histogram and sys.dm_db_stats_properties, we now only show statistics for tables when your database context is the same as the database you're analyzing. This means if you wanna examine stats, you've gotta be in the same database as the object you want to analyze. (#1947, thanks Morten Abrahamsen.)
• Fix: works again with Azure SQL DB. (#1933, thanks Jacob Golden.)
• Fix: output to table works again. (#1952, thanks Aram Pendley for the bug report and Matt Monroe for the bug fix.)
• Fix: compression information truncation error for over 900 partitions. (#1973.)