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Hi, myself and 2 others in my team are trying out SQL Complete and really like what we see, but we've found that it's causing major problems with SSMS.

Here's our environment:
* Windows 8 x64
* SSMS 2012 - all updates installed
* Either SQL Complete or Standard - 1 guy is doing the demo for standard, 2 others are doing the free version.

What's strange is that it worked initially until we close and go back in. When we open SSMS everything is ok until we connect to a database. The moment we try to do that SSMS hangs and has to be killed. The work around has been to open SSMS, do *not* connect to a database, disable SQL Complete, close SSMS, open SSMS again and connect to a database which now works and finally re-enable SQL Complete.

Does anyone have a suggestion here? Thanks for any help you can offer.


UPDATE:
Interesting discovery - I opened SSMS and tried to connect to a database. Sure enough it froze, but I decided to let it sit like that while I went to lunch. Came back to find that at some point it had recovered and was healthy.

Could this be SQL Complete building a cache of everything for its local intellisense? Perhaps we just need to be more patient when first opening things up.

We are currently investigating this issue.

In the meanwhile, could you please answer the questions below:

1. What version of dbForge SQL Complete are you using?
2. Is the server located on a local PC or remote one?
3. Are you using a VPN connection.
4. What's the connection speed?

1. What version of dbForge SQL Complete are you using?

dbForge SQL Complete Express Edition v4.0.68

2. Is the server located on a local PC or remote one?

The server is on my local subnet.

3. Are you using a VPN connection.

No VPN and going through 2 network switches to reach the server from my workstation.

4. What's the connection speed?

1Gbps wired network.

Thanks for looking into it.

Could you please also tell us how many documents in SSMS are opening and trying to connect to a SQL server(s) when the issue happens.

Are all the SQL documents connecting to the same server or to different ones (how many)?

Could you please also check active sessions and try to determine what SQL query, sent by SQL Complete to the server, is pending at that moment with the help of any DB monitor?

FYI - Just closed and re-opened SSMS, connected to a SQL server and of course it worked with no freeze of SSMS at all. Now I don't know what to think - maybe the local cache for SQL complete was considered recent enough that it didn't need to rebuild.

I will say that the SQL server I'm connecting to has multiple databases with the primary one having somewhere in the neighborhood of ~1000 tables and 2500+ SPROCs. Is the problem I've seen just a result of SQL Complete having to scan all those objects?

But, to answer your questions in case you still would like to know:

Could you please also tell us how many documents in SSMS are opening and trying to connect to a SQL server(s) when the issue happens.

Not sure I understand this question. The problem I'm seeing is the moment I choose a server to connect to within SSMS - I have no documents open yet, no database selected, just connecting to a SQL server.

Could you please also check active sessions and try to determine what SQL query, sent by SQL Complete to the server, is pending at that moment with the help of any DB monitor?

The next time I see the problem happen I'll check what queries are running on the server from my workstation.

Please note that dbForge SQL Complete doesn't cache objects' metadata on a local PC but retrieves it for each new SSMS session from scratch. dbForge SQL Complete starts obtaining metadata only when opening a connection in a document and doesn't perform any activity when establishing a connection in Object Explorer. Furthermore, retrieving metadata is performed in a separate thread and can not lead to a temporary freeze of SSMS you were referring to.

Taking into account the information you provided, the problem you were experiencing most probably is not connected with dbForge SQL Complete. In case you are experiencing similar problems, please let us know and would be glad to assist you.

alexa wrote:Please note that dbForge SQL Complete doesn't cache objects' metadata on a local PC but retrieves it for each new SSMS session from scratch. dbForge SQL Complete starts obtaining metadata only when opening a connection in a document and doesn't perform any activity when establishing a connection in Object Explorer. Furthermore, retrieving metadata is performed in a separate thread and can not lead to a temporary freeze of SSMS you were referring to.

Taking into account the information you provided, the problem you were experiencing most probably is not connected with dbForge SQL Complete. In case you are experiencing similar problems, please let us know and would be glad to assist you.

I'm not sure what the conflict is then. Without SQL Complete installed (demo of Standard or the free version) this freeze problem never happens. With SQL Complete, it happens on 3 separate workstations nearly every time without fail.

We've got no other 3rd party SQL tools installed so there's nothing we can remove. Very strange.

The next time I see the problem happen I'll check what queries are running on the server from my workstation.

Yes, please send us this information next time it happens.

Could you please tell us whether all the three workstations were trying to connect to the same server when it happened?

We faced some cases when SSMS was freezing itself even with the native built-in intellisence being turned off. Please also make sure that there are no other problems that might start happening approximately when dbForge SQL Complete was installed (for instance, disk space insufficiency).

Are there any other workstations excepting the three mentioned ones where dbForge SQL Complete is installed? Does such problem persist on the rest of the workstations?

Could you please also send us the system information generated by clicking the 'Send Info' button in the 'System Info Report Contents' window invoked by selecting 'SQL Complete -> About...' from the main menu and then clicking the 'View System Info' button?

Also, please turn on dbForge SQL Complete tracing by selecting 'SQL Complete -> Trace -> Start Tracing' from the main menu, and, right after dbForge SQL Complete has recovered after freeze, select 'SQL Complete -> Trace -> Send Trace Log to Devart' from the main menu. This will send the dbForge SQL Complete log file to us for further investigation.

Found the cause and solution to this problem and you were definitely right - this is not a SQL Complete problem at all.

I did some further testing by uninstalling SQL Complete and found that now I was *still* having the freeze up problem with SSMS. Did some googling and eventually found this:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1097 ... 2#12502402
It's strange, but somehow the list of "recently used" got corrupt and the timing of it coincided with installing SQL Complete, but I don't believe it really was related at all.

Sorry for the time spent on this when in the end it was an unrelated issue. Thanks for your patience.

Thank you for updating us on this issue.

Please let us know if any questions arise.