dbcc checkdb

Almost every one of my customers is running backup of their databases (you would be surprised if you knew how many databases never been backed up.. but that is another story). Unfortunately a lot of these databases has never been tested with dbcc checkdb. dbcc checkdb is a little like the good old chkdsk in DOS. dbcc checkdb checks the logical and physical integrity of all the objects in the database. Not running dbcc checkdb in worse case this means that someone is backing up an corrupt database. In that case when you need to restore your database…. well it is not good.

Let’s see how to determinate when a dbcc checkdb is last run with a successful result.

CREATE TABLE #t
(
    DatabaseName VARCHAR(100), 
    ParentObject VARCHAR(100), 
    ObjectName VARCHAR(100), 
    Field VARCHAR(100), 
    Value VARCHAR(100)
) 

EXEC sp_MSforeachdb 'INSERT INTO #t (ParentObject, ObjectName, Field, Value)
                    EXEC("DBCC DBINFO(""?"") WITH TABLERESULTS"); 
                    UPDATE #t SET DatabaseName = "?" WHERE DatabaseName IS NULL'

SELECT DISTINCT DatabaseName, Value FROM #t WHERE Field = 'dbi_dbccLastKnownGood'

DROP TABLE #t

This little script uses two undocumented features. This means that is does not come with any sort of warranty from Microsoft. Therefore is it not advised to use in production environments. But honestly I don’t know what a Microsoft warranty is worth. I’m pretty sure you can’t call for help if you mess up your database with one of the documented features. I have used this script a lot with no problems. But I also don’t give any warranty.

Back to the script. To see when dbcc checkdb last completed successful. We need to use the first undocumented feature dbcc dbinfo. Dbcc dbinfo give us a lot of information about a database. Find the row with Field label dbi_dbccLastKnowGood. If the value is 1900-01-01 a ddcc checkdb is never completed succesful

DBCC DBINFO('Sandbox') WITH TABLERESULTS

The other undocumented feature is sp_MSforeachdb that executes a SQL Statement once for every database.

The little script execute DBCC DBINFO one for every database. Collects all the rows into a temp table and returns only the rows with a field value ‘dbi_dbccLastKnownGood.

Now you know when your databases is last checked.

How to do the dbcc checkdb?
Well it is actual that easy, just run the command from SQL Server Management Studio. Then the active database will be checked.

DBCC CHECKDB;

This command will give you a lot of info, but if you don’t get any errors your database is fine.

If you don’t want all that information you can use this instead.

DBCC CHECKDB WITH NO_INFOMSGS, ALL_ERRORMSGS

Again if you don’t get any errors everything is fine.

If you want to specify a database it is also possible.

DBCC CHECKDB('Sandbox')  WITH NO_INFOMSGS, ALL_ERRORMSGS

If you want to run this check every night you can setup an SQL Server Agent Job. Combining the sp_msforwachdb and dbcc checkdb. Your SQL Server Agent Job will fail if any of your database is in a bad condition.

dbcc checkdb take some resources, if you have a large database you should consider when and how often you need to run this check. Maybe once a week is ok for you? Alternative you can restore your database on another server and run the check here.

If dbcc checkdb tells you that there is something wrong. Dbcc checkdb have some options to help you. But you should consider call a database expert if you don’t know what you are doing.