We are aware that our SQL database server mssql03.ihostasp.net is currently experiencing an issue where some domains are timing out while attempting to establish a connection to the server. We are working to correct the issue and hope to have it resolved shortly. Any updates to this issue will be posted here. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause this morning.

Looks like the situation with mssql03.ihostasp.net has stabilized over last hour after we have blocked database access to several mis-configured applications.

The exceptions and delays that you may have experienced are result of the process blocks on the MSSQL server. This particular problem occurs when MSSQL server has too many long running queries processing at the same time. In essence this is equivalent to a highway being blocked by bunch of semi-trucks going 20mph, everyone else has to wait until they pass. This problem is often caused by poorly behaving applications that keeps hammering the database server. It is not always clear which database is responsible for the mess, it takes some time to collect and analyze data from the SQL Server Profiler to identify the source of the problem.

  This issue has not been resolved. It is 1/16 and still getting db errors, slow loading etc.

We can see that on our end, during the last 20 minutes the load seems to have increased exponentially. If you are getting intermittent timeout, I suggest you to set DNN caching to aggressive mode. The caching lessens the need for DNN to run quarries against the database for every page hit, thus reduces load and delays.

We are rebooting mssql03.ihostasp.net starting 5:02PM EST. We have applied some changes to the CPU affinity setting in the SQL server that requires a restart.

It is difficult to change any setting when it is nearly impossible to log in. If the issue is not resolved soon (as in today) do you have another plan?

The "problem" is that there is nothing wrong with the server, there is literally nothing for us to fix. What you are experiencing is caused by heavy load conditions that seem to come in waves. We are trying to figure out what exactly is hammering us, this is difficult because other site owners that have database on this particular server are determined to refresh their browser windows every time there is any hiccup which further deteriorates the problem and prevents us from getting any mean-full statistics.

 At this point we may start bumping offline databases that are in the top 1% percentile for CPU ad IO resource consumption, in most cases these are bloated or buggy applications.

I have just browsed some random domains that use DNN and have their database hosted on mssql03.ihostasp.net, so far all 18 domains that I have sampled are working correctly.

From what I have observed tonight, the DNN caching seems to help sites to load up much faster.  Sites that had aggressive caching turned on were loading up much faster, this makes sense considering that DNN does not have to run queries for every page hit. I highly recommend to all DNN administrator's to enable caching in your DNN installation. Caching will not only reduce load on the database server but will also speed up your site.

DotNetNuke Upgrade Error

The Assembly Version ( [ASSEMBLYVERSION] ) does not match the Database Version ( [DATABASEVERSION] )

ERROR: Could not connect to database.

SHUTDOWN is in progress. Login failed for user '*******'. Only administrators may connect at this time.

Any other suggestions? I understand issues arise but the downtime should be able to be measured in a something less that DAYS.

We are working on resolution, you may see various exceptions while we work on things.

I beg to differ regarding your claim of downtime. We treat any interruption of service with all importance, but please lets not exaggerate things.

Yeh my customers are seeing that too... for the dozenth time ...
This is not even funny anymore, I'm losing customers at this very moment. You guys have always been very reasonable and quick with support,and help me in a few tight spots, but the db issue has been a plague on and off on this server since I've been on it, now we've been down for 3 days. You just stated above that there's nothing wrong and nothing to fix. well I differ on that, its dead,  the other db servers are running fine, infact my others sites are always extremely faster than my primary domain which runs off this dbserver, it has never ever been as fast as the others. I need my db moved to another server or I may have to move my site alltogether and I dont want to do that, I'd rather stay here. I've had probably 15 host providers in the last 10 years I really dont want to move again. I also cannot not wait another day.

No doubt, the mssql03.ihostasp.net is an older server that was deployed almost two years ago. It is not as fast as the more recent latest generation machines we have deployed. Having said that, this server also hosts much smaller number of databases compared to new machines. The average query response time is 217ms according WMI which is on par with other MSSQL machines we have.

When I mentioned "there is nothing to fix" in my previous post, I have implied that server is not broken in physical or logical sense. Yes, there is currently intermittent issue with process blocking which can occasionally prevent new database connection from being established. As I have mentioned previously, this condition occurs generally as a result of one or more slow running queries that place locks on various objects. We have seen this happen from time to time on all of our servers, regardless of how many databases or logical CPUs they have.

 We have been chasing down the problem SQL queries and applications, but it's like playing whack-a-mole since we have no control over the quality of code that is accessing our servers.

Please don't think we sit idly and watch our users suffer, we are determined to resolve this issue.

Most, but not all, of the timeout problems occur on our DNN Forums. I've turned off as much logging as I can, and changed log files to write to disk instead of the database. Thanks for your efforts. I'm a web and SQL admin in my "real" life, so I know what you're going through. Of course, that doesn't make it any nicer for my small group of users.

I'm afraid to say that I've had to move my site to another host asof yesterday. So there's one less site to use the db server, not that it was really doing much anyway... I hope you find the site that's causing the issues and terminate their account! I do understand the problems you face with this, but I can't sustain this any longer :(

I have purposely not been working on our site in order to reduce server loading and give you a chance to find out what is hammering you.  Did you find out and fix it?