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"Failed assertion" error and DBCC consistency errors which go away on their own

  • May 3, 2005 at 9:03 am

    #164471

    I'm having intermittent problems with apparent corruptions in a database (SQL Server 2000 SP3a).  The first symptoms are users getting connection failure on a query (each time it has occurred it has been a completely different query, but all of the users get the same problem).  The error log contains the following:

    Error: 3624, Severity: 20, State: 1.

    SQL Server Assertion: File: <recbase.cpp>, line=1378

    Failed Assertion = 'm_offBeginVar < m_SizeRec'.

    And a stack dump occurs.

    When I run DBCC checkdb on the main database, it says that there are consistency errors and that REPAIR_ALLOW_DATA_LOSS is the best fix that I can hope for.  The table containing the errors has been different every time.  The first few times I got everybody out (we have comparatively few users, and we keep plenty of backups for recovering the data), and when I ran the check with the repair option, miraculously there weren't any errors after all!  On one occasion, I ran the check 4 times without the repair option, and it said there were a decreasing number of consistency errors each time, and when I did it with the repair option there weren't any.  Today when it occurred, I told the users I was looking into it and to hold tight, and on the second DBCC checkdb (without repair option) it had recovered.  It has done it on my development database once too, when nobody else apart from me was accessing it.

    Could it perhaps be a problem with resources perhaps?

    Any help would be gratefully received - I'm really a developer, and in the absence of a DBA, I'm finding I'm taking on the DBA role more and more.

    Thanks,

    Rachel.

  • May 3, 2005 at 9:23 am

    #556562

    Hi,

    I'm not going to pretend to know the answer but I googeld and found these links, not sure if it helps;

    http://dbforums.com/t931276.html

    http://www.mcse.ms/message409767.html

     

    Jon

  • May 4, 2005 at 8:59 am

    #556791

    Just a thought since the errors seem both random and spurious. Have you run hardware diagnostics ? I'd start with memory first since the errors appear and disappear randomly. Then if memory is clean I'd check out the disk sub-system too. Oops, I almost forgot, are there any errors in the Windows System/Security/Application event logs ?

    RegardsRudy KomacsarSenior Database Administrator"Ave Caesar! - Morituri te salutamus."

  • May 20, 2005 at 6:00 am

    #560153

    Thanks for your response.  After what you said about memory, I looked at that a bit more closely, and it seemed that the problems occurred when memory resources were getting a bit low.  Having increased the amount of memory on the server, and installed SP4, everything seems to be OK now.

    Thanks.

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