SQL Server 2000 SP4
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Hi Guys,
I was wondering if anyone has deployed this? Looking for anyone who has encountered issues with it. Looks like from the latest release notes from MS, there is an issue with instances using Address Windowing Extensions (AWE), so I will wait till this issue has been resolved, since we use AWE.
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Hi, If you have AWE enabled, you should have installed the SP4. We have deployed SP4 on a production server and we are not seeing any issues related to AWE. But Microsoft recommends to install SP4 if you have AWE Option enabled...
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Hi there,
I implemented SP4 on all our test servers about a month ago & beginning of last week, I deployed the SP on the production boxes, all of them AWE enabled.
Was a bit sceptic but I must say that I haven't encountered any problems with SP4.
It did however, change some of the Speed & Duplex settings on the boxes, but once that was corrected, everything was 100%
Cheers!!
T.
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We're a bit behind the times where I'm working - we have 2 SQL boxes both running SP3. The IT manager doesn't see the point in installing SP3a or SP4 as "We're behind a firewall and everything is running smoothly"
Were we to install SP4 it would be on our 2nd SQL box, which is a development and backup server. Would installing SP4 on that box cause us any problems / incompatibility issues? Would you advise applying the SP?
Sharing knowledge saves valuable time!
Simon Martin -
petmani, Microsoft recommends that you do not install SP4 on a server with more than 2GB memory and using AWE.
Warning: Microsoft has found an issue with the final build of SP4 that impacts customers who run SQL Server with Address Windowing Extensions (AWE) support enabled. This issue only impacts computers with more than two gigabytes (2 GB) of memory where AWE has been explicitly enabled. If you have this configuration, you should not install SP4. Microsoft is currently working on the problem and will issue an update soon.
From: http://www.microsoft.com/sql/downloads/2000/sp4.asp
This doesn't say what problem it is, but I read elsewhere that the symptoms was that the server would not use more than 2GB of memory after installing SP4. It might be only some servers that are affected, but since SP4 is not uninstallable I would not install it until Microsoft says the problem is solved.
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Chris,
OH God..
We had this issues and there is solution found in Microsoft support pages..this is the reason we think SP4 is the solution to fix AWE Issues. We are not seeing this kind of issues after installing SP4.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/332004/
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/831999/EN-US/
Looks like there is no conclusion to this...
Also look at this too...
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Petmani, You say we should apply SP4 if we use AWE - Please check out the latest release noted from MS:
"Warning: Microsoft has found an issue with the final build of SP4 that impacts customers who run SQL Server with Address Windowing Extensions (AWE) support enabled. This issue only impacts computers with more than two gigabytes (2 GB) of memory where AWE has been explicitly enabled. If you have this configuration, you should not install SP4. Microsoft is currently working on the problem and will issue an update soon."
I agree with Chris Hedgate, there is no way - I am applying this SP in Prod.
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This is found in SQL Server Books on-line. Initially we had 4 GB (3 GB for SQL + 1 GB for OS) with AWE Option disabled. Once we upgraded from 12 GB (10 GB for SQL + 2 GB for OS) we enabled AWE. It makes sense to enable AWE if we have more than 4 GB. Otherwise we will end up with some addressing issues. If you have less than 4 GB for SQL Server, please do not enable AWE option but you can install SP4. SP4 has a lot other performance and defects fixes, remember
Before enabling AWE, consider the following:
- When awe enabled is set to 1, instances of SQL Server 2000 do not dynamically manage the size of the address space. SQL Server will reserve and lock almost all available memory (or the value of max server memory if the option has been set) when the server is started. It is strongly recommended that you set a value for the max server memory option each time you enable AWE. Otherwise other applications or instances of SQL Server 2000 will have less than 128 MB of physical memory in which to run.
- If the total available memory is less than 3 GB, the instance of SQL Server 2000 will be started in non-AWE mode even if awe enabled is set to 1. In this situation, you do not need to manage AWE memory because dynamic memory allocation is used automatically.
- You can determine the amount of memory you can safely allocate to instances of SQL Server 2000 by identifying how much memory is available after all other applications to be used on the computer have been started.
Use the SQL Server Performance Monitor Total Server Memory (KB) counter to determine how much memory is allocated by the instance of SQL Server running in AWE mode. Configure the max server memory option to leave some additional memory free to allow for the varying needs of other applications and Windows 2000. For more information, see Monitoring Memory Usage.
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Yes, I have no doubt that SP4 solves a lot of bugs and issues with AWE memory incl those you linked to. However, what I am pointing out here is that after they released SP4 they seem to have encountered a problem where the final build of SP4 introduces a new bug. This bug like I said stops the server from using more than 2GB memory, which I assume means that AWE is not being used at all. Since I no longer have access to any servers using AWE memory I have not 'tried' this myself, and like I said it might not be all systems that are affected. Have you verified that your server is using more than 2GB memory after you installed SP4?
Most importantly, like I also said, since SP4 is not possible to uninstall, I would not take any chances with installing SP4 (on a server using AWE) until Microsoft says it is ok.
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I installed SP4 onto Dev early May (pretty much on release date), and to SysTest & UAT a couple of days later.
After running in parallel in UAT for two weeks, with a number of issues resolved by SP4, and no new issues found, I upgraded prod.
At which point, of course, the sky fell in.
We use AWE on all environments, but in all environments except for prod, we have two instances of SQL installed - so in every case, each instance has a max server memory set to less than half physical RAM.
Prod only runs a single instance - set to 75% of RAM (6GB). UAT, on the other hand, has two instances - each set to 6GB MaxServerMemory - but the server has 16GB installed.
So we didn't see the symptoms in test.
However, I can confirm that the bug doesn't limit you to 2GB, but simply 1/2 system RAM.
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I have it on one (new) prod msde install, and a couple of dev boxes.
Waiting for the AWE and SQLDiag fix prior to upgrading older servers, as I try and keep all the servers on the same service pack/hotfix release where possible.
Steven
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One question... I looked at the fixlist in sp4 and found that there’s actually a fix for AWE so wondering if the bug exists in sp3a right now.
The following is one of the item in sp4 fixlist:
332004 FIX: SQL Server scalability may be limited if AWE is enabled
Link :
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/332004/
I will be upgrading SQL2000 to 8GB soon so still wondering is there anything I should take note of that I might not be aware..
I also read about /PAE not being stable..
Any encounters ?
Thanks.
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Hello,
Does anyone have an update on the fix? Calls to MS have gone answered with "we are working on the fix and will let you know when complete.:
Thanks in advance.
Chris
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Hi Chris and all fellow concerned DBAs,
I have obtained an 'unofficial' fix for the AWE bug in SP4-I am going to run tests today and I will keep you posted.
Patrick
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I've been running the hotfix (it updates the build by one (from 2039 to 2040, I think) on sqlserver.exe only).
We've been running it for almost two weeks now on our Dev, System Test and UAT boxes. We will probably run in prod in a week.
We've seen one issue in Dev with the hotfix installed - a hung OLE-DB connection (via MS OLE-DB for Oracle / Oracle 9.2 client) from a DTS package to an Oracle 8217 box - but can't pin that down to anything - hotfix or otherwise.
In UAT, we're running in parallel to prod, and have no performance or other issues with the hotfix.
Our prod environement was (and still is - because we haven't patched it yet) throwing VDI errors - failing to allocate buffers in the MemToLeave area. Our prod environment was the only environment that actually showed this problem, and, although we've tried to simulate similar conditions on our other environments, we weren't able to re-create this problem on other environments before applying the hotfix, so we don't actually know if either SP4 caused it or the hotfix will fix it - though we have been working with an engineer who believe that the issue we've seen is due to the bug in SP4.
I assume that the build we've got is the same one Patrick is referring to - it was my understanding that we got early access to the hotfix because we had a call open, but we haven't got a specific build for our problem.
So, all in all, it would appear that the hotfix doesn't break anything new, and does allow you to allocate > 1/2 physical RAM to AWE, but on the other hand, I can't confirm (yet) that it fixes what we believe was a symptom not mentioned on the original KB, which was failure to allocate buffers for VDI.
More in a week (if all goes to plan).
BJ
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