Thanks, Jeff.

That sounds like the right diagnosis. The query that caused the locks was in SQL Server 2008 R2, but it was reading from tables on a SQL Server 7...

Thanks Gail.

My tables are still locked. The database is now useless to me.

Thanks, George. Will do.

I killed the 3 SPIDs. They now show 'KILLED/ROLLBACK' under the 'Command' column of sys.dm_exec_requests. However, the tables are still locked.

What now? Will detaching the database help?

Thanks, George.

Your script turned up the same 3 SPID's I became suspicious of after I ran EXEC sp_who2. Should I just kill them? (They are my processes.)

Thanks, Craig.

Unfortunately, I'm developing on a production server (not my choice), and there's a lot of stuff on it. I might be able to get it restarted over the weekend,...

Thanks, all.

"Invalid object name 'v$session'."

I queried sys.dm_exec_requests as recommended by Gail, but I don't know what I'm looking at. Nothing in the output refers to the problem table by name.

(Nb....

Thanks, guys.

I'll try the renaming approach. (I got no hits for "sp_who2" in SQL Server 7 Help.)

Regards,

Al

Thanks, everybody!

I bit the bullet and inserted an INDETITY(1,1) column, as primary key. Haven't had any issues yet.

Now to recode that naughty app...

- Al

Just remembered: I can't sort the QDetail table without causing trouble.

Some rows have the same QID and RIndex, but NULL values for RQty, RSell, RExt, RDescr. This indicates a...

Thanks again.

I'll try to figure out the syntax I need, as I haven't really worked with keys and indexes in T-SQL.

The design of the QID key doesn't help...

Thanks, Jason.

BTW: It's actually not a view but dynamic SQL executed via a Delphi ADO component.

The view looks like

SELECT * FROM QDetail...

I should have said that neither table has an IDENTITY column. The parent table (QHeader) does have a primary key (QID). The child table (QDetail) has no PK, but uses...

I wouldn't dispute any of the above, but what gets me is not the titles the silly verbs. A real architect designs buildings, but a software architect architects software. Talk...

I'm sure I once read, here, that WHERE IN tends to be expensive. Your test results challenge this assertion. I wonder if SQL Server 2008 is optimising the execution plan...