ODBC - multiple connections from one app to the same data source - c

I vaguely remember reading somewhere (in MSDN ODBC documentation?) that one application cannot make more than one connection to a single data source. It seemed to me that I need one connection that all the threads of the application will have to share.
I was trying to look this information up, but I can't seem to find it anymore. Does anyone know/remember how this works?
It all might become a problem in our app, since some of its threads will dynamically connect to data sources of their choice. I don't want to see random connection errors if two of them will connect at the same time to one source, so I wanted to double check this info.

Maybe the statement you are referring to in the MSDN documentation, is the one that says only one statement can be active on a single connection. It says:
Multiple Active Statements per Connection
After SQL Server has received a statement, the SQL Server TDS protocol does not allow acceptance of any other statements from that connection until one of the following occurs:
The client application processes the entire result set.
The client sends a statement telling the server it can close the remainder of the result set.
This means that when an ODBC application is using a default result set, SQL Server does not support multiple active statement handles on a connection handle and only one statement can be actively processed at any point in time.
When an ODBC application is using API server cursors, however, the driver can support multiple active statements on a connection. When the rowset for each cursor command has been received back at the client, SQL Server considers the statement to have completed, and it accepts another statement from another statement handle over that connection handle.
Multiple connections are fine. Multiple statements per connection, not so fine.

No, there is no restriction like that in ODBC itself. It is possible that a specific driver might for some reason limit the connections, but I am not aware of any limitations according to the specification.

Related

Azure Function Database Connection

I have a Python package that I am able to run successfully on an Azure Data Science Virtual Machine. However, when I push it to Azure as a Function, I cannot successfully make a database connection. I was getting an error that the ODBC Driver 13 for SQL Server was not supported, so I changed the driver to ODBC Driver 17 for SQL Server and now I am NOT getting an error, but no data is being returned for a query that I know should return data.
Is there any other reason that data would not be returned? Firewall issues? do I need to add a binding? Do I need to separate out the connection string to feed each part (e.g., Driver, UID, PWD) into pyodbc.connect() separately? Right now I am feeding it in like this:
setting = os.environ("CONNECTIONSTRING")
conn = pyodbc.connect(setting)
This query works fine returning data when I run it on the VM using this code, just not as a Function.
(Note, this is different from my previous post regarding reading the Azure App Setting. That problem has been solved).
There are many parts where this could be breaking.
I'd suggest start by having a Profiler or Extended Events trace on your SQL Server to verify whether a connection is even being established. If not then you need to work through the the various points of connectivity to find out where it breaks. The identity, firewall, NSGs etc might all come into play here.
Once you see a connection then you can play with permissions to ensure that your query then returns your data.
Without a full picture of your infrastructure and settings it is hard to pin it down further.
Turns out it was not a database connectivity issue like I thought it was; it was a code error.

What does `test-on-borrow` do?

What does it do? How does it work? Why am I supposed to test the database connection before "borrowing it from the pool"?
I was not able to find any related information as to why I should be using it. Just how to use it. And it baffles me.
Can anyone provide some meaningful definition and possibly resources to find out more?
"test-on-borrow" indicates that a connection from the pool has to be validated usually by a simple SQL validation query defined in "validationQuery". These two properties are commonly used in conjunction to make sure that the current connections in the pool are not stale (no longer connected to the DB actively as a result of a DB restart, or timeouts enforced by the DB, or whatever other reason that might cause stale connections). By testing the connections on borrow, the application can automatically reconnect to the DB using new connections (and dropping the invalid ones) without a manual restart of the app and thus preventing DB connection errors in the app.
You can find more information on jdbc connection pool attributes here:
https://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-8.0-doc/jdbc-pool.html#Common_Attributes

Automatic failover with SQL mirroring and connection strings

I have 3 servers set up for SQL mirroring and automatic failover using a witness server. This works as expected.
Now my application that connects to the database, seems to have a problem when a failover occurs - I need to manually intervene and change connection strings for it to connect again.
The best solution I've found so far involves using Failover Partner parameter of the connection string, however it's neither intuitive nor complete: Data Source="Mirror";Failover Partner="Principal" found here.
From the example in the blog above (scenario #3) when the first failover occurs, and principal (failover partner) is unavailable, data source is used instead (which is the new principal). If it fails again (and I only tried within a limited period), it then comes up with an error message. This happens because the connection string is cached, so until this is refreshed, it will keep coming out with an error (it seems connection string refreshes ~5 mins after it encounters an error). If after failover I swap data source and failover partner, I will have one more silent failover again.
Is there a way to achieve fully automatic failover for applications that use mirroring databases too (without ever seeing the error)?
I can see potential workarounds using custom scripts that would poll currently active database node name and adjust connection string accordingly, however it seems like an overkill at the moment.
Read the blog post here
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/spike/archive/2010/12/15/running-a-database-mirror-setup-with-the-sqlbrowser-service-off-may-produce-unexpected-results.aspx
It explains what is happening, the failover partner is actually being read from the sql server not from your config. Run the query in that post to find out what is actually being used as the failover server. It will probably be a machine name that is not discoverable from where your client is running.
You can clear the application pool in the case a failover has happened. Not very nice I know ;-)
// ClearAllPools resets (or empties) the connection pool.
// If there are connections in use at the time of the call,
// they are marked appropriately and will be discarded
// (instead of being returned to the pool) when Close is called on them.
System.Data.SqlClient.SqlConnection.ClearAllPools();
We use it when we change an underlying server via SQL Server alias, to enforce a "refresh" of the server name.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.data.sqlclient.sqlconnection.clearallpools.aspx
The solution is to turn connection pooling off Pooling="false"
Whilst this has minimal impact on small applications, I haven't tested it with applications that receive hundreds of requests per minute (or more) and not sure what the implications are. Anyone care to comment?
Try this connectionString:
connectionString="Data Source=[MSSQLPrincipalServerIP,MSSQLPORT];Failover Partner=[MSSQLMirrorServerIP,MSSQLPORT];Initial Catalog=DatabaseName;Persist Security Info=True;User Id=userName; Password=userPassword.; Connection Timeout=15;"
If you are using .net development, you can try to use ObjAdoDBLib or PigSQLSrvLib and PigSQLSrvCoreLib, and the code will become simple.
Example code:
New object
ObjAdoDBLib
Me.ConnSQLSrv = New ConnSQLSrv(Me.DBSrv, Me.MirrDBSrv, Me.CurrDB, Me.DBUser, Me.DBPwd, Me.ProviderSQLSrv)
PigSQLSrvLib or PigSQLSrvCoreLib
Me.ConnSQLSrv = New ConnSQLSrv(Me.DBSrv, Me.MirrDBSrv, Me.CurrDB, Me.DBUser, Me.DBPwd)
Execute this method to automatically connect to the online database after the mirror database fails over.
Me.ConnSQLSrv.OpenOrKeepActive
For more information, see the relevant links.
https://www.nuget.org/packages/ObjAdoDBLib/
https://www.nuget.org/packages/PigSQLSrvLib/
https://www.nuget.org/packages/PigSQLSrvCoreLib/

Problem calling stored procedure from another stored procedure via classic ASP

We have a classic ASP application that simply works and we have been loathe to modify the code lest we invoke the wrath of some long-dead Greek gods.
We recently had the requirement to add a feature to an application. The feature implementation is really just a database operation requires minimal change to the UI.
I changed the UI and made the minor modification to submit a new data value to the sproc call (sproc1).
In sproc1 that is called directly from ASP, we added a new call to another sproc that happens to be located on another server, sproc2.
Somehow, this does not work via our ASP app, but works in SQL Management Studio.
Here's the technical details:
SQL 2005 on both database servers.
Sql Login is authenticating from the ASP application to SQL 2005 Server 1.
Linked server from Server 1 to Server 2 is working.
When executing sproc1 from SQL Management Studio - works fine. Even when credentialed as the same user our code uses (the application sql login).
sproc2 works when called independently of sproc1 from SQL Management Studio.
VBScript (ASP) captures an error which is emitted in the XML back to the client. Error number is 0, error description is blank. Both from the ADODB.Connection object and from whatever Err.Number/Err.Description yields in VBScript from the ASP side.
So without any errors, nor any reproducibility (i.e. through SQL Mgmt Studio) - does anyone know the issue?
Our current plan is to break down and dig into the code on the ASP side and make a completely separate call to Server 2.sproc2 directly from ASP rather than trying to piggy-back through sproc1.
Have you got set nocount on set in both stored procedures? I had a similar issue once and whilst I can't remember exactly how I solved it at the moment, I know that had something to do with it!
You could be suffering from the double-hop problem
The double-hop issue is when the ASP/X page tries to use resources that are located on a server that is different from the IIS server.
Windows NT Challenge/Response does not support double-hop impersonations (in that once passed to the IIS server, the same credentials cannot be passed to a back-end server for authentication).
You should verify the attempted second connection using SQL Profiler.
Note that with your manual testing you are not authenticating via IIS. It's only when you initiate the sql via the ASP/X page that this problem manifests.
More resources:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/910449
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/891031
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/810572
I had a similar problem and I solved it by setting nocount on and removing print commands.
My first reaction is that this might not be an issue of calling cross-server, but one of calling a second proc from a first, and that this might be what's acting differently in the two different environments.
My first question is this: what happens if you remove the cross-server aspect from the equation? If you could set up a test system where your first proc calls your second proc, but the second proc is on the same server and/or in the same database, do you still get the same problem?
Along these same lines: In my experience, when the application and SSMS have gotten different results like that, it has often been an issue of the stored procedures' settings. It could be, as Luke says, NOCOUNT. I've had this sort of thing happen from extraneous PRINT statements in the code, although I seem to remember the PRINTed value becoming part of the error description (very counterintuitively).
If anything is returned in the Messages window when you run this in SSMS, find out where it is coming from and make it stop. I would have to look up the technical terms, but my recollection is that different querying environments have different sensitivities to "errors", and that a default connection via SSSM will not throw an error at certain times when an ADO connection from a scripting language will.
One final thought: in case it is an environment thing, try different settings on your ASP page's connection string. E.g., if you have an OLEDB connection, try ODBC. Try the native and non-native SQL Server drivers. Check out what connection string options your provider supports, and try any of them that seem like they might be worth trying.
Example code might help :) Are you trying to return two tables from the stored procedure; I don't think ADO 2.6 can handle multiple tables being returned.
I did consider that (double-hop), but what is the difference between a sproc-in-a-sproc call like I am referring to vs. a typical cross-server join via INNER JOIN? Both would be executed on Server1, using the Linked Server credentials, and authenticating to Server 2.
Can anyone confirm that calling a sproc cross-server is different than doing a join on data tables? And why?
If the Linked Server config is a sql account - is that considered a double-hop (since what you refer to is NTLM double-hops?)
In terms of whether multiple resultsets are coming back - no. Both Server1.Sproc1 and Server2.Sproc2 would be "ExecuteNonQuery()" in the .net world and return nothing (no resultsets and no return values).
Try to check the permissions to the database for the user specified in the connection string.
Use the same user name in the connection string to log in to the database while using sql mgmt studio.
create some temporary table to write the intermediate values and exceptions since it can be a effective way of debugging your application.
Can I just check: You made the addition of sproc2? Prior to that it was working fine for ages.
Could you not change where you call sproc2 from? Rather than calling it from inside sproc1, can you call it from the ASP? That way you control the authentication to SQL in the code, and don't have to rely on setting up any trusts or shared remote authentication on the servers.
How is your linked server set up? You generally have some options as to how it authenticates to the remote server, which include logging in as the currently logged in user or specifying a SQL login to always use. Have you tried setting it to always use a specific account? That should eliminate any possible permissions issues in calling the remote procedure...

BizTalk: In the remote connection dialog, is there any way to force TCP/IP transport rather than Named Pipes?

I am trying to connect to a biztalk instance over the network, and not being all that successful. The SQL server with the biztalk databases on it has named pipes disabled. When I try to connect to the server that has biztalk installed, it gives a named pipes error. When I try to connect to the database server, it just times out and gives an error that covers virtually every scenario under the sun (basically it can't connect and it doesn't know why)
If I try to connect with SQL Server Management Studio it works. If I try to make a dsn, it works. If I try to go through biztalk, it dies. If I try to go through biztalk with the tcp: prefix, it dies. If I force named pipes on the other two, it dies.
Is there any way from the Connect to existing group dialog to force using TCP/IP as the transport?
To force tcp , try "tcp:servername" (or "tcp:servername\instancename,port")
This can be done without setting an alias or default protocol with SQL tools
There are alternatives to why you may get the error though:
The named pipes error can be misleading, It usually just means "can't find server"
firewalls etc are blocking access to either the SQL instance
... or SQL listener port 1434 thats enumerates instance/ports
do you get any error messages in system or application log?
you may need to check some of the shapes - ports etc as there may be
http://www.biztalkserverguide.com/2008/02/04/biztalk-server-throwing-named-pipes-error-40-could-not-open-a-connection-to-sql-server/
declared a variable called btsConnString (string), this varable was not set to the connection string, it was blank ( by mistake), things were working as expected without issue. On the Stage As the btsConnString wasn’t assigned a connection string, it was throwing the error
Also look at MSDTC issues for connection DTC Test is here http://support.microsoft.com/kb/293799 and if you can install on both servers use DTCPing
also look at theseThe majority of Microsoft SQL Server issues that affect Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 fall into one of the following categories:
I believe I had something similar fairly recently - BizTalk would try to connect to the SQL box using named pipes for some obscure reason, which would time out.
We've using the registry (HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSSQLServer\Client\SuperSocketNetLib) to force it to try TCP first (and last, and we haven't specified any other protocol) and it seemed to do the trick.
See details here
I know this is an extremely old thread but for reference with the exact same problem. I ended up creating an alias to the instance in SQL Server Configuration Manager. Your alias would look like this: Alias = Aliasname Value = Server\Instance. Then put Aliasname as your datasource in your connection string. Seems to me BizTalk doesn't understand the backslash (\) in the connection string. It must have the a single word.

Resources