Skip to main content

Shrinking WSS (Sharepoint) SQL Server Log Files

Yesterday, while migrating a source repository from StarTeam to TFS, I received the following error:
"TF30042: The database is full. Contact your Team Foundation Server administrator."
Excuse you? Sure enough, my 100+ GB drive was full on the server. But I'd only migrated around 1000 items. Surely SQL wasn't consuming 100MB per file.

Turns out (yes, there was a lot of crud on the drive but...) the majority of the space, almost 40GB was being consumed by the Windows Sharepoint Services WSS Content data and log SQL Server files. Huh? I still need to investigate and understand why this portal, which is 100% unused, grew so large. Regardless, here's what I did to resolve:

  1. Since this is not yet a production database, I flipped the SQL recovery option from Full to Simple for WSS Content and several other databases. Detail here and here.
  2. Executed the maintenance plan for all the databases to get backups and clear out some of these files. That didn't help much. The Auto_Shrink == true didn't assist us in trimming the file sizes.
  3. Executed the following SQL as described here to understand the space available.
  4. Executed the following SQL as described here to shrink the log file down to 1GB (1000MB)
  5. Checked the data
  6. Performed a second backup for safe keeping
In the end, I recovered more than 80% of the previously consumed hard drive. Check with your DBA and / or your Sharepoint admin should you encounter this issue in a production environment. I had the luxury of being a bit cavalier because I was in a near-empty, non-production environment.
Labels:

Comments

Halcyon Nancy said…
Thanks for the posting. Saved my bacon. I had this happen on a production server. The SharePoint databases were set to Simple, but the WSS databases were all set to Full. Shrinking thier log files got me half the drive back. Whew!
Monday, October 18, 2010 12:39:00 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Fast and Reliable Home Internet: Your Livelihood Depends on It

You're on yet another Zoom call and...wait what did she say? Dang it...Internet glitching again! You quickly mute your audio and video. "Kids! Get off YouTube...I'm on a call!" With everyone working and schooling from home, your Internet can't keep up. The cable company keeps claiming you're on their "super-fast Internet" but everything keeps lagging. It's all so frustrating and you just want to get your work done.  It may not be the cable company's fault. Use this approach to ensure your household enjoys a super-fast, reliable Internet! Start with the Source Run a speed test. Google "speed test" . Run that test a few times on a given day. If you're not getting at least 50Mbps download and 10Mbps upload speeds, keep reading.  Check with your Provider and do your Homework Reach out to your Internet provider. This may be your cable company or telephone provider. Understand your current plan: What package are you currently on? Wha...
Post a Comment
Read more

Consulting Exodus Trend?

Is it just me or have a significant number of 'A' players left our consulting firms? People come and people go. Ours is certainly not an industry of "lifers". However, within the past year or so, I've witnessed several of my consulting peers -- the folks I really look up to -- leave the consulting arena for [predominately] full-time technology product firms. A smaller number have left for full-time positions at businesses while an even smaller number left to start their own business|firm|freelance|etc. Their departure struck me as odd because these were the type of folks who [I thought] would eventually become owner / partners at their respective firms. Certainly, the firms will carry on and continue to perform well but the departure of these folks would result in nothing less than a severe case of the hiccups and quite possibly a minor cardiac event. You know who you are. Please comment. Do we [the consulting industry] have a brain drain issue? Is this a norm...
6 comments
Read more

Certified or Certifiable?

As a senior technology professional, I interview a lot of candidates. I also maintain solid relationships with other folks in the community. Frequently, the topic of certifications arises: A good investment? Valuable? A clear measurement of skill? Consensus appears to draw the line related to one's seniority. If you're (for example) just out of school and looking for an instant creditability boost, by all means pursue a certification. Likely, this credential will assist you in overcoming the "junior" tag and likely land you more interviews and client roles. (Note: I'm going to use the terms senior and junior here...no offense to either. Can't think of a better one word description. I was a junior once too.) In stark contrast, the value of certifications drops off the table around the 2-3 year mark. Some in my circles even perceive certifications as a negative for the senior professional. They think, "If this guy is so solid, why is he wasting valuable...
5 comments
Read more