SQL Server error on update command - "A severe error occurred on the current command"

Run DBCC CHECKTABLE('table_name');

Check the LOG folder where the isntance is installed (\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\LOG usually) for any file named 'SQLDUMP*'

There are 3 possibilities on the MS KB

• 959028
• 910416
• 938102

When I see stuff like this: I always think hotfix, engine, server errors etc.

4 results: search for ""Msg 0, Level 11,State 0, Line 0" A severe error occurred on the current command"

Edit: It's on MS Connect too

This error is exactly what it means: Something bad happened, that would not normally happen.

In my most recent case, the REAL error was:

Msg 9002, Level 17, State 2, Procedure MyProcedure, Line 2 [Batch Start Line 3]
The transaction log for database 'MyDb' is full due to 'LOG_BACKUP'.

Here is my checklist of things to try, perhaps in this exact order:

1. Check if you're out of disk space (this was my real problem; our NOC did not catch this)
2. Check if you're low on memory
3. Check if the Windows Event Log shows any serious system failures like hard drives failing
4. Check if you have any unsafe code loaded through extended procedures or SQLCLR unsafe assemblies that could de-stabilize the SQLServer.exe process.
5. Run CheckDB to see if your database has any corruption issues. On a very large database, if this stored procedure only touches a sub-set of tables, you can save time by seeing which partitions (filegroups) the stored procedure touches, and only checking those specific filegroups.
   1. I would do this for your database and master db as well.

This seems to happen when there's a generic problem with your data source that it isn't handling.

In my case I had inserted a bunch of data, the indexes had become corrupt on the table, they needed rebuilding. I found a script to rebuild them all, seemed to fix it. To find the error I ran the same query on the database - one that had worked 100+ times previously.

in my case, the method: context.Database.CreateIfNotExists(); called up multiple times before create database and crashed an error A severe error occurred on the current command. The results, if any, should be discarded.

I was having the error in Hangfire where I did not have access to the internal workings of the library or was I able to trace what the primary cause was.

Building on @Remus Rusanu answer, I was able to have this fixed with the following script.

    --first set the database to single user mode
    ALTER DATABASE TransXSmartClientJob
    SET SINGLE_USER
    WITH ROLLBACK IMMEDIATE;
    GO

    -- Then try to repair
    DBCC CHECKDB(TransXSmartClientJob, REPAIR_REBUILD)

    -- when done, set the database back to multiple user mode
    ALTER DATABASE TransXSmartClientJob
    SET MULTI_USER;
    GO

One other possible solution we just found after having this issue across multiple databases/tables on the same server.

Is the max connections open to the sql server. We had an app that wasn't closing it's SQL connection and was leaving them open so we were running around 28K-31K connections (SQL Sever has a max out at 32K ish), and we noticed that once we killed a few thousand sleeping connections it took care of the error listed on this question.

The fix was to update the apps to make sure they closed their connections instead of leaving them open.

In my case it was something else, += operator caused this. I had to replace += X with field = field + X to overcome this. I assume this is a bug though I wasn't able to find any related KB on Microsoft sites.

I am using SQL Server 2008 R2(10.50.1600).

Just wanted to add my 2cents to help whomever the next person that comes across this is.

We noticed that a specific report was failing after half an hour. I assumed it was a timeout as the amount of data being returned was huge. It turns out the SSRS default timeout setting is 1800 seconds (30mins). I changed the setting on this specific report to run indefinitely with no timeout and that resolved our issue.

Next step is to identify ways to improve the performance of the MSSQL behind the report :)

I had the same issue but the table was too big the I couldn't fix it from the UI or by dropping and creating all indexes. So here is another way to solve this , or at least it worked for me.

1. I have backed up the database to a BAK file
2. I have create a new database from newly backed up file and called the new database the same name but with appendix of "_BK" like this : myDatabase_BK
3. The "bad table" on the new database was already working well without the error - so it seems that the deployment fixed the problem for the new database
4. So what left was to rename the bad table on the live database(myDatabase) and then to create the same table from the backup (after renaming myDatabase.myTable):select * into myDatabase.myTable from myDatabase_BK.myTable
5. Make sure to create all indexes on the new table.