DBCC OPENTRAN (Transact-SQL)

Applies to: SQL Server Azure SQL Database Azure SQL Managed Instance

Helps to identify active transactions that may be preventing log truncation. DBCC OPENTRAN displays information about the oldest active transaction and the oldest distributed and nondistributed replicated transactions, if any, within the transaction log of the specified database. Results are displayed only if there is an active transaction that exists in the log or if the database contains replication information. An informational message is displayed if there are no active transactions in the log.

Note

DBCC OPENTRAN is not supported for non- SQL Server Publishers.

Transact-SQL syntax conventions

Syntax

DBCC OPENTRAN
[
    ( [ database_name | database_id | 0 ] )
    { [ WITH TABLERESULTS ]
      [ , [ NO_INFOMSGS ] ]
    }
]

Arguments

database_name | database_id | 0

The name or ID of the database for which to display the oldest transaction information. If not specified, or if 0 is specified, the current database is used. Database names must comply with the rules for identifiers.

TABLERESULTS

Specifies the results in a tabular format that can be loaded into a table. Use this option to create a table of results that can be inserted into a table for comparisons. When this option isn't specified, results are formatted for readability.

NO_INFOMSGS

Suppresses all informational messages.

Remarks

Use DBCC OPENTRAN to determine whether an open transaction exists within the transaction log. When you use the BACKUP LOG statement, only the inactive part of the log can be truncated; an open transaction can prevent the log from truncating completely. To identify an open transaction, use sp_who to obtain the system process ID.

Result sets

DBCC OPENTRAN returns the following result set when there are no open transactions:

No active open transactions.
DBCC execution completed. If DBCC printed error messages, contact your system administrator.

Permissions

Requires membership in the sysadmin fixed server role or the db_owner fixed database role.

Examples

A. Return the oldest active transaction

The following example obtains transaction information for the current database. Results may vary.

CREATE TABLE T1(Col1 INT, Col2 CHAR(3));
GO
BEGIN TRAN
INSERT INTO T1 VALUES (101, 'abc');
GO
DBCC OPENTRAN;
ROLLBACK TRAN;
GO
DROP TABLE T1;
GO

Here's the result set.

Transaction information for database 'master'.
Oldest active transaction:
SPID (server process ID) : 52
UID (user ID) : -1
Name          : user_transaction
LSN           : (518:1576:1)
Start time    : Jun  1 2004  3:30:07:197PM
SID           : 0x010500000000000515000000a065cf7e784b9b5fe77c87709e611500
DBCC execution completed. If DBCC printed error messages, contact your system administrator.

Note

The "UID (user ID)" result is meaningless and will be removed in a future version of SQL Server.

B. Specify the WITH TABLERESULTS option

The following example loads the results of the DBCC OPENTRAN command into a temporary table.

-- Create the temporary table to accept the results.
CREATE TABLE #OpenTranStatus (
   ActiveTransaction VARCHAR(25),
   Details sql_variant
   );
-- Execute the command, putting the results in the table.
INSERT INTO #OpenTranStatus
   EXEC ('DBCC OPENTRAN WITH TABLERESULTS, NO_INFOMSGS');
  
-- Display the results.
SELECT * FROM #OpenTranStatus;
GO