These are some of the symptoms, if SQL Server Instance has encountered a Shared Memory Failure.

1. WaitTime = 0
2. LastWaitType = Miscellaneous

When you run System Monitor from the Performance console on a computer that is running SQL Server with Service Pack 3 (SP3) and you restart SQL Server without closing the Performance console, the following message is logged in the SQL Server error log:

When this error occurs, SQL Server disables the collection of all performance counter data. If you query the sysprocesses table in the master database, the value of the waittype column and of the waittime column is always zero for all system process IDs (SPIDs). The value of the waittype column and of the waittime column may remain at zero, even if you query the sysprocesses table several times. Other commands that return performance information, such as querying the sysperfinfo virtual table or running the DBCC SQLPERF (WAITSTATS) command, will either return empty results sets or return results that indicate no waits or wait time occurred.

Solution

To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Microsoft SQL Server 2000.

Note Turn off the monitor programs that are running on your computer and restart the SQL Server service before you install this hot fix. The monitor programs may cause a shared memory segment that was created before the installation of the hot fix to be left open with the corresponding Access Control Lists (ACL), even after you install the hot fix on your computer.

Thanks,

Sarabpreet Singh