I get a different result set for this query intermittently when I run it…sometimes it gives 1363, sometimes 1365 and sometimes 1366 results. The data doesn’t change. What could be causing this and is there a way to prevent it? Query looks something like this:
SELECT *
FROM
(
SELECT
RC.UserGroupId,
RC.UserGroup,
RC.ClientId AS CLID,
CASE WHEN T1.MultipleClients = 1 THEN RC.Salutation1 ELSE RC.DisplayName1 END AS szDisplayName,
T1.MultipleClients,
RC.IsPrimaryRecord,
RC.RecordTypeId,
RC.ClientTypeId,
RC.ClientType,
RC.IsDeleted,
RC.IsCompany,
RC.KnownAs,
RC.Salutation1,
RC.FirstName,
RC.Surname,
Relationship,
C.DisplayName Client,
RC.DisplayName RelatedClient,
E.Email,
RC.DisplayName + ' is the ' + R.Relationship + ' of ' + C.DisplayName Description,
ROW_NUMBER() OVER (PARTITION BY E.Email ORDER BY Relationship DESC) AS sequence_id
FROM
SSDS.Client.ClientExtended C
INNER JOIN
SSDS.Client.ClientRelationship R WITH (NOLOCK)ON C.ClientId = R.ClientID
INNER JOIN
SSDS.Client.ClientExtended RC WITH (NOLOCK)ON R.RelatedClientId = RC.ClientId
LEFT OUTER JOIN
SSDS.Client.Email E WITH (NOLOCK)ON RC.ClientId = E.ClientId
LEFT OUTER JOIN
SSDS.Client.UserDefinedData UD WITH (NOLOCK)ON C.ClientId = UD.ClientId AND C.UserGroupId = UD.UserGroupId
INNER JOIN
(
SELECT
E.Email,
CASE WHEN (COUNT(DISTINCT RC.DisplayName) > 1) THEN 1 ELSE 0 END AS MultipleClients
FROM
SSDS.Client.ClientExtended C
INNER JOIN
SSDS.Client.ClientRelationship R WITH (NOLOCK)ON C.ClientId = R.ClientID
INNER JOIN
SSDS.Client.ClientExtended RC WITH (NOLOCK)ON R.RelatedClientId = RC.ClientId
LEFT OUTER JOIN
SSDS.Client.Email E WITH (NOLOCK)ON RC.ClientId = E.ClientId
LEFT OUTER JOIN
SSDS.Client.UserDefinedData UD WITH (NOLOCK)ON C.ClientId = UD.ClientId AND C.UserGroupId = UD.UserGroupId
WHERE
Relationship IN ('z-Group Principle', 'z-Group Member ')
AND E.Email IS NOT NULL
GROUP BY E.Email
) T1 ON E.Email = T1.Email
WHERE
Relationship IN ('z-Group Principle', 'z-Group Member ')
AND E.Email IS NOT NULL
) T
WHERE
sequence_id = 1
AND T.UserGroupId IN (Select * from iCentral.dbo.GetSubUserGroups('471b9cbd-2312-4a8a-bb20-35ea53d30340',0))
AND T.IsDeleted = 0
AND T.RecordTypeId = 1
AND T.ClientTypeId IN
(
'1', --Client
'-1652203805' --NTU
)
AND T.CLID NOT IN
(
SELECT DISTINCT
UDDF.CLID
FROM
SLacsis_SLM.dbo.T_UserDef UD WITH (NOLOCK)
INNER JOIN
SLacsis_SLM.dbo.T_UserDefData UDDF WITH (NOLOCK)
ON UD.UserDef_ID = UDDF.UserDef_ID
INNER JOIN
SLacsis_SLM.dbo.T_Client CLL WITH (NOLOCK)
ON CLL.CLID = UDDF.CLID AND CLL.UserGroup_CLID = UD.UserID
WHERE
UD.UserDef_ID in
(
'F68F31CE-525B-4455-9D50-6DA77C66FEE5',
'A7CECB03-866C-4F1F-9E1A-CEB09474FE47'
)
AND UDDF.Data = 'NO'
)
ORDER BY T.Surname
EDIT:
I have removed all NOLOCK’s (including the ones in views and UDFs) and I’m still having the same issue. I get the same results every time for the nested select (T) and if I put the result set of T into a temp table in the beginning of the query and join onto the temp table instead of the nested select then the final result set is the same every time I run the query.
EDIT2:
I have been doing some more reading on ROW_NUMBER()…I’m partitioning by email (of which there are duplicates) and ordering by Relationship (where there are only 1 of 2 relationships). Could this cause the query to be non-deterministic and would there be a way to fix that?
EDIT3:
Here are the actual execution plans if anyone is interested http://www.mediafire.com/?qo5gkh5dftxf0ml. Is it possible to see that it is running as read committed from the execution plan? I’ve compared the files using WinMerge and the only differences seem to be the counts (ActualRows=””).
EDIT4:
This works:
SELECT * FROM
(
SELECT *,
ROW_NUMBER() OVER (PARTITION BY B.Email ORDER BY Relationship DESC) AS sequence_id
FROM
(
SELECT DISTINCT
RC.UserGroupId,
...
) B...
EDIT5:
When running the same ROW_NUMBER() query (T in the original question, just selecting RC.DisplayName and ROW_NUMBER) twice in a row I get different rank for some people:
Does anyone have a good explanation/example of why or how ROW_NUMBER() over a result set that contains duplicates can rank differently each time it is run and ultimately change the number of results?
EDIT6:
Ok I think this makes sense to me now. This occurs when people 2 people have the same email address (e.g a husband and wife pair) and relationship. I guess in this case their ROW_NUMBER() ranking is arbitrary and can change every time it is run.
As I said yesterday in the comments the row numbering for rows with duplicate
E.Email, Relationshipvalues will be arbitrary.To make it deterministic you would need to do
PARTITION BY B.Email ORDER BY Relationship DESC, SomeUniqueColumn. Interesting that it changes between runs though using the same execution plan. I assume this is a consequence of the hash join.