Question

I have a block of code that runs within a TransactionScope and within this block of code I make several calls to the DB. Selects, Updates, Creates, and Deletes, the whole gamut. When I execute my delete I execute it using an extension method of the SqlCommand that will automatically resubmit the query if it deadlocks as this query could potentially hit a deadlock.

I believe the problem occurs when a deadlock is hit and the function tries to resubmit the query. This is the error I receive:

The transaction associated with the current connection has completed but has not been disposed. The transaction must be disposed before the connection can be used to execute SQL statements.

This is the simple code that executes the query (all of the code below executes within the using of the TransactionScope):

using (sqlCommand.Connection = new SqlConnection(ConnectionStrings.App))
{
    sqlCommand.Connection.Open();
    sqlCommand.ExecuteNonQueryWithDeadlockHandling();
}

Here is the extension method that resubmits the deadlocked query:

public static class SqlCommandExtender
{
    private const int DEADLOCK_ERROR = 1205;
    private const int MAXIMUM_DEADLOCK_RETRIES = 5;
    private const int SLEEP_INCREMENT = 100;

    public static void ExecuteNonQueryWithDeadlockHandling(this SqlCommand sqlCommand)
    {
        int count = 0;
        SqlException deadlockException = null;

        do
        {
            if (count > 0) Thread.Sleep(count * SLEEP_INCREMENT);
            deadlockException = ExecuteNonQuery(sqlCommand);
            count++;
        }
        while (deadlockException != null && count < MAXIMUM_DEADLOCK_RETRIES);

        if (deadlockException != null) throw deadlockException;
    }

    private static SqlException ExecuteNonQuery(SqlCommand sqlCommand)
    {
        try
        {
            sqlCommand.ExecuteNonQuery();
        }
        catch (SqlException exception)
        {
            if (exception.Number == DEADLOCK_ERROR) return exception;
            throw;
        }

        return null;
    }
}

The error occurs on the line:

sqlCommand.ExecuteNonQuery();

Answer 1

Don’t forget to supress your select statements from your TransactionScope. In SQL Server 2005 and above, even when you use with(nolock), locks are still created on those tables the select touches. Check this out, it shows you how to setup and use TransactionScope.

using(TransactionScope ts = new TransactionScope 
{ 
  // db calls here are in the transaction 
  using(TransactionScope tsSuppressed = new TransactionScope (TransactionScopeOption.Suppress)) 
  { 
    // all db calls here are now not in the transaction 
  } 
}