Question

I have a stored procedure which occasionally times out when called from our website (through the website connection pool). Once it has timed out, it has always been locked into the time-out, until the procedure is recompiled using drop/create or sp_recompile from a Management Studio session.

While it is timing out, there is no time-out using the same parameters for the same procedure using Management Studio.

Doing an “ALTER PROCEDURE” through Management Studio and (fairly drastically) changing the internal execution of the procedure did NOT clear the time out – it wouldn’t clear until a full sp_recompile was run.

The stored procedure ends with OPTION (RECOMPILE)

The procedure calls two functions, which are used ubiquitously throughout the rest of the product. The other procedures which use these functions (in similar ways) all work, even during a period where the procedure in question is timing out.

If anyone can offer any further advice as to what could be causing this time out it would be greatly appreciated.

The stored procedure is as below:

ALTER PROCEDURE [dbo].[sp_g_VentureDealsCountSizeByYear] (
  @DateFrom         AS DATETIME = NULL
  ,@DateTo          AS DATETIME = NULL
  ,@ProductRegion   AS INT = NULL
  ,@PortFirmID      AS INT = NULL
  ,@InvFirmID       AS INT = NULL
  ,@SpecFndID       AS INT = NULL
) AS BEGIN
-- Returns the stats used for Market Overview
DECLARE @IDs    AS IDLIST
INSERT INTO @IDs
    SELECT IDs
    FROM dbo.fn_VentureDealIDs(@DateFrom,@DateTo,@ProductRegion,@PortFirmID,@InvFirmID,@SpecFndID)

CREATE TABLE #DealSizes (VentureID INT, DealYear INT, DealQuarter INT, DealSize_USD DECIMAL(18,2))
INSERT INTO #DealSizes
    SELECT vDSQ.VentureID, vDSQ.DealYear, vDSQ.DealQuarter, vDSQ.DealSize_USD
    FROM dbo.fn_VentureDealsSizeAndQuarter(@IDs) vDSQ

SELECT 
    yrs.Years Heading
    ,COUNT(vDSQ.VentureID)          AS Num_Deals
    ,SUM(vDSQ.DealSize_USD) AS DealSize_USD  
FROM tblYears yrs
    LEFT OUTER JOIN #DealSizes vDSQ ON vDSQ.DealYear = yrs.Years
WHERE (
        ((@DateFrom IS NULL) AND (yrs.Years >= (SELECT MIN(DealYear) FROM #DealSizes))) -- If no minimum year has been passed through, take all years from the first year found to the present.
            OR
        ((@DateFrom IS NOT NULL) AND (yrs.Years >= DATEPART(YEAR,@DateFrom)))   -- If a minimum year has been passed through, take all years from that specified to the present.
    ) AND (
        ((@DateTo IS NULL) AND (yrs.Years <= (SELECT MAX(DealYear) FROM #DealSizes))) -- If no maximum year has been passed through, take all years up to the last year found.
            OR 
        ((@DateTo IS NOT NULL) AND (yrs.Years <= DATEPART(YEAR,@DateTo)))   -- If a maximum year has been passed through, take all years up to that year.
    )
GROUP BY yrs.Years
ORDER BY Heading DESC
OPTION (RECOMPILE)
END

Answer 1

If you wanted to recompile SP each time it is executed, you should have declared it with recompile; your syntax recompiles last select only:

ALTER PROCEDURE [dbo].[sp_g_VentureDealsCountSizeByYear] (
  @DateFrom         AS DATETIME = NULL
  ,@DateTo          AS DATETIME = NULL
  ,@ProductRegion   AS INT = NULL
  ,@PortFirmID      AS INT = NULL
  ,@InvFirmID       AS INT = NULL
  ,@SpecFndID       AS INT = NULL
) WITH RECOMPILE

I could not tell which part of your procedure causes problems. You might try commenting out select part to see if creating temp tables from table functions produces performance issue; if it does not, then the query itself is a problem. You might rewrite filter as following:

WHERE (@DateFrom IS NULL OR yrs.Years >= DATEPART(YEAR,@DateFrom))
  AND (@DateTo   IS NULL OR yrs.Years <= DATEPART(YEAR,@DateTo))

Or, perhaps better, declare startYear and endYear variables, set them accordingly and change where like this:

declare @startYear int
set @startYear = isnull (year(@DateFrom), (SELECT MIN(DealYear) FROM #DealSizes))
declare @endYear int
set @endYear = isnull (year(@DateTo), (SELECT MAX(DealYear) FROM #DealSizes))
...
where yrs.Year between @startYear and @endYear

If WITH RECOMPILE does not solve the problem, and removing last query does not help either, then you need to check table functions you use to gather data.