Question

I’m having a problem closing my database before an attempt to delete the file. The code is just

 myconnection.Close();    
 File.Delete(filename);

And the Delete throws an exception that the file is still in use. I’ve re-tried the Delete() in the debugger after a few minutes, so it’s not a timing issue.

I have transaction code but it doesn’t run at all before the Close() call. So I’m fairly sure it’s not an open transaction. The sql commands between open and close are just selects.

ProcMon shows my program and my antivirus looking at the database file. It does not show my program releasing the db file after the close().

Visual Studio 2010, C#, System.Data.SQLite version 1.0.77.0, Win7

I saw a two year old bug just like this but the changelog says it’s fixed.

Is there anything else I can check? Is there a way to get a list of any open commands or transactions?

---

New, working code:

 db.Close();
 GC.Collect();   // yes, really release the db

 bool worked = false;
 int tries = 1;
 while ((tries < 4) && (!worked))
 {
    try
    {
       Thread.Sleep(tries * 100);
       File.Delete(filename);
       worked = true;
    }
    catch (IOException e)   // delete only throws this on locking
    {
       tries++;
    }
 }
 if (!worked)
    throw new IOException("Unable to close file" + filename);

Answer 1

Encountered the same problem a while ago while writing a DB abstraction layer for C# and I never actually got around to finding out what the issue was. I just ended up throwing an exception when you attempted to delete a SQLite DB using my library.

Anyway, this afternoon I was looking through it all again and figured I would try and find out why it was doing that once and for all, so here is what I’ve found so far.

What happens when you call SQLiteConnection.Close() is that (along with a number of checks and other things) the SQLiteConnectionHandle that points to the SQLite database instance is disposed. This is done through a call to SQLiteConnectionHandle.Dispose(), however this doesn’t actually release the pointer until the CLR’s Garbage Collector performs some garbage collection. Since SQLiteConnectionHandle overrides the CriticalHandle.ReleaseHandle() function to call sqlite3_close_interop() (through another function) this does not close the database.

From my point of view this is a very bad way to do things since the programmer is not actually certain when the database gets closed, but that is the way it has been done so I guess we have to live with it for now, or commit a few changes to System.Data.SQLite. Any volunteers are welcome to do so, unfortunately I am out of time to do so before next year.

TL;DR
The solution is to force a GC after your call to SQLiteConnection.Close() and before your call to File.Delete().

Here is the sample code:

string filename = "testFile.db";
SQLiteConnection connection = new SQLiteConnection("Data Source=" + filename + ";Version=3;");
connection.Close();
GC.Collect();
GC.WaitForPendingFinalizers();
File.Delete(filename);

Good luck with it, and I hope it helps