Question

I’ve very little experience with databases and have run in to a problem with a trigger causing a deadlock in a firebird 2.5 database.

There is two tables in the database . When items are added or removed from the ITEMS table a Trigger updates STATS.ITEMCOUNT & STATS.SIZE. There are 4 triggers in total 2 Incrementing & and two decrementing.

The stats table has a single row and is used to track what in the database. Am I doing this the wrong way? And If not is there a work round.

A deadlock occurs within the first few minutes of starting the application.

UPDATE1: Posted all triggers.

UPDATE2: Posted ExecuteNonQuery Method

UPDATE3: Deadlocks still occur even when using the view method kindly suggested by pilcrow. In fact I even tried using a stored procedure which deadlocked again. Wrapping the select statement in a transaction also failed because the Firebird Ado provider does not support parallel transactions.

public void ExecuteNonQuery(string NonQuery)
        {
            try
            {
                FbCommand FBC = new FbCommand(NonQuery, DBConnection);
                FBC.ExecuteNonQuery();
                FBC.Dispose();
            }
            catch (FbException e)
            {
                Log.FatalException("Database NonQuery Error", e);
            }

        }

        }

Database

** Tables **

CREATE TABLE ITEMS (
    ID              ID NOT NULL /* ID = VARCHAR(36) NOT NULL */,
    EXPIRYTIME      EXPIRYTIME NOT NULL /* EXPIRYTIME = BIGINT NOT NULL */,
    ITEMSIZE        ITEMSIZE /* ITEMSIZE = BIGINT NOT NULL */,
    ACCESSCOUNT     ACCESSCOUNT DEFAULT 1 NOT NULL /* ACCESSCOUNT = INTEGER DEFAULT 1 NOT NULL */,
    LASTACCESSTIME  LASTACCESSTIME /* LASTACCESSTIME = TIMESTAMP NOT NULL */
);


CREATE TABLE STATS (
    INSTANCE            SMALLINT,
    SIZE                BIGINT DEFAULT 0,
    ITEMCOUNT  BIGINT DEFAULT 0,
    HITS       BIGINT DEFAULT 0,
    MISSES     BIGINT DEFAULT 0
);

** Triggers **

   /* Trigger: TRG_INCREMENT_ITEMCOUNT_STATS */
CREATE OR ALTER TRIGGER TRG_INCREMENT_ITEMCOUNT_STATS FOR ITEMS
ACTIVE AFTER INSERT POSITION 1
AS
begin
 UPDATE STATS SET ITEMCOUNT = ITEMCOUNT + 1 WHERE INSTANCE = '0';
end

/* Trigger: TRG_DECREMENT_ITEMCOUNT_STATS */
CREATE OR ALTER TRIGGER TRG_DECREMENT_ITEMCOUNT_STATS FOR ITEMS
ACTIVE AFTER DELETE POSITION 2
AS
begin
UPDATE STATS SET ITEMCOUNT = ITEMCOUNT - 1 WHERE INSTANCE = '0';
end

/* Trigger: TRG_INCREMENT_HITS_STATS */
CREATE OR ALTER TRIGGER TRG_INCREMENT_HITS_STATS FOR ITEMS
ACTIVE AFTER UPDATE POSITION 3
AS
begin
UPDATE STATS SET HITS = HITS + 1 WHERE INSTANCE = '0';
end

/* Trigger: TRG_INCREMENT_SIZE_STATS */
CREATE OR ALTER TRIGGER TRG_INCREMENT_SIZE_STATS FOR ITEMS
ACTIVE AFTER INSERT POSITION 4
AS
BEGIN
  UPDATE STATS SET SIZE = SIZE + NEW.ITEMSIZE WHERE INSTANCE = 0;
END

/* Trigger: TRG_DECREMENT_CACHESIZE_STATS */
CREATE OR ALTER TRIGGER TRG_DECREMENT_CACHESIZE_STATS FOR ITEMS
ACTIVE AFTER DELETE POSITION 5
AS
BEGIN
  UPDATE STATS SET SIZE = SIZE - OLD.ITEMSIZE WHERE INSTANCE = 0;
END

Answer 1

Fixed by using

.IsolationLevel = IsolationLevel.ReadUncommitted;

in the connection string.