Question

We are running MS SQL 2005 and we have been experiencing a very peculiar problem the past few days.

I have two procs, one that creates an hourly report of data. And another that calls it, puts its results in a temp table, and does some aggregations, and returns a summary.

They work fine…until the next morning.

The next morning, suddenly the calling report, complains about an invalid column name.

The fix, is simply a recompile of the calling proc, and all works well again.

How can this happen? It’s happened three nights in a row since moving these procs into production.

EDIT: It appears, that it’s not a recompile that is needed of the caller (summary) proc. I was just able to fix the problem by executing the callee (hourly) proc. Then executing the summary proc. This makes less sense than before.

EDIT2:
The hourly proc is rather large, and I’m not posting it here in it’s entirety. But, at the end, it does a SELECT INTO, then conditionally, returns the appropriate result(s) from the created temp table.

Select      [large column list]
    into    #tmpResults
    From    #DailySales8
    Where   datepart(hour,RowStartTime) >= @StartHour
    and datepart(hour,RowStartTime) < @EndHour
    and datepart(hour, RowStartTime) <= @LastHour

IF @UntilHour IS NOT NULL 
    AND EXISTS (SELECT * FROM #tmpResults WHERE datepart(hour, RowEndTime) = @UntilHour) BEGIN
        SELECT      * 
            FROM    #tmpResults
            WHERE   datepart(hour, RowEndTime) = @UntilHour
END ELSE IF @JustLastFullHour = 1 BEGIN
        DECLARE @MaxHour INT
        SELECT @MaxHour = max(datepart(hour, RowEndTime)) FROM #tmpResults

        IF @LastHour > 24 SELECT @LastHour = @MaxHour

        SELECT      * 
            FROM    #tmpResults
            WHERE   datepart(hour, RowEndTime) = @LastHour

        IF @@ROWCOUNT = 0 BEGIN
            SELECT      * 
                FROM    #tmpResults
                WHERE   datepart(hour, RowEndTime) = @MaxHour
        END
END ELSE BEGIN
        SELECT * FROM #tmpResults
END

Then it drops all temp tables and ends.

The caller (Summary)

First creates a temp table #tmpTodaySales to store the results, the column list DOES MATCH the definition of #tmpResults in the other proc. Then it ends up calling the hourly proc a couple times

    INSERT #tmpTodaysSales
        EXEC HourlyProc @LocationCode, @ReportDate, null, 1


    INSERT #tmpTodaysSales
        EXEC HourlyProc @LocationCode, @LastWeekReportDate, @LastHour, 0

I believe it is these calls that fail. But recompiling the proc, or executing the hourly procedure outside of this, and then calling the summary proc fixes the problem.

Answer 1

Two questions:

Does the schema of #DailySales8 vary at all? Does it have any direct/indirect dependence on the date of execution, or on any of the parameters supplied to HourlyProc?

Which execution of INSERT #tmpTodaysSales EXEC HourlyProc ... in the summary fails – first or second?