Sqlite frequent Header access - sqlite

I am using sqlite in my application only for read access. The DB gets hit often by my application and I could see that the header(100 bytes) of the database is read every time when i access the database.
Precisely speaking, 16 bytes from the 24th byte of the header is read everytime. My question is , if the database is used only for read purpose, why the header is read everytime as the database connection is not closed?..can we make it read it only once?
Thanks!!

Google search gave me this link, and it says
"Your process may promise that it will only read the database, but there
might be some other process writing to it.
Not being a server, sqlite has no other way to find that out than by
reading the header over and over again. It has to check whether the
schema was changed, or whatever other info is in those bytes."
http://www.mail-archive.com/sqlite-users#sqlite.org/msg69900.html

Related

sqlite .backup command fails when another process writes to the database (Error: database is locked)

The goal is to complete an online backup while other processes write to the database.
I connect to the sqlite database via the command line, and run
.backup mydatabase.db
During the backup, another process writes to the database and I immediately receive the message
Error: database is locked
and the backup disappears (reverts to a size of 0).
During the backup process there is a journal file, although it never gets very large. I checked that the journal_size_limit pragma is set to -1, which I believe means its unlimited. My understanding is that writes to the database should go to the journal during the backup process, but maybe I'm wrong. I'm new to sqlite and databases in general.
Am I going about this the wrong way?
If the sqlite3 backup writes "Error: database is locked", then you should use
sqlite3 source.db ".timeout 10000" ".backup backup.db"
See also Increase the lock timeout with sqlite, and what is the default values? about default timeouts (spoiler: it's zero) and now with backups solved you can switch SQLite to WAL mode (it supports multiple writers!).
//writing this as an answer so it would be easier to google this, thanks guys!

"The transaction log for database is full due to 'LOG_BACKUP'" in a shared host

I have an Asp.Net MVC 5 website with EntityFramework codefirst approach in a shared hosting plan. It uses the open source WebbsitePanel for control panel and its SQL Server panel is somewhat limited. Today when I wanted to edit the database, I encountered this error:
The transaction log for database 'db_name' is full due to 'LOG_BACKUP'
I searched around and found a lot of related answers like this and this or this but the problem is they suggest running a query on the database. I tried running
db.Database.ExecuteSqlCommand("ALTER DATABASE db_name SET RECOVERY SIMPLE;");
with the visual studio (on the HomeController) but I get the following error:
System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException: ALTER DATABASE statement not allowed within multi-statement transaction.
How can I solve my problem? Should I contact the support team (which is a little poor for my host) or can I solve this myself?
In Addition to Ben's Answer, You can try Below Queries as per your need
USE {database-name};
GO
-- Truncate the log by changing the database recovery model to SIMPLE.
ALTER DATABASE {database-name}
SET RECOVERY SIMPLE;
GO
-- Shrink the truncated log file to 1 MB.
DBCC SHRINKFILE ({database-file-name}, 1);
GO
-- Reset the database recovery model.
ALTER DATABASE {database-name}
SET RECOVERY FULL;
GO
Update Credit #cema-sp
To find database file names use below query
select * from sys.database_files;
Call your hosting company and either have them set up regular log backups or set the recovery model to simple. I'm sure you know what informs the choice, but I'll be explicit anyway. Set the recovery model to full if you need the ability to restore to an arbitrary point in time. Either way the database is misconfigured as is.
Occasionally when a disk runs out of space, the message "transaction log for database XXXXXXXXXX is full due to 'LOG_BACKUP'" will be returned when an update SQL statement fails.
Check your diskspace :)
This error occurs because the transaction log becomes full due to LOG_BACKUP. Therefore, you can’t perform any action on this database, and In this case, the SQL Server Database Engine will raise a 9002 error.
To solve this issue you should do the following
Take a Full database backup.
Shrink the log file to reduce the physical file size.
Create a LOG_BACKUP.
Create a LOG_BACKUP Maintenance Plan to take backup logs frequently.
I wrote an article with all details regarding this error and how to solve it at The transaction log for database ‘SharePoint_Config’ is full due to LOG_BACKUP
This can also happen when the log file is restricted in size.
Right click database in Object Explorer
Select Properties
Select Files
On the log line, click the ellipsis in the Autogrowth / Maxsize column
Change/verify Maximum File Size is Unlimited.
After chaning to unlimited, database came back to life.
I got the same error but from a backend job (SSIS job). Upon checking the database's Log file growth setting, the log file was limited growth of 1GB. So what happened is when the job ran and it asked SQL server to allocate more log space, but the growth limit of the log declined caused the job to failed. I modified the log growth and set it to grow by 50MB and Unlimited Growth and the error went away.

Timeout when uploading images

I am currently testing Tridion 2011 and am having problems creating multimedia components with uploaded content (as opposed to external).
I fill out the title, schema, multimedia type, select a file from my system then click save. I get a Saving item... information message then approximately 30 seconds later I will receive a The wait operation timed out message.
There doesn't appear to be any error messages in the C:\Program Files (x86)\Tridion\log directory. Looking at the event viewer I see the following information relating to the save action
Unable to save Component (tcm:4-738361).
The wait operation timed out
Error Code:
0x8004033F (-2147220673)
Call stack:
System.Data.SqlClient.SqlConnection.OnError(SqlException,Boolean,Action`1)
System.Data.SqlClient.SqlInternalConnection.OnError(SqlException,Boolean,Action`1)
System.Data.SqlClient.TdsParser.ThrowExceptionAndWarning(TdsParserStateObject,Boolean,Boolean)
System.Data.SqlClient.TdsParser.TryRun(RunBehavior,SqlCommand,SqlDataReader,BulkCopySimpleResultSet,TdsParserStateObject,Boolean&)
System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand.FinishExecuteReader(SqlDataReader,RunBehavior,String)
System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand.RunExecuteReaderTds(CommandBehavior,RunBehavior,Boolean,Boolean,Int32,Task&,Boolean)
System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand.RunExecuteReader(CommandBehavior,RunBehavior,Boolean,String,TaskCompletionSource`1,Int32,Task&,Boolean)
System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand.InternalExecuteNonQuery(TaskCompletionSource`1,String,Boolean,Int32,Boolean)
System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand.ExecuteNonQuery()
Tridion.ContentManager.Data.AdoNet.Sql.SqlDatabaseUtilities.SetBinaryContent(Int32,Stream)
Tridion.ContentManager.Data.AdoNet.ContentManagement.ItemDataMapper.Tridion.ContentManager.Data.ContentManagement.IItemDataMapper.SetBinaryContent(Stream,TcmUri)
Tridion.ContentManager.ContentManagement.RepositoryLocalObject.SetBinaryContent(BinaryContent)
Tridion.ContentManager.ContentManagement.Component.OnSaved(SaveEventArgs)
Tridion.ContentManager.IdentifiableObject.Save(SaveEventArgs)
Tridion.ContentManager.ContentManagement.VersionedItem.Save(Boolean)
Tridion.ContentManager.ContentManagement.VersionedItem.Save()
Tridion.ContentManager.BLFacade.ContentManagement.VersionedItemFacade.UpdateAndCheckIn(UserContext,String,Boolean,Boolean)
XMLState.Save
Component.Save
I already have my timeout settings in the Content Manager Snap-In set to high values (more than 10 minutes) due to another issue.
The BINARIES table in the Content Manage Database is 25GB if that helps.
Any ideas? Thanks.
Edit 1
Following suggestions from Bart Koopman, my DBA has rebuilt the indexes but does not reckon the Transaction log has any impact on performance. The problem persists.
Edit 2
I have just found more details of the error
Unable to save Component (tcm:0-0-0).
Timeout expired.
The timeout period elapsed prior to completion of the operation or the server is not responding.
A database error occurred while executing Stored Procedure "EDA_ITEMS_UPDATEBINARYCONTENT".EDA_ITEMS_UPDATEBINARYCONTENT
After taking a look at this procedure it looks like the following statement could be the root cause
SELECT 1 FROM BINARIES WHERE ID = #iBINARY_ID AND CONTENT IS NULL
I execute it manually with #iBINARY_ID as -1 and after 2 minutes it still hasn't completed. I assume that when I insert a new multimedia component the query will be something similar (i.e. the id will not exist in the table).
The BINARIES table currently has a NON-CLUSTERED Primary Key. Maybe the solution would be to change this to a CLUSTERED Primary Key? However, I assume it is NON-CLUSTERED for a reason.
Just had a response from SDL customer support. Apparently this is a known issue related to statistics and the chosen query plan.
Running the following statement manually from SQL Server Management Studio fixes the problem (it didn't even need to complete for me)
SELECT 1 FROM BINARIES WHERE ID = -1 AND CONTENT IS NULL
Hope this helps someone else out!
Timeouts on database operations are usually an indication of a misconfiguration or a lack of maintenance. By increasing the timeout you are just working around the problem rather than solving it.
With a binaries table that big you will want to make sure you have proper database setup with data files that are separated from your log files (separated on different physical partitions/disks) and possibly even multiple data files on multiple physical partitions to take advantage of performance gains.
Next to that you will want to assure that the standard database maintenance is performed daily/hourly. Things like backing up and truncating the transaction log every hour will greatly improve your database performance (on MS SQL Server a transaction log of more than 1GB slows the database down drastically, you should always try to keep it below that size through timely backup/trucate). Updating statistics and rebuilding indexes is also something you should not forget on a regular basis.

Replacing SQLite database while accessing it

I am completely new to SQLite and I intend to use it in a M2M / client-server environment where a database is generated on the server, sent to the client as a file and used on the client for data lookup.
The question is: can I replace the whole database file while the client is using it at the same time?
The question may sound silly but the client is a Linux thin client and to replace the database file a temporary file would be renamed to the final file name. In Linux, a program which has still open the older version of the file will still access the older data since the old file is preserved by the OS until all file handles have been closed. Only new open()s will access the new version of the file.
So, in short:
client randomly accesses the SQLite database
a new version of the database is received from the server and written to a temporary file
the temporary file is renamed to the SQLite database file
I know it is a very specific question, but maybe someone can tell me if this would be a problem for SQLite or if there are similar methods to replace a database while the client is running. I do not want to send a bunch of SQL statements from the server to the client to update the database.
No, you cannot just replace an open SQLite3 DB file. SQLite will keep using the same file descriptor (or handle in Windows-speak), unless you close and re-open your database. More specifically:
Deleting and replacing an open file is either useless (Linux) or impossible (Windows). SQLite will never get to see the contents of the new file at all.
Overwriting an SQLite3 DB file is a recipe for data corruption. From the SQLite3 documentation:
Likewise, if a rogue process opens a
database file or journal and writes
malformed data into the middle of it,
then the database will become corrupt.
Arbitrarily overwriting the contents of the DB file can cause a whole pile of issues:
If you are very lucky it will just cause DB errors, forcing you to reopen the database anyway.
Depending on how you use the data, your application might just crash and burn.
Your application may try to apply an existing journal on the new file. Sounds painful? It is!
If you are really unlucky, the user will just get back invalid results from any queries.
The best way to deal with this would be a proper client-server implementation where the client DB file is updated from data coming from the server. In the long run that would allow for far more flexibility, while also reducing the bandwidth requirements by sending updates, rather than the whole file.
If that is not possible, you should update the client DB file in three discrete steps:
Send a message to the client application to close the DB. This allows the application to commit any changes, remove any journal files and clean-up its internal state.
Replace/Overwrite the file.
Send a message to the client application to re-open the DB. You would have to setup all prepared statements again, though.
If you do not want to close the DB file for some reason, then you should have your application - or even a separate process - update the original DB file using the new file as input. The SQLite3 backup API might be of interest to you in that case.

Using an encrypted file securely

I'm writing an application with a dBASE database file in Borland Delphi 7.
Note: I think this question is file-security related and you can forget the dBASE thing (consider it as a TXT file) in this question.
The database must be accessed just by the application. Then it must be encrypted. Unfortunately dBASE doesn't support any password mechanism and i had to encrypt the file by myself (and i also HAVE to use dBASE)
What approach do you suggest to secure the database file?
The simple one is:
Encrypting the database file and placing it near beside the application EXE file.
When the application runs, it should decrypt the file (with a hard-coded password) and copy the result to a temporary file that has DeleteOnClose and NoSharingPermission flags.
When Closing, application should encrypt the temp dBASE file and replaces the old encrypted file with the new one.
I think this is a fair secure approach. But it have two big problems:
With an undelete tool the user can restore and access to the deleted temp file.
Worse: When application is running, if the system rebooted suddenly the DeleteOnClose flag fails and the temp file remains on hard disk and user can access it.
Is there any solution for, at least, the second part?
Is there any other solution?
You could also try to create a TrueCrypt file-based containter, mount it, and then put the dBase file inside the mounted encrypted volume. TrueCrypt is free (in both senses) and it's accessible via command line parameters from your application (mount before start, unmount before quit).
Depending on what you're doing with the database, you may be able to get away with just decrypting the records you actually need. For example, you could build indexes based on hash codes (rather than real data); this would reduce seeks into the database to a smaller set of data. Each record in the subset would have to be decrypted, but this could be a lot better than decrypting the entire database.

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