SQL Server 2008 CDC Non-responsive & Stuck After Table Dropped

Question

I was testing out the SQL Server 2008 change data capture feature on a table when it became stuck.

• There is only one table enabled for CDC.
• After performing various DDL changes to the table to test how CDC responds, I dropped the table.
• Previously in my testing, dropping the table also causes CDC to drop the CT table, and any meta data related to the dropped table.
• The last drop statement appears to never have been detected by CDC, as the CT table still exists, and a record exists for it in the cdc.change_tables table
• I can't disable CDC for the table, or enable CDC for a newly created table with the same name, because the cdc.change_table record exists and is linked to a non-existent object ID in the SQL Server meta data.
• I tried disabling CDC for the database, but the command ran for 1 hour without response before I stopped it.
• While attempting to disable CDC for the database, the jobs listing for SQL Server Agent became unresponsive (lock request timeout) in management studio. After canceling the disable CDC command, Agent was still unresponsive.
• I tried restarting the Agent service. It stopped successfully but hung during (what appeared to be the final stages of) startup. The service is now stuck in "Starting" status.

I'm rebooting the server to attempt to get Agent running again.

I can drop and recreate my database since it's still under development and doesn't have any data in it, but is there any other way to correct the problem? Everything I've read so far indicates that I shouldn't mess directly with any of the CDC resources. Is there any real reason I shouldn't just delete the cdc.change_tables record and related CT table?

Has anyone experienced any similar problems with CDC that would indicate instability with the system?

EDIT: After getting Agent running again, I tried manually deleting the change_tables record and CT table, but when I tried to enable the table, there were a series of errors relating to CDC metadata. However, I was able to disable CDC for the entire database successfully, and then re-enable it. This of course dropped any and all resources related to the CDC feature.

Answer 1

After getting Agent running again (server reboot), I tried manually deleting the change_tables record and CT table, but when I tried to enable the table, there were a series of errors relating to CDC metadata. However, I was able to disable CDC for the entire database successfully, and then re-enable it. This of course dropped any and all resources related to the CDC feature.

I'm chalking up the weird behavior to the all of the rapid DDL I was running for testing. As this was a test environment, I had options that wouldn't be available in a production environment, at least without backing up the captured data.

I'm concluding that yes, you really shouldn't manually mess with any of the CDC resources.

Answer 2

I found that trying to run EXEC sys.sp_cdc_disable_db fails in a database not owned by sa.

(I still see the cdc tables by select db_name() as dbname , p.rows,* from sys.objects o join sys.partitions p on o.object_id=p.object_id where o.schema_id=schema_id('cdc') and p.index_id < 2)

Sys.sp_cdc_disable_db immediately succeeds after simply exec sp_changedbowner 'sa'