SqlDependency simple select query always returns “Invalid”

Question

I'm trying to get the SqlDependency object to give me notifications, but so far I'm not able to get it working.

the sql query that I'm sending is this:

SELECT [SocialMedia].[dbo].[Items].[Id]
  FROM [SocialMedia].[dbo].[Items]

I've tried it w/ and w/o the braces, having the fully qualified name, having only the variable name, and everything inbetween.

Id is of type Guid which I didn't see any mention that they didn't work with SqlDependency objects in the Creating a Query for Notification article

I've also tried sending multiple columns over to see if that would work.

  SELECT SocialMedia.dbo.Items.Id, 
         SocialMedia.dbo.Items.DateTimeCreated, 
         SocialMedia.dbo.Items.AuthorId
  FROM   SocialMedia.dbo.Items

And that also didn't work.

---

Here is my table SQL:

USE [SocialMedia]

SET ANSI_NULLS ON
SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON
SET ANSI_PADDING ON

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[Items](
    [Id] [uniqueidentifier] NOT NULL,
    [DateTimeCreated] [datetimeoffset](7) NOT NULL,
    [AuthorId] [uniqueidentifier] NOT NULL,
    [Source] [varchar](max) NOT NULL,
    [PlaceId] [uniqueidentifier] NULL,
    [FullText] [varchar](max) NOT NULL,
    [Geography] [geography] NULL,
    [DateTimeAdded] [datetime] NULL,
 CONSTRAINT [PK_Items] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED ( [Id] ASC ) 
                 WITH (PAD_INDEX = OFF, STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE = OFF, 
                 IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF, ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS = ON, 
                 ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS = ON) ON [PRIMARY]
) ON [PRIMARY] TEXTIMAGE_ON [PRIMARY]

GO

ALTER TABLE [dbo].[Items]  WITH CHECK ADD  CONSTRAINT [FK_Items_Places] 
FOREIGN KEY([PlaceId]) REFERENCES [dbo].[Places] ([Id])

ALTER TABLE [dbo].[Items] CHECK CONSTRAINT [FK_Items_Places]

GO
ALTER TABLE [dbo].[Items]  WITH CHECK ADD  CONSTRAINT [FK_Items_Users] 
FOREIGN KEY([AuthorId]) REFERENCES [dbo].[Users] ([Id])

ALTER TABLE [dbo].[Items] CHECK CONSTRAINT [FK_Items_Users]

And my DB:

USE [master]
GO

CREATE DATABASE [SocialMedia]
 CONTAINMENT = NONE
 ON  PRIMARY 
 ( NAME = N'SocialMedia', 
   FILENAME = N'C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL11.DENALI\MSSQL\DATA\SocialMedia.mdf' , 
    SIZE = 1110016KB , MAXSIZE = UNLIMITED, FILEGROWTH = 1024KB )
 LOG ON 
( NAME = N'SocialMedia_log', 
  FILENAME = N'C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL11.DENALI\MSSQL\DATA\SocialMedia_log.ldf' , 
  SIZE = 123648KB , MAXSIZE = 2048GB , FILEGROWTH = 10%)
GO

ALTER DATABASE [SocialMedia] SET COMPATIBILITY_LEVEL = 110
GO

IF (1 = FULLTEXTSERVICEPROPERTY('IsFullTextInstalled')) BEGIN
  EXEC [SocialMedia].[dbo].[sp_fulltext_database] @action = 'enable'
END
GO

ALTER DATABASE [SocialMedia] SET ANSI_NULL_DEFAULT OFF 
ALTER DATABASE [SocialMedia] SET ANSI_NULLS ON 
ALTER DATABASE [SocialMedia] SET ANSI_PADDING ON 
ALTER DATABASE [SocialMedia] SET ANSI_WARNINGS ON 
ALTER DATABASE [SocialMedia] SET ARITHABORT ON 
ALTER DATABASE [SocialMedia] SET AUTO_CLOSE OFF 
ALTER DATABASE [SocialMedia] SET AUTO_CREATE_STATISTICS ON 
ALTER DATABASE [SocialMedia] SET AUTO_SHRINK OFF 
ALTER DATABASE [SocialMedia] SET AUTO_UPDATE_STATISTICS ON 
ALTER DATABASE [SocialMedia] SET CURSOR_CLOSE_ON_COMMIT OFF 
ALTER DATABASE [SocialMedia] SET CURSOR_DEFAULT  GLOBAL 
ALTER DATABASE [SocialMedia] SET CONCAT_NULL_YIELDS_NULL ON 
ALTER DATABASE [SocialMedia] SET NUMERIC_ROUNDABORT OFF 
ALTER DATABASE [SocialMedia] SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON 
ALTER DATABASE [SocialMedia] SET RECURSIVE_TRIGGERS OFF 
ALTER DATABASE [SocialMedia] SET  ENABLE_BROKER 
ALTER DATABASE [SocialMedia] SET AUTO_UPDATE_STATISTICS_ASYNC OFF 
ALTER DATABASE [SocialMedia] SET DATE_CORRELATION_OPTIMIZATION OFF 
ALTER DATABASE [SocialMedia] SET TRUSTWORTHY OFF 
ALTER DATABASE [SocialMedia] SET ALLOW_SNAPSHOT_ISOLATION OFF 
ALTER DATABASE [SocialMedia] SET PARAMETERIZATION SIMPLE 
ALTER DATABASE [SocialMedia] SET READ_COMMITTED_SNAPSHOT OFF 
ALTER DATABASE [SocialMedia] SET HONOR_BROKER_PRIORITY OFF 
ALTER DATABASE [SocialMedia] SET RECOVERY FULL 
ALTER DATABASE [SocialMedia] SET  MULTI_USER 
ALTER DATABASE [SocialMedia] SET PAGE_VERIFY CHECKSUM  
ALTER DATABASE [SocialMedia] SET DB_CHAINING OFF 
ALTER DATABASE [SocialMedia] SET FILESTREAM( NON_TRANSACTED_ACCESS = OFF ) 
ALTER DATABASE [SocialMedia] SET TARGET_RECOVERY_TIME = 0 SECONDS 
ALTER DATABASE [SocialMedia] SET  READ_WRITE 

And the code I'm using to run it:

string connString = ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["ApplicationServices"].ConnectionString;
conn = new SqlConnection(connString);
conn.Open(); // open new connection and create command to notify about all new Chat-Messages in -ROOM_NUMBER- const
using (var sqlCommand = new SqlCommand(GetSearchQueryString(searchItems), conn))
{
    var sqlDependency = new SqlDependency(sqlCommand
    //handle onChange event - this will be fired whenever there is a change in database that affacts our query
    sqlDependency.OnChange += (sender, e) =>
    {
        //change detected - get all messages...
        try
        {

            var sql = GetSearchQueryString(searchItems);
            int count = _entities.ExecuteStoreQuery<Guid>(sql).Count();

            AsyncManager.Parameters["count"] = count;
        }
        finally
        {
            AsyncManager.OutstandingOperations.Decrement();
        }
    };
    sqlCommand.ExecuteNonQuery();
}

I'm calling SqlDependency.Start(ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["ApplicationServices"].ConnectionString); earlier in the program.

Am I missing something? I feel I'm missing something obvious...

Answer 1

We followed the steps described in http://dimarzionist.wordpress.com/2009/04/01/how-to-make-sql-server-notifications-work/

Answer 2

I found SqlDependency to be very fragile. Sometimes, if you do something invalid, you always get a notification immediately. No error message.

Try to remove the database name qualification from the query. Reference the table like this: dbo.Items

Answer 3

It looks like you are using three part names, i.e.

[SocialMedia].[dbo].[Items].[Id]

The documentation clearly states you need to use two part names, so change to

[SocialMedia].[Items].[Id]

Answer 4

Michael's answer is an excellent source, but there's one thing that Microsoft omitted to mention:

The SQL Broker will reject SELECT statements on a table that has a computed column

If you try, you'll get an SqlNotificationEventArgs with info=Query, type=Subscribe, and like me you'll spend hours trying to figure out what's wrong with the statement, when it's the computed column that's the culprit.

Answer 5

Execute in your SQl Server

ALTER DATABASE YOURDBNAME SET ENABLE_BROKER WITH ROLLBACK IMMEDIATE