Help troubleshooting SqlException: Timeout expired on connection, in a non-load situation

Question

I have a server hosting a website of mine that has almost zero-traffic.
A few people (< 20) enter the site every day, and a few RSS readers are subscribed to some feeds we put out.

Almost every night, an RSS reader will hit us in the middle of the night and get an exception that the website can't connect to the SQL Server because of a Timeout in the connection. The details are extremely weird, so I'm looking for some help on what could be the issue, since I don't know where to start looking anymore.

We are using ASP.Net MVC, Entity Framework, and SQL Server 2008 over Windows Server 2008. The machine is a dedicated box we got from a not exactly top-tier provider, so things might be configured non-optimally, or who knows what else.
The box is also pretty small, and has only 1Gb RAM, but it should take the kind of load we have for now...

I'm copying the full call stack below, but first, some of the things we know:

• The error always happens when iTunes is querying our site. I believe this should have nothing to do with anything, but the truth is that we only get it from iTunes. My best guess is that this happens because only iTunes queries us at that time of the night when no one else is hitting us.
• One of our theories is that the SQL Server and IIS are fighting for memory, and one of them is getting paged to disk out of not being used, and when someone "wakes it up", it takes too long to read everything from disk back into memory. Is this something that could potentially happen? (I'm kind of discarding this since it sounds like a design issue in SQL Server if it were possible)
• I also thought about the possibility that we're leaking connections, since we may not be disposing of EF entities appropriately (see my question here). This is the only thing I could find by Googling the problem. I'm discarding this given the extremely low load we have.
• This always happens over the night, so it's very likely something related to the fact that nothing happened for a while. For example, I'm pretty sure that when these requests hit, the web server process got recycled and it's starting up / re-JITting everything. The re-JITting doesn't explain the SQL timeout, though.

---

UPDATE: We attached a profiler as suggested, and it took quite a while before we had a new exception. This is the new stuff we know:

• Having the profiler attached enormously reduced the number of errors we got. In fact, after normally getting several per day, we had to wait for 3 or 4 days for this to happen ONCE. Once we stopped the profiler, it went back to the normal error frequency (or even worse). So the profiler has some effect that hides this problem to some extent, but not completely.
• Looking at the profiler trace next to the IIS requests log, there is an expected 1-1 correspondence between requests and queries. However, every now and then, I see A LOT of queries being executed that have no correllation at all with the IIS log. In fact, right before the actual bug was logged, I got 750 queries in a period of 3 minutes, all of which were completely unrelated to the IIS logs. The query text look like the kind of unreadable crap that EF generates, and they're not all the same, and they all look just like the queries coming from the website: Same ApplicationName, User, etc. To give an idea how ridiculous this is, the site got about 370 IIS requests that hit the DB, in the course of 2 days
• These unexplained queries did not come from the same ClientProcessID as the previous website ones, although they may still have come from the website, if the process got recycled in the meantime. There was almost an hour of no activity between the last explained query, and the first unexplained one.
• One of these long streaks of queries that I don't know where they came from came right before the error I got logged, so I believe this is the clue we should be following.
• As I expected originally, when the query that threw the error was executed, it came from a different ClientProcessID than the previous one, (8 minutes later than the previous unexplained one, and almost exactly one hour later than the previous IIS one). This means, to me, that the worker process had indeed gotten recycled.
• This is something I absolutely don't understand. The IIS log shows that one minute before the error requests, 4 were perfectly served, although the queries for those don't show up in the trace at all. In fact, after those 4 that went well, I had 4 exceptions thrown in quick succession, those 4 ALSO don't show up in the trace (which makes sense since if there was a Timeout in connection the query should have never gotten executed, but I don't see the connections attempts in the trace either)

So, in short, I'm completely clueless about this. I can't find a reason for those hundreds of queries that get run in quick succession, but I believe those must have something to do with the problem.
I also don't know how to diagnose the connection problems...
Or how the Profiler trace may be missing some queries that according to IIS went through fine...

Any ideas?

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This is the exception information:

System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException: Timeout expired. The timeout period elapsed prior to completion of the operation or the server is not responding.

System.Data.EntityException: The underlying provider failed on Open. ---> System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException: Timeout expired.  The timeout period elapsed prior to completion of the operation or the server is not responding.
   at System.Data.ProviderBase.DbConnectionPool.GetConnection(DbConnection owningObject)
   at System.Data.ProviderBase.DbConnectionFactory.GetConnection(DbConnection owningConnection)
   at System.Data.ProviderBase.DbConnectionClosed.OpenConnection(DbConnection outerConnection, DbConnectionFactory connectionFactory)
   at System.Data.ProviderBase.DbConnectionClosed.OpenConnection(DbConnection outerConnection, DbConnectionFactory connectionFactory)
   at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlConnection.Open()
   at System.Data.EntityClient.EntityConnection.OpenStoreConnectionIf(Boolean openCondition, DbConnection storeConnectionToOpen, DbConnection originalConnection, String exceptionCode, String attemptedOperation, Boolean& closeStoreConnectionOnFailure)
   at System.Data.EntityClient.EntityConnection.OpenStoreConnectionIf(Boolean openCondition, DbConnection storeConnectionToOpen, DbConnection originalConnection, String exceptionCode, String attemptedOperation, Boolean& closeStoreConnectionOnFailure)
   --- End of inner exception stack trace ---
   at System.Data.EntityClient.EntityConnection.OpenStoreConnectionIf(Boolean openCondition, DbConnection storeConnectionToOpen, DbConnection originalConnection, String exceptionCode, String attemptedOperation, Boolean& closeStoreConnectionOnFailure)
   at System.Data.EntityClient.EntityConnection.Open()
   at System.Data.Objects.ObjectContext.EnsureConnection()
   at System.Data.Objects.ObjectQuery`1.GetResults(Nullable`1 forMergeOption)
   at System.Data.Objects.ObjectQuery`1.System.Collections.Generic.IEnumerable<T>.GetEnumerator()
   at System.Linq.Enumerable.FirstOrDefault[TSource](IEnumerable`1 source)
   at System.Data.Objects.ELinq.ObjectQueryProvider.<GetElementFunction>b__1[TResult](IEnumerable`1 sequence)
   at System.Data.Objects.ELinq.ObjectQueryProvider.ExecuteSingle[TResult](IEnumerable`1 query, Expression queryRoot)
   at System.Data.Objects.ELinq.ObjectQueryProvider.System.Linq.IQueryProvider.Execute[S](Expression expression)
   at System.Linq.Queryable.FirstOrDefault[TSource](IQueryable`1 source)
   at MyProject.Controllers.SitesController.Feed(Int32 id) in C:\...\Controller.cs:line 38
   at lambda_method(ExecutionScope , ControllerBase , Object[] )
   at System.Web.Mvc.ReflectedActionDescriptor.Execute(ControllerContext controllerContext, IDictionary`2 parameters)
   at System.Web.Mvc.ControllerActionInvoker.InvokeActionMethod(ControllerContext controllerContext, ActionDescriptor actionDescriptor, IDictionary`2 parameters)
   at System.Web.Mvc.ControllerActionInvoker.<>c__DisplayClassa.<InvokeActionMethodWithFilters>b__7()
   at System.Web.Mvc.ControllerActionInvoker.InvokeActionMethodFilter(IActionFilter filter, ActionExecutingContext preContext, Func`1 continuation)
   at System.Web.Mvc.ControllerActionInvoker.InvokeActionMethodWithFilters(ControllerContext controllerContext, IList`1 filters, ActionDescriptor actionDescriptor, IDictionary`2 parameters)
   at System.Web.Mvc.ControllerActionInvoker.InvokeAction(ControllerContext controllerContext, String actionName)
   at System.Web.Mvc.Controller.ExecuteCore()
   at System.Web.Mvc.MvcHandler.ProcessRequest(HttpContextBase httpContext)
   at System.Web.HttpApplication.CallHandlerExecutionStep.System.Web.HttpApplication.IExecutionStep.Execute()
   at System.Web.HttpApplication.ExecuteStep(IExecutionStep step, Boolean& completedSynchronously)

Any ideas will be enormously appreciated.

Answer 1

Not Enough Memory

This is very likely a Memory problem, perhaps aggravated or triggered by other things, but still inherently a memory problem. there are two other (less likely) possibilities, that you should check and eliminate first (because it is easy to do so):

Easy To Check Possibilities:

1. You may have "Auto Close" enabled: Auto Close can have exactly this behavior, however it is rare for it to be turned on. To check this, in SSMS right-click on your application database, select "Properties", and then select the "Options" pane. Look at the "Auto Close" entry and make sure that it is set to False. Check tempdb also.

2. SQL Agent Jobs may be causing it: Check the Agent's History Log to see if there were any jobs consistently running during the events. Remember to check maintenance jobs too, as things like Rebuilding Indexes are frequently cited as performance problems while they are running. These are unlikely candidates now, only because they would not normally be affected by the Profiler.

Why It Looks Like a Memory Problem:

If those do not show anything, then you should check for memory problems. I suspect Memory as the cause in your case because:

• You have 1 GB of Memory: Although this is technically above the Minimum for SQL Server, it is way below the recommended for SQL Server, and way below what in my experience is acceptable for production, even for a lightly loaded server.

• You are running IIS and SQL Server on the same box: This is not recommended by itself, in large part because of the contention for memory that results, but with only 1 GB of memory it results in IIS, the app, SQL Server, the OS and any other tasks and/or maintenance all fighting for very little memory. The way the Windows manages this is to give memory to the active processes by aggressively taking it away from the non-active processes. It can take many seconds, or even minutes for a large process like SQL Server to get back enough of its memory to be able to completely service a request in this situation.

• Profiler made 90% of the problem go away: This is a big clue that memory is likely the problem, because typically, things like Profiler have exactly this effect on this particular problem: the Profiler task keeps the SQL Server just a little bit active all of the time. Frequently, this is just enough activity to either keep it off the OS's "scavenger" list, or at least reduces it's impact somewhat.

How to Check For Memory as the Culprit:

1. Turn Off the Profiler: Its having a Heisenberg effect on the problem, so you have to turn it off or you will not be able to see the problem reliably.

2. Run a System Monitor (perfmon.exe) from another box, that remotely connects to the perfomrance collection service on the box that your SQL Server and IIS are running on. you can most easily do this by first removing the three default stats (they are local only), and then add in the needed stats (below), but make sure to change the Computer name in the first drop-down to connect to your SQL box.

3. Send the collected data to a file by creating a "Counter Log" on perfmon. If you are unfamiliar with this, then the easiest thing to do is probably to collect the data to a tab or comma separated file that you can open with Excel to analyze.

4. Set up your perfmon to collect to a file and add the following counters to it:

   -- Processor\%Processor Time[Total]

   -- PhysicalDisk\% Idle Time[for each disk]

   -- PhysicalDisk\Avg. Disk Queue Length[for each disk]

   -- Memory\Pages/sec

   -- Memory\Page Reads/sec

   -- Memory\Available MBytes

   -- Network Interface\Bytes Total/sec[for each interface in use]

   -- Process\% Processor Time[see below]

   -- Process\Page Faults/sec[see below]

   -- Process\Working Set [see below]

5. For the Process counters (above) you want to include the sqlserver.exe process, any IIS processes, and any stable application processes. Note that this will ONLY work for "stable" processes. Processes that are continually being re-created as needed, cannot be captured this way because there is no way to specify them before they exist.

6. Run this collection to a file during the time that the problem most frequently happens. Set the collection interval to something close to 10-15 secs. (this collects a lot of data, but you will need this resolution to pick out the separate events).

7. After you have one or more incidents, stop the collection and then open your colleced data file with Excel. You will probably have to reformat the timestamp column to be usefully visible and show hours minutes and seconds. Use your IIS log to find the exact time of the incidents, then look at the perfmon data to see what was going on before and after the incident. In particular you want to see if its working set was small before and was large after, with a lot of page faulting in between. That's the clearest sign of this problem.

SOLUTIONS:

Either separate IIS and SQL Server onto two different boxes (preferred) or else add more memory to the box. I would think that 3-4 GB should be a minimum.

What About That Weird EF Stuff?

The problem here is that it is most likely either peripheral or only contributory to your main problem. Remember that Profiler made 90% of your incidents go away, so what remains, may be a different problem, or it may be only the most extreme aggravator of the problem. Because of its behavior I would guess that it is either cycling its cache or there is some other background maintenance of the application server processes.

Answer 2

I would compare the timestamp of the timeout with the execution time of your nightly backup. If they coincide, you could set your RSS feed to be static for that time.

Another thing to try (even though it isn't exactly an answer) is to immediately run sp_who when you get a timeout exception. It won't catch everything (the offending process could be done by the time you run this) but you may get lucky.

You can also fire up SQL Profiler when you head home for the night and step through the activity the next morning if you see the error again. Just be sure to not run it from the server itself (I'm pretty sure it reminds you of this when it starts).

EDIT: Addressing your update.

Is EF updating/creating its cache? It could explain the abundance of queries at one time and why no queries had database hits later.

Other than that, it appears you have a heisenbug. The only thing I can think for you to add is a lot more logging (to a file or the event log).