Why is SQL Server 2008 Management Studio Intellisense not working?

Question

I understand this post is old but if anybody is still searching and has not found a solution to the intellisense issue even after re-installing, applying the cumulative updates, or other methods, then I hope I may be of assistance.

I have Applied SQL 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 which you can download here

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=26727

32 Bit: SQLServer2008R2SP1-KB2528583-x86-ENU.exe

64 Bit: SQLServer2008R2SP1-KB2528583-x64-ENU.exe

I have applied this SP1 and now my intellisense works again. I hope this helps! (:

Visual Studio 2010 SP1 breaks SSMS 2008 R2's IntelliSense. There is a connect about that, and fortunately there is also a fix for that.

(In short, you will need to install Cumulative Update package 7 for SQL Server 2008 R2 by requesting SQLServer2008R2_RTM_CU7_2507770_10_50_1777_x86or

SQLServer2008R2_RTM_CU7_2507770_10_50_1777_x64

from this hotfix request page.)

EDIT: As @Paul Lemke noted, one might need to get the latest CU package. This blog contains the SQL server releases. (As of this writing, the latest is CU14)

For SQL Server 2008 R2, installing Cumulative Update 7 will fix the problem. The file you need is

SQLServer2008R2_RTM_CU7_2507770_10_50_1777_x86
or
SQLServer2008R2_RTM_CU7_2507770_10_50_1777_x64

I also had to uninstall and re-install SQL Server 2008 first (which didn't fix it, but the CU did).

No need to reinstall.

Click on the setup file. Then go to maintenance and click on Repair. This should correct the intellisense problem.

I just the had same problem. I figured out that Intellisense stopped working after I took some databases offline and doing an Intellisense refresh (Ctrl-Shift-R). I brought the offline databases back online, did a refresh (Ctl-Shft-R) again and VOILA! Intellisense is working again.

What a crappy design. Maybe the population of Intellisense's lists chokes when a database exists but is offline. Thanks Microsoft.