Redgate FAQs

Purpose

SmartAssembly allows you to use any version of SQL for its internal database. This will help you connect to LocalDB.

Steps

For LocalDB the connection string usually takes the formServer=(LocalDB)\mssqllocaldb

Please note, in case of having more than one version of LocalDB installed, this connects to thedefaultinstance.

Requirements

SmartAssembly 6.12+

LocalDB.

You can install Redgate products from the Microsoft Installer files, rather than using the Redgate installer.exe. This may be useful if you need to distribute software over an enterprise network.

To install from the.msifile:

Install prerequisites

Extract the.msifile from the.exe

Install the product

You can adapt this procedure for your particular networked environment.

You can use Windows Server Group Policy to distribute software across a site or domain. Redgate.msiand.mstfiles are compatible with the use of Group Policy objects (GPOs). For more information about using Windows Server Group Policy, see Group Policy (TechNet article).

1. Install prerequisites

Some Redgate products require prerequisites that aren't installed when you use the.msifile. Make sure any prerequisites listed on theRequirementspage are installed.

2. Extract .msi files from the .exe

The Redgate installer (.exefile) contains the.msiinstallation file. To extract the.msifile from the.exe:

Download the installer for the product you require.

Create a new folder to extract the.msifiles to. For example,Redgate installers.

If you need to install the product on several computers, use a network share that's accessible from all of the computers.

Start a command prompt and navigate to the folderwhere the installeris located.

At the command prompt, type<installer name> extract "<full path to folder for .msi files>"then press Enter. For example:

C:\Downloads>SQLToolbelt.exe extract "C:\Redgate installers"

The installer starts in extract mode. This may take a few minutes.

Select the products you want to extract and clickNextto continue through the wizard.

On the final step of the wizard (Customizing the installation folder), specify the installation path. The path is included in the.mstfile installation parameter and will be used when you install the product.

ClickExtractto extract the files for the selected product, including the.msiand.mstfiles, to the location you specified at the command prompt.If you've selected multiple products, a separate sub-folder is created for each product.

The product is not installed at this stage.

To view the.msiand.mstfiles, useOrca.exe, which is included in the Windows SDK. For more information, see Orca.exe (MSDN).

Editing the.msifile isn't recommended, and isn't supported by Redgate.

Install the product

After you've extracted the.msiinstallation file, usemsiexecto install the product. To install the product on several computers, you may want to create a batch file to run the following commands:

Start a command prompt with administrator privileges.

If necessary, map the network share to a spare drive letter.

At the command prompt, typemsiexec /i "<full path to .msi>" TRANSFORMS="<full path to .mst>" ADDLOCAL=ALLthen press Enter.

For example:

msiexec /i "C:\Redgate installers\SQL Compare 10.3.8.406\SQLCompare_10.3.8.406.msi" TRANSFORMS="C:\Redgate installers\SQL Compare 10.3.8.406\SQLCompare_10.3.8.406.mst" ADDLOCAL=ALL

Make sure you use the correct.msiand.mstfiles for your computer's bitness.

The product is installed in the location specified in the.mstfile.The installation is not silent, but no user interaction is required.

If SQL Monitor is configured to authenticate users with Active Directory, andyou're locked out of your Active Directory administrator account for example, if the administrator leaves the company you need to manually add a new administrator to the SQL Monitor database.

In Management Studio, connect to the SQL Server instance that hosts theSQL Monitor database.

Paste the followingSQL script into a new query window:

INSERT settings.ActiveDirectoryPrincipal

(Name,

PrincipalType,

PrincipalRole,

[All]

)

VALUES (N'[email protected]',

1, -- PrincipalType - 1 = User, 2 = Group

1, -- PrincipalRole - 1 = Administrator, 2 = Standard user

1 -- All

)

Replace [email protected] with theuser or group you want to use as the SQL Monitor administrator account.It must be an existing Active Directory user or group.

(If you're adding a group, don't include@ example.com.)

If you're adding a user group, change thePrincipleTypevalue to2.

For example:

INSERT settings.ActiveDirectoryPrincipal

(Name,

PrincipalType,

PrincipalRole,

[All]

)

VALUES (N'groupname',

2, -- PrincipalType - 1 = User, 2 = Group

1, -- PrincipalRole - 1 = Administrator, 2 = Standard user

1 -- All

)

Run the script.

Amazon Web Service & S3

SQL Backup log files

Cannot run backup or restore operations

Stopping a backup or restore job while in progress

Slow backup or restore operations

Deleting backup and restore history manually

Browsing SQL Servers with SQL authentication

Cannot access resource when browsing SQL Servers with Windows authentication

Configuring SQL Server memory

Optimizing backup speed

Performance expectations

The SQL Backup Agent service cannot start, or is taking too long to start up

Error 5 Access is denied message displayed when installing SQL Backup server components

Specifying file paths

Database log files may continue to grow even though transaction logs are backed up

SQL Backup Agent connecting to SQL Server

If you're a license owner or administrator you can free up a license by removing an allocated user in the customer portal.

To remove an allocated user, click on theRemovebutton alongside their details in the list to deactivate them. A message will be displayed confirming that the user has been removed. This has the same effect as someone deactivating the product on their computer.

Migrating from anonymous to identified users

If you’ve been using Redgate products for a long time and have purchased multiple licenses, there’ll be a number of people using those products anonymously - displayed asNot logged in. This makes it hard to know exactly who is using which product, which can be a problem if you’re responsible for tracking license usage in your organisation.

'Failed to activate the license' on old tool versions

User account licensing makes it possible to track allocated users for most Redgate products.

The recommended way to transition an anonymous user to an allocated user is similar for bundle licenses and single-product licenses:

For a bundle license, the user shouldCheck for updatesfrom within any one of the bundled products (e.g. SQL Data Generator).

For a single-product license, the user shouldCheck for updatesfrom within that product.

Download and install the product update.

On first run after installation, the user is prompted to log in with their Redgate ID to activate the upgrade. If the user doesn’t have a Redgate ID they can follow the links in the client dialog to create one.

The user is only required to log in with their Redgate ID once on each computer, either through installing a product for the first time, or updating an existing product as described above. As other products are upgraded or installed on that computer, they'll be activated using the same Redgate ID.

Removing yourself as a user

If you have activated a license using your Redgate ID, you also have the choice to remove yourself if you no longer need it.To remove yourself from a license, click onManage next to the license thenRemove myself from this license.

When deactivating a SQL Toolbelt license, you will notice your Toolbelt is split into sub groups:

If you want to deactivate the user on all theproducts in the Toolbelt, you'll need to clickManageon each sub group of the license (server and desktop tools).

Related articles:

What Does 'Not Logged In (Xxxx-Xxxx-Xxxx-Xxxx)' Mean?

Moving a license to a different machine

You may notice some changes to the way your Redgate licenses are displayed in your account in the customer portal.

We have made some changes to our internal systems to make them more flexible for our customers.

As a result, any bundled product you own will now show the different sub-groups (desktop tools, Backup, Monitoring, Multi Script, Withdrawn tools) within the bundle.

For example, a SQL Toolbelt will view as below:

installation

Withdrawn tools are perpetual licenses that were part of your bundle when you purchased, that are now retired and no longer supported.

More information on licensing and .

Managing users

Managing owners & admins

Managing users

If you are a license owner or license admin,when you click on theManagecog on the summary page you’ll see the detailed view for that product.

In the left section you will find a summary of your license and how it is currently being used. To the right is theCurrent allocated userssection where you can invite and manage the allocated users of the license. Email addresses will be shown for users of the license who logged in with a Redgate ID or who were invited to use the license by an admin or owner.

Inviting a user

In the past Redgate products could be activated using just a serial number. In order to make it easier for you to manage your licenses and know who’s using a product, activation in most of Redgate's desktop productsnow also requires users to log in with their Redgate ID.

To invite a user to use this product license, enter their email address in the email field and clickSend. They’ll receive an email saying they’ve been invited to use a product.You can also enter multiple email addresses to invite more than one user at a time.

The email includes a link which, when clicked, takes them either to a page where they can create a Redgate ID (if they don’t already have one), or to the Redgate ID login page. Once they’ve logged in, they’ll be taken to the product summary view inMy Products, where they can get the serial number which is needed to activate the product.

You can invite as many users as you have licenses for the product. When you’ve reached the maximum number of invitations, you’ll see the messageAll licenses are currently in useabove the list of allocated users, and the invitation functionality will be unavailable. In this scenario, you must first remove one of the existing allocated usersbefore you can invite another user.

Removing (deactivating) a user

To remove an allocated user, click on theRemovebutton alongside their details in the list. Then confirm the removal by clicking the subsequentlydisplayedRemovebuttonto deactivate them. A message will be displayed confirming that the user has been removed. This has the same effect as someone deactivating the product on their computer.

Migrating from anonymous to identified users

If you’ve been using Redgate products for a long time and have purchased multiple licenses, there’ll be a number of people using those products anonymously - labelled asNot logged in. This makes it hard to know exactly who is using which product, which can be a problem if you’re responsible for tracking license usage in your organisation.

User account licensing makes it possible to track allocated users for most Redgate products.

The recommended way to transition an anonymous user to an allocated user is similar for bundle licenses and single-product licenses:

For a bundle license, the user shouldCheck for updatesfrom within any one of the bundled products (e.g. SQL Data Generator).

For a single-product license, the user shouldCheck for updatesfrom within that product.

Download and install the product update.

On first run after installation, the user is prompted to log in with their Redgate ID to activate the upgrade. If the user doesn’t have a Redgate ID they can follow the links in the client dialog to create one.

The user is only required to log in with their Redgate ID once on each computer, either through installing a product for the first time, or updating an existing product as described above. As other products are upgraded or installed on that computer, they'll be activated using the same Redgate ID.

Managing owners & admins

If you are a license owner, to add an Administrator clickAdmins and enter the Redgate ID of the person(s) you wishto associate as admin of the license in the box under Add new license admins and click Send.A license admin can see license information as well as add and remove users from a license.

let us know

Similarly, license owners can be managed using theOwnerstab. Only a license owner can invite and remove other Owners and Admins on a license as well as managing allocated users.

License admins and owners do not consume a license activation unless they have also been invited to be a license user.

Inviting and removing license admins

To invite a person to be a license admin, enter their email address in the input field andclickSend. That person will need to log on to the Redgate website with their Redgate ID.If they don't already have a Redgate ID, they can create oneusing the email address that was used to invite them. See more information about creating and using a Redgate ID.You can also enter multiple email addresses to invite more than one license admin at a time.

To remove a person's license admin rights,clickon theRemovebutton alongside their details in the list.Then confirm the removal by clicking the subsequentlydisplayedRemovebuttonto remove them.

Submitting a license owner request

If you would like to request to become a license owner, in the customer portal, on the My Products page click on add existing licenseand enter the serial key of the license you wish to become Owner of.

An email will be sent to any existing owners of the license asking them to accept or reject your request. When the existing owner has accepted you will become an owner and will be able to see the license in your account.

In some instances, the existing owner may have left the company, when this is the case, if there are no other license owners to accept your request, the request will pend for 10 days and then automatically accept. If you are unable to wait 10 days, please .

For 2020 Redgate is making some changes to some of the historic products and bundles that up to now we still offer support on. This guide will let you know what is changing, how the changes may affect you and what you'll see on your renewals and in the customer portal.

As a basic rule, your support cost should not drastically change, all serial numbers should work as expected and you will have perpetual access to any unsupported products removed from bundles you have purchased.

Some of our older products have changed name

The products below have been renamed since purchase. On your renewal and in the customer portal it may still show as the old name. When you renew support or administer the license you will see the new name.

Original product name

New product name

.NET Performance Pack

.NET Developer Bundle

SQL Backup Lite

SQL Backup Professional

SQL Doc Professional

SQL Doc

We're simplifying the editions on some of our products

For SQL Backup, there is ostensibly no change, the new product edition will be seen in the customer portal and shown on the renewal.

For SQL Multi Script, we're removing the number of servers restriction, the product will still work as normal. Pricing at renewal time will be based on the list price of the original product purchased.

Original edition name

New edition name

SQL Backup Standard

SQL Backup Professional

SQL Multi Script 5 Server

SQL Multi Script Unlimited

SQL Multi Script 10 Server

SQL Multi Script Unlimited

We're stopping support for some of our older bundles

The good news is, we'll be converting your support to the nearest equivalent bundle. In some cases this will mean giving you access to additional products.

Where we have retired some of the products in the bundle you'll still be able to use them in perpetuity using the same serial key.They’ll appear in the portal as a separate product rather than part of the bundle you purchased and you will not be able to be renew them.

Where additional products are added, these will be given at no extra cost and the price at renewal time will based on the previous list price of the original bundle purchased.

Original bundle name

New bundle name

Retired products

Additional products

.NET Developer Bundle

(purchased prior to May 31 2011)

.NET Developer Bundle

Exception Hunter

SQL Backup Bundle

(purchased prior to Jul 28 2010)

SQL DBA Bundle (Server tools)

SQL Object Level Recovery

SQL Virtual Restore SQL HyperBac

SQL Backup Bundle

(purchased prior to Sep 30 2008)

SQL DBA Bundle (Server tools)

Log Rescue

SQL Backup Professional

SQL Monitor

SQL Multi ScriptUnlimited

SQL DBA Bundle (User tools)

SQL Toolbelt Essentials

SQL Source Control

SQL Data Generator

SQL Test

SQL Compare Professional

SQL Data Compare Professional

SQL DBA Bundle (User tools)

(purchased prior to 28 Feb 2013)

SQL Toolbelt Essentials

SQL Hyperbac

SQL Virtual Restore

SQL Compare Professional

SQL Data Compare Professional

SQL Doc

SQL Prompt Professional

SQL Source Control

SQL Data Generator

SQL Test

SQL Developer Bundle

SQL Toolbelt Essentials

SQL Comparison SDK

SQL Connect

SQL Refactor

.NET Toolbelt

.NET Developer Bundle & SmartAssembly Professional & SQL Prompt Professional

SQL Connect

.NET Demon

ANTS Performance Profiler

ANTS Memory Profiler

.NET Reflector Pro

Smart Assembly

SQL Prompt Pro (where required)

SQL Professional Toolbelt

SQL Toolbelt

SQL Packager

SQL Refactor

SQL Object Level Recovery

SQL Connect

SQL Comparison SDK

DLM Dashboard

SQL Change Automation

SQL Dependency Tracker

Some of our bundles will be converted to the individual tools

For bundles we have retired where there is no equivalent bundle, we will convert your support to the individual tools that still remain supported.

At your next renewal you will see each tool listed separately. The total cost will not exceed the cost of the original bundle.

Original bundle name

Retired products

Products remaining

SQL Prompt Bundle

SQL Refactor

SQL Data Generator

SQL Doc

SQL Dependency Tracker

SQL Prompt Professional

SQL Search

SQL Prompt Bundle

(purchased prior to Apr 23 2008)

SQL Refactor

SQL Dependency Tracker

SQL Doc

SQL PromptProfessional

SQL Bundle

DTS Package Compare

SQL Compare

SQL Data Compare

SQL Bundle Pro

DTS Package Compare

SQL Comparison SDK

SQL Packager

SQL Compare Professional

SQL Data Compare Professional

SQL Bundle Developer

DTS Package Compare

SQL Comparison SDK

SQL Packager

SQL Compare

SQL Data Compare

To help you master your Redgate products (both new and existing), watch our free online training courses on Redgate University. Taught by our experts including Microsoft MVPs Kendra Little, Grant Fritchey, Steve Jones, and Kathi Kellenberger, you’ll find step-by-step guidance on getting started and key features, and top tips for success.

After installing a new version of SSMS you may need to reinstall the plug-ins(SQL Prompt, SQL Source Control, SQL Test, SQL Search) if they no longer appear in the menu bar.

1. From Control Panel, uninstall the tool needed in the new SSMS install

2. Run the latest installer for the tool (available on the website or in the customer portal )

Note: You will not lose any of your settings after upgrading but for peace of mindyou can backup the folder first at\%localappdata\%\Red Gate\<tool>\

Eg.\%localappdata\%\Red Gate\SQL Prompt 10\

Reinstalling a bundle after upgrading SSMS

You can find your bundle installer on your invoice or by logging into the customer portal.

Once you've installed your bundle you'll need to activate your license.This will take you out of the trial period into licensed mode and enable you to use the full versions.

If your license is supported you're entitled to the latest and most up to date versions of the tools in your bundle.

Note: SQL Prompt is not supported in SSMS 2008 R2

Troubleshooting steps

Make sure the repository folder which the database is linked to is solely used by SQL Source Control for that database (it's important tonotmanually add anything to the folder unless for troubleshooting purposes)

'Partition Schemes' shouldnot befiltered out from repository. SQL Source Control > Set up > Edit filter rules:

log a ticket

Make sure "Ignore Filegroups, partition schemes and partition functions" is not checked.SQL Source Control > Set up > Comparison options:

Try unlinking and relinking the database to refresh the working copies

If the problem persists, please with Support and send in a zipped copy of theWorking BaseandTransient folders. These folders can be located by going to theSetuptab in SQL Source Control and clicking on 'Showon theUnder the Hood'

Creating a Redgate ID

Logging in with your Redgate ID to activate a license

Managing your licenses in the customer portal

Explanation of owners/admins/users in the customer portal

All entitlements have been claimed

Failed to activate the license on old tool versions

Finding your serial number

Moving a license to a different machine

Manually activating

Command line activations

How Redgate tools are licensed

Trial expired message

Upgrading

SQL Monitor licensing

Creating a Redgate ID

If you don’t already have a Redgate ID, you can create one:

Go to the Redgate ID log in page andclickDon’t have a Redgate ID?

Enter an emailaddressand password, and clickCreate Redgate ID.

You'll receive an email from Redgate. Click the confirmation link in the email to confirmyour email address.

You can now log in to your account.

Logging in with your Redgate ID to activate a license

In the past, Redgate products could be activated using just a serial number.User based licensing now means that if you log in with your Redgate ID each time you activate your license you will never run out of activations. If you are getting the message that you have, you probably need to log in.

On the toolbar, click on Help>Manage license and you'll see here if you're logged in:

documentation site

Managing your licenses in the customer portal

You can access the details of your Redgate licenses by logging into the customer portal on our website. The first view you see in theMy Productstab shows a summary of all the licenses associated with your account with an overview of all products that you own, are an admin or owner of, or have been invited to use.

License owners and license admins are able to manage the license for that product by clicking on theManagecog alongside the product details

Anonymous activations

If you’ve been using Redgate products for a long time and have purchased multiple licenses, there’ll be a number of people using those products anonymously - labelled asNot logged in. This makes it hard to know exactly who is using which product, which can be a problem if you’re responsible for tracking license usage in your organisation.

To remove an anonymous user, click on theRemovebutton alongside the details in the list.

Managing license users, owners & admins

Submitting a license owner request

If you would like to request to become a license owner, click on add existing license<on the My Products page of the customer portaland enter the serial key.

An email will be sent to any existing owners of the license asking them to accept or reject your request. When the existing owner has accepted you will become an owner and will be able to see the license in your account.

In some instances, the existing owner may have left the company, when this is the case, if there are no other license owners to accept your request, the request will pend for 10 days and then automatically accept.

Managing license users

If you are a license owner or admin,when you click on theManagecog next to a product on the summary page you’ll see the detailed view for that product.

In the left section, you will find a summary of your license and how it is currently being used. To the right is theCurrent allocated users'section where you can invite and manage the allocated users of the license.

If you are managing a Product Bundle, you'll notice that your license key is split into sub groups. For example, SQL Toolbelt will be presented in four sections;SQL Toolbelt (Backup), SQL Toolbelt (Desktop tools), SQL Toolbelt (Monitoring), SQL Toolbelt (Multi Script).

Inviting a user

To invite a user, enter their email address in the email field and clickSend. They’ll receive an email saying they’ve been invited to use a product.You can also enter multiple email addresses to invite more than one user at a time.

Removing a user

To remove an allocated user, click on theRemovebutton alongside their details in the list. This has the same effect as someone deactivating the product on their computer.

Related articles:

Managing license users, owners & admins

What does ‘Not logged in’ mean?

Explanation of owners/admins/users in the customer portal

A license owner cansee license information and perform all actions relating to inviting and removing owners, admins and users from the license.

License adminscan see license information and perform all actions relating to inviting and removing users from the license.

A license user can download and use the license from the portal.

All entitlements have been claimed

Our licensing system is now user based (with the exception of server tools) so when activating licenses, if you are logging in with the same Redgate ID each timethen you will be able to activate on as many machines as you need without running out of activations.

If you have changed your email address or you're not logging in with your Redgate ID you may get a message saying that all the entitlements have been claimed. If this happens you will need to log in to the customer portal and remove an old activation.

Related article:

Removing a user

'Failed To Activate The License' on old tool versions

User account licensing (logging in when activating) and by extension the invitation function doesn't work if you are using a very old version of a product (prior to 2017) or an unsupported tool (eg. MySQL Compare) so if you have been invited to use a license in the customer portal and you try to activate it you will get the error message All of the entitlements for this serial number have already been claimed.

To activate the license you will need to log in to the customer portal and remove yourself/the user. Then you can install the license using a product installer which you can download from the website and activating the license key.

Related article:

'Failed to activate the license'

Finding your serial number

When you purchase aproduct, you can view your serial numbers at red-gate.com/myserialnumbers. You'll need to log inwith the email address and password you provided when you purchasedthe product. Each time a serial number is used by a new user to activate a product, one license will be claimed.

If you need to reinstall products on the same computer (e.g. after installing a new operating system), you can reactivate them using the same serial number. This doesn't affect the number of available licenses for the serial number. For information about moving a license to a different computer.

Moving a license to a different machine

There is no longer the need to deactivate your license to move it to another machine. If you're logging in with the same Redgate ID each time you install your license on a machine then you will never run out of activations as this only uses one entitlement.

If an additional user activates the same license, using their Redgate ID, this will consume another entitlement.

If you're having problems activating your license on a new machine it could be that you haven't logged in with your Redgate ID or that the ID doesn't match the one previously used. You may need to log in to the customer portal and free up an activation by removing an old user or removing the entitlement assigned to the wrong Redgate ID.You will need to contact the license owner if you can't see the license in the portal.

Related article:

Moving a license to a different machine

Manually activating

You can use manual activation to activate products when your computer doesn't have an internet connection or your internet connection does not allow SOAP requests.

You'll need access to another computer with an internet connection and then transfer the installer over on a flash drive.

Launch the product you wish to activate

Visit http://localhost:22221/r edgate/status.html

Under Recently connected products, next to the product you wish to activate choose 'Activate using fallback'

Enter your serial key and the activation will fail (if you have no internet connection)

Now you have the option to activate manually

You can then manually activate the license - here's some step-by-step instructions.

NB: Make sure you leave the original window with the request text open whilst you generate the response text, then paste in the response.

Command line activations

Activating

Open a command prompt, navigate to the folder where your product executable file is located and run a command with the following syntax:

<name of productEXE> /activateSerial:<serialNumber>

sqlcompare /activateSerial:001-123-456789-ABCD

Deactivating

Open a command prompt, navigate to the folder where your product executable file is located and run a command with the following syntax:

<productEXE> /deactivateSerial

sqlcompare /deactivateSerial

How Redgate tools are licensed

User based licensing

Most Redgate tools are licensed per user. This means that if you are a user of a single Redgate license you are entitled to install that license on as many machines as you need, so if you are planning to use the license at work, on a laptop at home and on a VM you can install on all three.

If more than one person needs to use the license you would need to purchase an additional license for each user.

Server and capacity based licensing

A few of our tools are licensed per server, such as SQL Monitor and SQL Backup Pro, or by capacities, such as SQL Clone and Data Masker for SQL Server.

To see how each product is licensed, take a look at our Software Editions page.

In the case of the SQL Toolbelt, where there's a mixture of licenses, you would need to purchase additional licenses of the server tools if the number of servers is larger than the number of users. We offer discounts when you buy multiple licenses. Contact us at [email protected] for more information.

Trial expired message

If your trial period has expired and you are looking to purchase or you require more time to evaluate then please contact [email protected]

This error message is also displayed if you have upgraded to a new major version or downloaded an upgrade from the Redgate website which reverts to trial mode. If you have a license and you run into this error you will need to activate your serial key within the tool. You can do this one of two ways depending on the product:

On theHelpmenu, selectManage my license

On theHelpmenu, selectEnter serial number

This will put you back into licensed mode.

Upgrading

You can download the latest version of a product using Check for Updates, the customer portal orthe Redgate website.

If you download the latest version from our website or the customer portal, you need to run the installer to upgrade the product. Some Redgate products are available as part of bundle and you can select which products you want to upgrade when you run the installer.

If you use Check for Updates, the installer runs automatically.

Troubleshooting

Before upgrading you may want to check the system requirements which can be found on our by choosing your product and then clicking Requirements.

If you run into any problems after upgrading a Redgate tool, SQL Server Management Studio or SQL Server, in most cases an uninstall and subsequent reinstall of the Redgate tool should fix the problem.

SQL Monitor licensing

SQL Monitor is licensed per Windows server (either physical or virtual).

If running a Windows cluster, every node participating in the cluster requires a license. This includes passive nodes: these are automatically detected, and it is not possible to monitor only part of a cluster.

SQL Monitor licensing does not check the number of SQL Instances installed on an individual server.

Licensing for Azure SQL Databases

The licensing model for Azure SQL Databases requires one full SQL Monitor license allocation per five Azure SQL databases.

Licensing for Azure Managed Instances

Azure Managed Instances require one full SQL Monitor license per Managed Instance.

SQL Toolbelt Licensing

Whilst SQL Toolbelts are licensed per user, SQL Monitor (as part of the Toolbelt) is still licensed per server (physical or virtual).

Example: You have a 30 user SQL Toolbelt licence - this entitles you to 30 SQL Monitor licenses.

Client Logs

To open the folder where the log files are stored, clickLocate Log Files.By default, log files are located in:\%localappdata\%\Red Gate\Logs

Service Logs

C:\ProgramData\Red Gate\Shared Client\Log

Installer Logs

Click 'cancel' on the error popup window

Left click on the Redgate icon at the top left of the main installer window title bar

Choose 'Open temporary file folders'

Zip and send us the log files

Log file locations

Related documentation:

SQL Backup is licensed per server which means a distinct system running a Windows operating system, whether physical or virtual. You will need one license per server even if you have multiple SQL Server instances running on that server. If your servers are clustered, you will need a license for each node running SQL Server.

SQL Backup consists of two parts: the GUI and the server components.

From the GUI you will monitor your backup and restore jobs. The GUI doesn't require a license and can be installed on as many machines as you need.

The server components should be installed on each SQL Server instance (or on each node of a clustered instance). These partsrequire a licenseand contain the SQL Backup extended stored procedures and the SQL Backup Agent service. You can install only one version of the SQL Backup server components on each SQL Server instance.

Related articles:

Installing SQL Backup

Licensing SQL Backup

SQL Monitor is licensed per Windows server (either physical or virtual).

If running a Windows cluster, every node participating in the cluster requires a license. This includes passive nodes: these are automatically detected, and it is not possible to monitor only part of a cluster.

SQL Monitor licensing does not check the number of SQL Instances installed on an individual server.

Licensing for Azure SQL Databases

The licensing model for Azure SQL Databases requires one full SQL Monitor license allocation per five Azure SQL databases.

Licensing for Azure Managed Instances

Azure Managed Instances require one full SQL Monitor license per Managed Instance.

SQL Toolbelt Licensing

Whilst SQL Toolbelts are licensed per user, SQL Monitor (as part of the Toolbelt) is still licensed per server (physical or virtual).

Example: You have a 30 user SQL Toolbelt licence - this entitles you to 30 SQL Monitor licenses.

Examples

Example 1: You have 3 standalone Windows Servers, each with 15 SQL Server instances installed. You require 3 SQL Monitor licenses.

Example 2: You have 12 standalone Windows Servers, each with a single SQL Server instance installed. You require 12 SQL Monitor licenses.

Example 3: You have a 6 node Windows Cluster, with 5 SQL Server instances installed on each node. You require 6 SQL Monitor licenses.

Example 4: You have 5 standalone Windows Servers, each with 5 SQL Server instances installed, and 12 Azure SQL Databases. You require 8 SQL Monitor licenses.

Example 5: You have 5 standalone Windows Servers, and 3 Azure Managed Instances. You require 8 SQL Monitor licenses.

SQL Change Automation (SCA) is licensed per user.

All SQL Developers contributing to a Database project that's automated by SCA should have a SQL Toolbelt license.

You can then install the Powershell cmdlets on as many servers as required by your CI/Release process.

Related documentation:

Changes to distribution of command line

Integrating the command line with applications

A trial warning message is displayed if you have upgraded to a new major version or downloaded an upgrade from the Redgate website which reverts to trial mode. If you have a license and you run into this you will need to activate your serial key within the tool. You can do this one of two ways depending on the product:

On theHelpmenu, selectManage my license > Refresh license

On theHelpmenu, selectEnter serial number

This will put you back into licensed mode.

Related article: Prompted to 'INSTALL FREE TRIAL' when upgrading SQL Prompt

Sometimes, the licensing server fails to communicate with the tool and will remain stuck in trial mode. If this happens, start with the following troubleshooting steps:

Log out and then log back in, to see if your licenced serial key is recognised.

http://localhost:22221/redgate/status.html

If once you have logged in a second time, the license still reads: 'X days left on your SQL XXXX trial.' and below the options to Continue trial, Activate or Buy now.Please use the following workaround to activate:

Launch the product you wish to activate

Visit

On the Redgate Client Status page, click on the product you wish to activate (it must have recently connected to the licensing client)

If clicking on the product link doesn't return the licensing window, choose 'Activate using fallback'

If you are getting this error message when opening:

The 'SqlSourceControlPackage' package did not load correctly.

The problem may have been caused by a configuration change or by the installation of another extension. You can get more information by examining the file:

'C:\Users\Username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\AppEnv\14.0\ActivityLog.xml'.

If the stack trace leading up to the error looks similar to below:

Exception details:

System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException (0x80004005): Error HRESULT E_FAIL has been returned from a call to a COM component.

at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Shell.Interop.IVsShell5.LoadPackageWithContext(Guid& packageGuid, Int32 reason, Guid& context)

at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Platform.WindowManagement.WindowFrame.GetPackage()

at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Platform.WindowManagement.WindowFrame.ConstructContent()

This is caused by an incompatibility in having SSMS's object explorer on the right side of the screen, on SSMS 2016 and 17.

The recommended solution is to update to SSMS 18 or newer.

If you can't update, please take the following steps:

1 - Close SSMS and uninstall SQL Source Control

2 - In SSMS, either move Object Explorer to the left (default position) or select "Reset Window Layout" on the Window menu

3 - Re-install SQL Source Control

4 - SSMS should now start correctly and you should have SQL Source Control installed

If you are getting this error message when opening a solution in VS:

The ''SQLChangeAutomationVSPackage' package did not load correctly.

You can get more information about what's causing this by examining the file:

'C:\Users\Username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\VisualStudio\15.0\ActivityLog.xml'.

In some cases, you may be able to workaround this error by opening SQL Change Automation before opening your solution.

If the issue is not clear from the file, please open a ticket by emailing [email protected] and include your ActivityLog.xml file as well as a screenshot of the error.

If you do not use SQL Change Automation and installed it by mistake, however, you can simply uninstall it. You can do this from Tools>Extensions and Updates, or if you had installed the free SQL Change Automation Core as part of Visual Studio, you can uninstall by modifying the Visual Studio install in Control Panel and removing the SQL Change Automation Core (or ReadyRoll Core) component.

Visual Studio / Sql Server Management Studio crashes on startup.

Error text

ExceptionMessage: "Method not found: '!!0[] System.Array.Empty()'."

Cause

This issue appears to happen when compiling code against the latest .NET framework (4.6+) and attempting to run on older versions of the framework. Prompt requires the latest version to provide Azure support and the libraries used should be backward compatibile but sometimes this error happens..

Please download and install the latest .NET Framework.

Our licensing system is now user based (with the exception of server tools) so when activating licenses, if you are logging in with the same Redgate ID each timethen you will be able to activate on as many machines as you need without running out of entitlements.

If you are getting the activation error 'Failed to activate the license:All of the x entitlements for serial xxx-xxx-xxxxxx-xxxx have already been claimed' you may not be logged in. On the toolbar, click onHelp>Manage licenseand you'll see here if you're logged in:

If you're not logging in with your Redgate ID, you have changed your email address or other people are using the license you may get a message saying that there aren't enough entitlements left on the license. If this happens you will need to log in to the customer portal and remove an old activation:

You will need to contact the license owner/administrator if you can't see the license in your account.

NOTE: User based licensing does not support tool versions prior to 2017 so if you're activating an old license the activation will show in the customer portal asNot logged in.

When using SQL Backup Log Shipping, you might encounter issues where the log files get stuck when attempting to copy over to a different location. It is possible to troubleshoot this by resetting the Log Copy Queue and then re-attempting the job.

Below are the two queries for clearing the Log Copy Queue. Both of these queries should be ran against the master database of the SQL Server Instance from which the logs originates.

This first query will clear all the entries in the log copy queue which have not been successfully copied. Once a file has been copied the entry is updated with a status of S, so this deletes all entries that do not have a status of S. It is important to note that the S requires two single quotes to work and not double quotes.

exec master..sqbdata 'DELETE FROM backupfiles_copylist WHERE status <> ''S'''

This second query will simply delete everything no matter the status. You should only use this query if the first one does not appear to work.

exec master..sqbdata 'DELETE FROM backupfiles_copylist'

If you still encounter issues after trying the above, you can try using the USESIMPLECOPY keyword. This bypasses the log copy queue and will copy the log backup file in the same manner as the full backups. You will need to add this keyword to the scripts of the log shipping jobs with issue on the CopyTo and you can find that on the SQL Server with the SQL Backup Server Components.

Here is an example of how you would add USESIMPLECOPY to the job

https://documentation.red-gate.com/display/SBU9/The+BACKUP+command#TheBACKUPcommand-BACKUPUSESIMPLECOPY

Sorry, this article has been removed.

Purpose

This article will help you locate your SQL Monitor database if you have difficulty locating it.

Steps

This will be displayed in the WebUI, under Configuration > About, under the BaseMonitor section. If for any reason you are not able to log in, locate theRedGate.Response.Engine.Alerting.Base.Service.exe.settings.configfile, located at\%ProgramData\%\Red Gate\SQL Monitor\.

The SQL Connection string to the Repository will be at the bottom of this file.

Purpose

When a SQL Backup Server Instance has too much activity history it can cause issues with loading and showing the history on the SQL Backup GUI. This can showcase itself as the Server Instance having a green spinning circle icon that always loads.

Steps

There are a few things that could help to resolve this issue. The three things to try in order would be:

1. First, clear the Activity Cache or *.dat files as follows:

Close the GUI connections.

Navigate to this directory on the machine where the SQL backup GUI is installed: C:\Users<username>\AppData\Local\Red gate\SQL Backup\ServerData

In this folder you will find one or more .dat files, for example 1.dat, 31.dat, localDataCache.dat

Delete all the *.dat files in the ServerData folder

Now re-open the GUI. The *.dat files deleted in the previous step will be recreated. This may take awhile while the files are rebuilt. Are you now able to view the Activity History?

2. If that doesn't help:

Stop the SQL Backup Agent service

Go to C:\ProgramData\Red Gate\SQL Backup\Data\<INSTANCE NAME>

Rename the data.sdf to OLD_data.sdf

Restart the service SQL Backup Agent service

and this will repopulate the backup history locally

3. If neither of the above works, you can try removing the servers from inside SQL Backup (thiswon'tuninstall anything) then re-import them, but in the add new server drop down under 'amount of history to import' select none. This should result in the databases being fully responsive. (However, after doing this last one there will be no history displayed until more backup jobs run.)

To tackle the root cause you need to reduce the amount out history stored in the MSDB table in SQL Server.You can read more about how to do so here: https://documentation.red-gate.com/sbu/troubleshooting/deleting-backup-and-restore-history-manually

To prevent this issue from re-occurring, it's possible to have the SQL Backup Pro graphical user interface (GUI) delete the backup and restore history from the msdb database and SQL Server Compact database for each SQL Server (Tools > Server Options > File Management) on a set schedule. For more information, see File management options.

To uninstall a Redgate product go to Control Panel,clickPrograms and Featuresor Apps & Features and right click on the tool you would like to uninstall.

There is also a bulk uninstall tool now available on the latest versions of our products. If you visit the same location and opt to uninstall one of your Redgate products it will give you the option to uninstall them all by checking the box to select all.

You can find the uninstaller atC:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Red Gate\Uninstaller.

If you experience any issues with the uninstallerwe recommend runningthis Microsoft uninstall tool:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/17588/fix-problems-that-block-programs-from-being-installed-or-removed

Description

If SQL Clone fails to create images or clones with a"Could not get list of clones" error, you may see an error like the following in the SQL Clone log files:

018-07-30 11:16:38.037 -06:00 [Error] Could not get list of clones

Newtonsoft.Json.JsonSerializationException: Cannot create and populate list type System.Collections.Generic.IReadOnlyCollection`1[RedGate.SqlClone.Api.Clones.Expanded.CloneExpanded]. Path '', line 1, position 1.

This error can occur when an incompatible version of Newtonsoft.Json has been loaded into the Global Assembly Cache (typically by another application). For example, the version in the GAC may be for .NET 4, whereas SQL Clone uses a version for .NET 4.5.

.NET will preferentially load the version in the GAC, and in the case of Newtonsoft.Json is unable to distinguish between incompatible versions, causing this issue. Ideally, no application would load Newtonsoft.Json into the GAC, as this potential incompatibility is well known.

The problem can be solved by replacing the .dll file in the GAC with the .dll shipped with SQL Clone, or removing the .dll from the GAC entirely. (However, the latter solution may cause other applications - likely the one which loaded the .dll into the GAC in the first place - to malfunction.)

Steps

1. The GAC is located in C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\assembly. You can locate the currently installed Newtonsoft.Json.dll and store a backup of this version if needed.

2. To uninstall that version from the GAC, launch a command prompt as administrator and run the following command:

gacutil -u Newtonsoft.Json

3. Then if you'd like to install the version ofNewtonsoft.Json.dll that SQL Clone requires, run the following command:

gacutil -i "C:\Program Files\Red Gate\SQL Clone Agent\<version>\Newtonsoft.Json.dll"

4. Test from SQL Clone to confirm the error is resolved

Clone data files are created in the default data location for the SQL Server instance on which they are created. You can change this in SSMS.

Alternatively, it is possible to change the data location for Clone data files only with the steps below. If using this option, however, please make sure that you have adequate disk space on the specified drive.

1) Open C:\ProgramData\Red Gate\SQL Clone Agent\settings.json in notepad

2) Change the null under OverrideCloneLocation to point to the desired location (Note: any backslashes will need to be escaped by entering a double backslash, so it should look something like: "OverrideCloneLocation": "D:\\MyClones")

3) Restart the SqlCloneAgent service

The Last Changed By column shows the last user to alter an object.

SQL Source Control gets the Last Changed By information from the default trace, and will store the details in tempdb by default.

If the column shows Unknown instead of a username, the documentation here lists possible causes.

Of the causes listed, lack of permissions to the default trace and/or tempdb are the most common. Either case will result in the warning,"SQL Source Control uses the default trace to work out which user made which change. You don't have the correct permissions to access the default trace, so the information isn't available."

If you see this warning, make sure that the user has:

ALTER TRACE and VIEW SERVER STATE permissions to access the default trace.

GRANT ALTER TRACE TO user

GRANT VIEW SERVER STATE TO user

EXECUTE and ALTER permissions on tempdb

use tempdb

GRANT EXECUTE TO user

GRANT ALTER TO user

Note: If granting access to tempdb is not possible, you can configure SQL Source Control to use a custom Changelog database instead.

If the problem persists and you have a supported license, please enable logging and send your log files in \%localappdata\%\Red Gate\Logs to [email protected].

If you don't have permissions to decrypt objects in the database, SQL Compare will not be able to get the default value of some columns. This will result in the SQL View showing the message, "No text is available," in lieu of the default value.

If this is the case, make sure you have sysadmin permissions in order to properly decrypt objects.

See here for the full list of required permissions: https://documentation.red-gate.com/sc13/getting-started/requirements/permissions-required-to-use-sql-compare

Note: This applies to both SQL Compare and SQL Source Control.

Purpose

This article will describe how to restore every database for a set instance rather than restoring each database individually through the SQL Backup GUI.

Steps

The SQL Backup GUI doesn't offer the ability to restore multiple databases and thus a script must be used to achievethis. By editing the below script with the correct variables you can restore all of the backupfiles in a folder provided there is only one FULL backup file per database.

USE master

declare @dbname nvarchar(260)

declare cDatabases CURSOR FOR SELECT name from sysdatabases where name!='tempdb' AND name!='master' AND name!='msdb'

declare @datestamp varchar(30)

declare @restorepath varchar(500)

--@filename will need to be modified depending how the backup files are named

declare @filename varchar(500)

declare @restorestring varchar(1000)

declare @exitcode int

declare @sqlerrorcode int

--Set @restorepath to be the path of where your backups are located, in my example this is 'D:\Backup\'

set @restorepath = 'D:\Backup\'

OPEN cDatabases

FETCH NEXT FROM cDatabases INTO @dbname

WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS=0

BEGIN

set @filename = @restorepath + 'FULL_SQL2005_' + @dbname + '_*.sqb' -- @filename will need to be modified depending how the backup files are named

set @restorestring = '-SQL "RESTORE DATABASE [' + @dbname + '] FROM DISK = ''' + @filename + ''' WITH RECOVERY" -E'

--If you wish to apply additional backup, remember to change the WITH RECOVERY to WITH NORECOVERY,

exec master..sqlbackup @restorestring, @exitcode OUTPUT, @sqlerrorcode OUTPUT

IF (@exitcode <>0) OR (@sqlerrorcode <> 0)

BEGIN

RAISERROR ('SQL Backup job failed with exitcode: \%d SQL error code: \%d', 16, 1, @exitcode, @sqlerrorcode)

END

FETCH NEXT FROM cDatabases INTO @dbname

END

CLOSE cDatabases

DEALLOCATE cDatabases

You may see this error if you are attempting to use one of Redgate's command line tools as part of an automated process.

To use the SQL Compare/SQL Data Compare command line you need to login interactively.

A SQL Change Automation license (available as part of SQL Toolbelt ) is needed for automated processes (for example when used on a build server). To cover such a case, everyone contributing to this automated process needs to be covered by their own SQL Toolbelt license.

Purpose

If you aren’t receiving email updates from Redgate for licensing and authentication, this can sometimes be caused by the configuration of your email servers. Whitelisting can help our emails get around firewalls and third-party tools designed to filter out emails.We recommend that you use the DNS names instead of the IPs as we don't guarantee to keep them constant.

Steps

The exact steps to follow will depend on your email server configuration and any additional spam protection software your organisation has in place, but these are the details your IT team will need to whitelist our emails:

DNS licensing.red-gate.com,productlogin.red-gate.com,

productloginauthentication.red-gate.comand update.red-gate.com

IP 94.236.39.224

DNS authentication.red-gate.com

IP 94.236.39.229

DNS download.red-gate.com

IP - N/A this changes constantly

Using HTTPS (port 443) and HTTP (port 80)

The full list of endpoints relating to licensing:

licensing.red-gate.com

notifications.red-gate.com

update.red-gate.com

productlogin.red-gate.com

productloginauthentication.red-gate.com

authentication.red-gate.com

permits.red-gate.com

The locally (to you) hosted endpoints for the Redgate Client service are ports 22221 - 22223 by default (e.g. 127.0.0.1:22221)

Additionally, adding email addresses to your contacts list in your email client can also help them get through. The addresses to add are:

[email protected]

[email protected] (for licenses and billing)

This article applies to other Redgate products as well.

If your upgrade installation is stuck at99\% and then fails after few minutes, there is usually an issue with Redgate Client service upgrade.

log a ticket

Please go toC:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Red Gate\Shared Client, delete any files named.rgupdate_bad_x.x.x.xxxx and try again.

If the problem persists, please click the Redgate logo in the top left corner of the installation UI andwith Support.

In the object explorer of SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) SQL Source Control uses colored dots to indicate several different status types for the status of SQL Source Control or the type of change for an object.

The blue dot icon indicates that there is an uncommitted change in the database. Expand the database to see where the change is.

The white dot in the blue circle is a DROP (something that could cause a data loss issue i.e. something that may need a migration script).

The grey dot indicates that it needs to be refreshed i.e. if you have accidentally deleted a testing repository.

Which then turns into the blue a white swirl which indicates it's being checked for modification.

And no dots indicates there are no changes

If the SQL Backup Agent Windows Service is having issues with accessing files across the domain. The below test will confirm whether the account has permissions to the file in question.

Run the following query in SSMS with the SQL Backup Server Components installed to ensure that the SQL Backup Agent has permissions to the network location (making sure to replace <network location> with the unc path to the network location):

EXECUTE master..sqbutility 999, 'RWE', '<network location>'

If this is successful and the SQL Backup Agent service has read (R), write (W), and execute (E) permissions, the query will return:

<SQBUTILITYRESULT>:1:

If there is a problem, the query will return a value of 0, followed by a message, for example:

<SQBUTILITYRESULT>:0:Folder does not exist :

<network location>

If it returns 0, please take a look at the following documentation and ensure your SQL Backup Agent account has the necessary permissions:

https://documentation.red-gate.com/sbu10/permissions

You can run Redgate tools on side by side versions of SSMS on the same machine at the same time.

Many users like to run old versions of SSMS alongside the latest version so that they can compare old databases that may not be compatible with the latest version of the Redgate tool.

Steps

Uninstall the Redgate tool(s)

Install SSMS

Reinstall the latest version of Redgate tool(s)

You can download the latest versions from the customer portal.

You will also need check that the tool version you're installing is supported by the versions of SSMS you are running. You can find the requirements pages on the Redgate documentation site.

Related articles:

Uninstalling Redgate products

Installation FAQs

1. Drop all the clones associated with that image

2. Make sure the clone agent is not running

3. Move the image to the new desired location

4. Update [SQLClone_Config].[dbo].[ImageLocations] with the new location path

5. Bring the clone agent back online

There are a few reasons why one of our SSMS plug-ins may not appear in SQL Server Management Studio:

The version of SSMS may not be supported. Check the requirements here.

While rare, you may have certain versions of other Redgate plugins which are conflicting. Try updating all of SQL Prompt, SQL Source Control, SQL Test, and SQL Search.

The Redgate Toolbar may be collapsed because it doesn't fit in its current location, as below. This is common with SSMS 2016 and later.

here

You can drag the Redgate toolbar to another area to get all of the buttons to appear on screen.

It may be missing from a newly installed version of SSMS.

It may disappear after upgrading.

For the latter two, a simple repair or reinstall should normally resolve the issue. (If the tool isn't listed as installed in Control Panel but the installer says it's already installed, please open a ticket here for guidance.)

Should the repair or reinstall not help, please try the steps below:

For SSMS 2012 and 2014:

The problem is likely with the SSMS Integration Pack Framework 1 (SIPFW) which is a set of files that our SSMS plugins use to integrate into SSMS 2014 and earlier.

This SIPFW used to be installed as a separate program and you may have files leftover from an older version of SIPFW.

This can sometimes be fixed by repairing the SIPFW installation:

OpenPrograms and Features

Right-clickSSMS Integration Pack Framework 1and selectRepair

You should now be able to access the plug-in normally but if it still doesn't appear in SSMS try a clean install:

Open Add or RemovePrograms

Uninstall the tool

If it exists, uninstall SSMS Integration Pack Framework 1 (not to be confused with the SSMS Integration Pack 1)

Delete any of the following which still exist:

C:\Program Data\Redgate\SIPFW

C:\Program Files (x86)\Red gate\<Name of tool>

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\SQL Server Management Studio\XX.0\Addins\RedGate.SIPFramework.addin

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\SQL Server Management Studio\XX.0\Addins\<NameOfTool>.addin file

Reinstall the tool

For SSMS 2016 and 2017:

1. Open Add or RemovePrograms

2. Uninstall the tool

5. If it still exists, delete C:\Program Files (x86)\Red gate\<Name of tool>

5. If it still exists, delete C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\XXX\Tools\Binn\ManagementStudio\Extensions\<Name of tool>

6. Reinstall the tool

For SSMS 2018 and later:

1. Open Add or RemovePrograms

2. Uninstall the tool

5. If it still exists, delete C:\Program Files (x86)\Red gate\<Name of tool>

5. If it still exists, delete C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio XX\Common7\IDE\Extensions\<Name of tool>

6. Reinstall the tool

If the problem persists, please zip any log files in \%localappdata\%\Local\Red Gate\Logs, create a support request and attach the file.

The Redgate Client Service is a Windows Service that is installed along with any Redgate client tool. Our tools will use the service in order to validate your licenses.

In some cases, a Redgate tool may fail because the Redgate Client service can't be installed or updated. You may see one of these messages:

'Redgate Client' (RedGateClient) failed to start. Verify that you have sufficient privileges to start system services.

'Redgate Client' (RedGateClient) failed to start. Verify that you have sufficient privileges to stop system services.

If you experience one of these errors, please try the following troubleshooting steps:

Open your Services panel. If the Redgate Client service already exists, right-click on the service and choose Stop. If the service fails to stop, manually stop the process by opening Task Manager>Details, sort by Name, locate Redgate.Client.Service.exe, right-click on it and choose "End task"

Delete any file in C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Red Gate\Shared Client that looks like ".rgupdate_bad_xxxx", and then try running the installer again

Should that fail, run 'netsh http show iplisten' from a command prompt running as administrator and take a screenshot of what is listed

Check Event Viewer>Windows log>Application for any related errors

Send the screenshot, the Event Viewer errors, and the service log files fromC:\ProgramData\Red Gate\Shared Client\Logto [email protected]

This error message is displayed if the Redgate Client Service is stopped or unavailable and can sometimes occur when activating your Redgate products on your computer.

Redgate support

Troubleshooting

The problem is usually that the Redgate Client Service isn't running or has gotten into a bad state. Open your Services console (Control Panel > Admin Tools > Services), locate Redgate Client in the list of services, right-click, and choose Start or Restart.

If this doesn't resolve the problem please send the latest Redgate Client Logs which can be found inC:\ProgramData\Red Gate\Shared Client\Logto.

Note: This does not work for SQL Monitor.

Activating

Open a command prompt, navigate to the folder where your product executable file is located and run a command with the following syntax:

<name of productEXE> /activateSerial:<serialNumber>

Example:

sqlcompare /activateSerial:001-123-456789-ABCD

The product activation dialog box is displayed. Follow the instructions above for Using the user interface.

Deactivating

Open a command prompt, navigate to the folder where your product executable file is located and run a command with the following syntax:

<productEXE> /deactivateSerial

Example:

sqlcompare /deactivateSerial

The simplest way to go about this in SQL Backup is to create 2 backup jobs on every one of the nodes:

- a full backup job

EXEC master..sqlbackup '-sql "BACKUP USER DATABASES TO DISK = [<AUTO>] WITH CHECK_PREFERRED_AG_REPLICA, SECONDARY_REPLICA_COPY_ONLY"'

- and a transaction log backup job

EXEC master..sqlbackup '-sql "BACKUP LOGS [*] TO DISK = [<AUTO>] WITH CHECK_PREFERRED_AG_REPLICA, SECONDARY_REPLICA_COPY_ONLY"'

On SQL Server's side, you would need to set up the secondary replica's backup priorities so that only one of them will actually run the backup job.

For full backups, if the primary replica is the preferred backup replica, a full backup will be made. If a secondary replica is the preferred replica, then a full backup will be made with the COPY_ONLY option added. For transaction log backups, the backup will only be taken off the preferred replica. For examples, see http://www.sqlbackuprestore.com/high-availability_group_suppor.htm

Points to note:

- The user can offload the backup tasks to the appropriate secondary replicas to lighten the load on the primary server.

- New databases will be automatically picked up for backups, BUT there may be some errors at the beginning. The log backup jobs will probably run first and will fail because there are no full backups made yet. FULLIFREQUIRED would probably not work as the log backups would most likely be taken off a secondary replica and the 'forced' backup doesn't know that it needs to use the COPY_ONLY option.

- If you are taking differentials off the primary replica and all your full backups run off secondary replicas, you should still take a full backup off the primary occasionally to reset the base differential flag. Otherwise, your differential backups will grow over time as full backups taken off secondary replicas do not reset the base differential flag.

- If the replicas are on different subnets, then backups on the secondary replicas may fail if the database does not accept connections. This is because the SQL Backup has to connect to the primary replica to check database level permissions. Please see https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg471494.aspx. SQL Backup doesn't support the MultiSubnetFailover option yet.

- Naming the files; if you want to be able to identify the backup files by cluster and availability group name, you can use the new naming convention tags - <CLUSTER> and <AVAILABILITYGROUP>. As the names imply, one tag is for the cluster name, and the other is for the availability group name. These tags actually fall back to <SERVER> and <INSTANCE> values if they are not valid for the current database.

E.g. You have an instance that contains a mix of regular and replica databases. If you named your files with the <CLUSTER> and <AVAILABILITYGROUP> tags and they had no fallback, then the regular databases' backup file names will have empty values for those tags. Or it might get even messier if you had to use <SERVER>_<INSTANCE>_<CLUSTER>_<AVAILABILITYGROUP> as part of the names.

With the fall back, the following 2 naming conventions will generate the same file names for 'regular' databases:

EXEC master..sqlbackup '-sql "backup database model to disk = [e:\temp\<cluster>_<availabilitygroup>_<database>.sqb] with init"'

EXEC master..sqlbackup '-sql "backup database model to disk = [e:\temp\<server>_<instance>_<database>.sqb] with init"'

For high-availability databases, the cluster and availability group names will be added accordingly.

You may get deadlock exception when running a substitution rule.

This could be because you have more than one rule in a rule block running against the same table. More about ensuring you set up appropriate dependencies to avoid deadlocks can be found here: https://www.red-gate.com/hub/university/sql-provision/masking-rules-and-concepts/rule-blocks-dependencies

And more on speeding up substitution rules and improving concurrency can be found here: https://www.red-gate.com/hub/university/sql-provision/performance-enhancement-with-data-masker/

If you are stuck during deploying, you may want to save the deployment script to a file, copy it over to the target SQL Server and run it locally using a SQL query utility such as Management Studio. You can save the script by selecting 'save script' on the last stage of the Deployment Wizard instead of clicking Deploy Now. If the deployment script is too large to manage, you can selecta subset of rows to deploy at a time.

Other than that, you can review the options for comparison behaviors likefiltering the data(you compare only the data you are really interested in, and the size of the temporary files is reduced), clear theShow identical values in resultscheck box and if you are comparing tables with large amounts of data that changes infrequently, or select theUse checksum comparison.

Last but not least, if you are using professional edition of the tool, you can consider using the command line interface to create a comparison and deploymenttask and schedule it to run at a time when the SQL server is experiencing least activity.

If you would like to change the screen-width display for SQL Prompt suggestions please follow these steps:

OpenC:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\Red Gate\SQL Prompt 10\RedGate_SQLPrompt_CommonUI_Options_UIOptions.xml

Scroll down the xml to find

<CandidateListWidth>826</CandidateListWidth>

<CandidateListHeight>623</CandidateListHeight>

Set it to the required size

Restart SSMS

Common cause

There are discrepancies for options used in the GUI and command line.

Different objects are selected in the GUI/specified on the command line.

Solution

Ultimately we need to make sure we are comparing the same objects with the same options.

One pitfall when using command line is if you don't explicitly set any options, the defaults are used; however if you want to use default options with additional options, you must specify thedefaultargument and the additional options. For example:

/Options:Default,CaseSensitiveObjectDefinition,IgnoreComments

If you use compare project file on the command line, you need to make sure all wanted objects are selected before you save the project file. If you need to add or remove objects for comparison, you need to update it from the GUI, re-save the project file and use the updated project file from the command line.

Description

If you link a large amount of data in SQL Source Control, you are likely to get an Out of Memory Exception when trying to commit linked data. This is because linking to data affects the performance of SQL Source Control.

Steps

We recommend you only source-control static data (also known as lookup or reference data).If static data is slowing down performance, on theSetup tab,underOptions just for this database,disable checks for changes to static data.

You should use SQL Data Compare to sync non static data between your environments.

Purpose:

If you need to change to a new machine, it's possible to move the SQL Servers that are already registered in SQL Backup to a new server, without re-registering them in the SQL Backup graphical user interface (GUI).

Steps:

Locate a file called servers.dat which is normally in this path:

C:\Users\<User Name>\AppData\Roaming\Red Gate\SQL Backup

where <User Name> of the user that has the servers registered in their GUI.

This file contains the connection information for each server you have registered.

Close the SQL Backup GUI on your new workstation.

Copy the server.dat file from your old workstation to your new workstation in the same folder path above (if the user who will be using the GUI is different change <User Name>).

On your new workstation, navigate to this path:

C:\Users<User Name>\AppData\Local\Red Gate\SQL Backup\Server Data\

(again for the user who is using the GUI)

You will find 2 or more .dat files, for example 1.dat, 53.dat, localDataCache.dat. Delete all of the .dat files located here - do not worry, new files will be created when you open the GUI in the next step.

Now open the SQL Backup GUI, it will populate the registered servers from the copied servers.dat file and create the .dat file deleted in the previous steps.

If you find that your SQL Change Automation installation freezes at 99\% try installing the extension using the Visual Studio Marketplace (SQL Change Automation Core) before running the installer:

https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=vs-publisher-306627.RedgateSqlChangeAutomation

You can find additional help with installing the Visual Studio extension here.

Purpose

Provide steps to troubleshoot Pre-Update schema check failed errors.

Description

This error can occur when Deploying a Database Release (which corresponds to the Use-DatabaseReleaseArtifact if using Powershell)

On this step SQL Change Automation attempts to deploy an update script generated on the Create Database Release step (corresponds to New-DatabaseReleaseArtifact).

Since there might be a time delay between script creation and deployment and also because the script can be applied to a different target than the one that was used in the Create Database Release step, a pre-update schema check is carried out before the script is applied.

The pre-update schema check compares the scripts folder States/Targetin the Deployment Resources with the Target Database using SQL Compare and originates the error if the scripts folder is not identical to the Target Database

This check compares both the schema and static data.

Troubleshooting

How to access the database deployment resources

If using:

Powershell - Use the Export-DatabaseReleaseArtifact cmdlet

Octopus Deploy template -The location is set on the Create Database Release step (Export path parameter)

VSTS -You can access these if you are using a Private agent and you can set the location in the Export path parameter

Check the logs/console output

At the default logging level you will not get enough information to pinpoint the exact cause, however you canincrease the level of the log/console output

Powershell

At the start of your script add:

$DebugPreference = 'Continue'

$VerbosePreference = 'Continue'

Octopus Deploy template

Edit the template and add the same variables listed above for Powershell

VSTS

On your release definition, add a process variable named system.debug and set its value to true