You know how a lot of app release notes say “bug fixes and improvements”? We’re not gonna lie: this one’s all bug fixes. Huge shout out to the community contributors for catching stuff and contributing fixes.

New behavior for SQL Server 2008 & R2 users: sp_BlitzLock has never worked on SQL Server 2008, but starting this month, the installation of sp_BlitzLock simply fails with an error. In this month’s release, one of the checkins uses THROW, which isn’t available on 2008. This also means that if you use the Install-Core-Blitz-No-Query-Store.sql script to do installations, you’re going to get an error. It’s okay – all of the other stored procs install successfully. This behavior wasn’t intentional by any means, and we’d like that not to happen. If you’d like to improve sp_BlitzLock’s installer to bail out gracefully without an error, we’d gladly accept a pull request for that.

To get the new version:

• Download the updated FirstResponderKit.zip
• Azure Data Studio users with the First Responder Kit extension:
  ctrl/command+shift+p, First Responder Kit: Import.
• PowerShell users: run Install-DbaFirstResponderKit from dbatools
• Download the updated Consultant Toolkit in your account
• EU customers: check your email for the updated version from Gumroad, our European distributor

Consultant Toolkit Changes

To help troubleshoot plan cache pollution due to unparameterized queries, there’s a new tab for the top 10 queries with the most duplicated plans in cache. It’s based off this troubleshooting query. We also capture the top 3 plans for each query, sorted by duration descending.

This does mean a new querymanifest.json and spreadsheet. If you’ve customized those files, you’ll need to copy your changes into the new querymanifest.json and spreadsheet if you want to get the new tab.

sp_Blitz Changes

• Fix: standardized the @Help = 1 behavior across this & all of the procs. When you run ’em with @Help = 1, they return the help info and immediately return. (#2717, thanks Todd Chitt.)
• Fix: offline databases no longer show up in auto-shrink or page verification checks. (#2750, thanks Erik Darling and Ali Hacks.)

sp_BlitzFirst Changes

• Improvement: if you turn on @Debug = 1, it now raises “Running CheckID #___” messages in the messages tab in SSMS to help you debug. (#2739, thanks Adrian Buckman.)
• Fix: fix warning typo on queries with max memory grant and clarified that the query’s memory grant is a percentage of max workspace. (#2732, thanks Ali Hacks.)
• Fix: forwarded fetches in table variables now show that it’s a table variable rather than a temp table. (#2742)
• Fix: forwarded fetches in tempdb objects were reporting the cumulative number of fetches since the object was created rather than the forwarded fetches created during the sp_BlitzFirst sample. (#2743)

sp_BlitzIndex Changes

• Fix: if a missing index recommendation included columns whose names included ampersands, sp_BlitzIndex was failing with an error. (#2734, thanks snckirkmarken.)

sp_BlitzLock Changes

• Improvement: now runs better without sysadmin or db_owner permissions by wrapping an update statement in a try/catch block. (#2751, thanks Chad Baldwin.)

sp_ineachdb Changes:

• Fix: case sensitivity bug introduced in last month’s version. (#2737, #2744, #2747, and #2748, thanks Jefferson Elias and sm8680.)
• Fix: GO was removed at the end of last month’s version, which broke the Install-All-Scripts.sql installer when running on brand-new servers. (#2753, thanks TLSystemsLLC.)

sp_BlitzWho Changes

• Fix: we’re supposed to sort queries from longest-running to shortest-running, but last month’s version introduced a bug in that. This should fix it. (#2721, thanks Erik Darling and Ali Hacks.)

For Support

When you have questions about how the tools work, talk with the community in the #FirstResponderKit Slack channel. If you need a free invite, hit SQLslack.com. Be patient – it’s staffed with volunteers who have day jobs.

When you find a bug or want something changed, read the contributing.md file.

When you have a question about what the scripts found, first make sure you read the “More Details” URL for any warning you find. We put a lot of work into documentation, and we wouldn’t want someone to yell at you to go read the fine manual. After that, when you’ve still got questions about how something works in SQL Server, post a question at DBA.StackExchange.com and the community (that includes me!) will help. Include exact errors and any applicable screenshots, your SQL Server version number (including the build #), and the version of the tool you’re working with.

Watch Us Working On It

I live streamed while I was working on the forwarded fetches fixes for sp_BlitzFirst: