Updated First Responder Kit and Consultant Toolkit for April 2023

This month’s big changes are performance tuning in sp_BlitzFirst & sp_BlitzLock.

Part of the benefits of using the open source FRK is that when any of us work with *really* big/fast/ugly servers, we tune the FRK procs to work better in those environments – which means it’ll likely work better in yours, too. For example, this month I was working with a server doing 30k-35k queries/sec and hitting threadpool issues, and I wanted sp_BlitzFirst to return more quickly in that kind of environment, so I tuned it.

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
• Get The Consultant Toolkit to quickly export the First Responder Kit results into an easy-to-share spreadsheet

Consultant Toolkit Changes

I updated it to this month’s First Responder Kit, but no changes to querymanifest.json or the spreadsheet. If you’ve customized those, no changes are necessary this month: just copy your spreadsheet and querymanifest.json into the new release’s folder.

sp_Blitz Changes

• Fix: exclude sp_PressureDetector from recompile checks. (#3244, thanks Edgar Walther.)

sp_BlitzFirst Changes

• Enhancement: new @OutputResultSets parameter lets you return less result sets when you’re in a hurry. (#3255)
• Enhancement: performance tuning for faster response time on systems with thousands of simultaneous active queries. (#3257)
• Fix: no more arithmetic overflow on queries with horrific row estimates. (#3241, thanks SQLLambert.)
• Fix: remove @@ROWCOUNT to avoid problems with In-Memory OLTP. (#3237)
• Fix: only alert on bad cardinality estimations for queries that run > 5 seconds. (#3253)

sp_BlitzLock Changes

• Enhancement: faster performance. (#3232, thanks Erik Darling.)

sp_BlitzWho Changes

• Fix: no more date errors when a request’s start date is 1900. (#3243, thanks Jeff Mosu.)

sp_DatabaseRestore Changes

• Enhancement: new @FileExtensionDiff parameter for folks who want to name their differential backup extensions different than Ola’s defaults. (#3234, thanks Will Spurgeon.)

For Support

When you have questions about how the tools work, talk with the community in the #FirstResponderKit Slack channel. Be patient: it’s staffed by volunteers with day jobs. If it’s your first time in the community Slack, get started here.

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.