Gouache painting of a small overflowing toy box beside a much larger open red toy box

ALTER Column From INT to BIGINT: Errors and Safe Solutions

To change a column from INT to BIGINT, you first drop every key and index that depends on it, because ALTER COLUMN refuses with Msg 5074 and Msg 4922. This post builds a small ticket system, shows the errors, and changes the key and its foreign key inside one transaction. It also shows how a negative identity reseed buys time, and when to copy the table instead.

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Gouache painting of a leaf-clogged gutter on a stone cottage with a red bucket on the ground catching cleared leaves

MSDB Growth From queue_messages: How to Clear the Queue

MSDB growth from the queue_messages tables means a Service Broker queue holds messages that nobody reads. This post builds a queue with unread messages in a test database, finds it with a size query, ends only its conversations with the CLEANUP option, and watches the space come back. It also says why you should never end every conversation in msdb.

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