EEE Notification warnings

Created: 02 February 2011. Last Reviewed: 06 August 2012

If you receive an alert email titled EEE Notifications Warning, and the email is similar to below, the most likely explanation is the SQL Server has locked the file and not released the lock.

Failed to created the notifications file        at: d:\eeedata\production\notifications\2323\232302.NOT
        for till: 232302
        with content: 0
        failed with error: mscorlib The process cannot access the file
'd:\eeedata\production\notifications\2323\232302.NOT' because it is being used
by another process..
The till may have the notifications path configured incorrectly or the folder security is incorrect.

This has happened a number of times at one client, so the information below relates to fixing the problem on their server.

To fix the issue, use Process Explorer on the SQL Server.

At this client, this can be located in D:\Temp\ProcessExplorer\procexp64.exe.

- Click the Find menu, then 'Find Handle or dll...'

- Search for the name of the file that is being reported as locked in the alert email.

- Select the result and the bottom half of the screen will show the file handle. Most likely this will be locked by sqlservr.exe.

- Right click the handle and select close handle

- You'll be prompted to confirm, say OK, then the errors should stop and SQL should be able to update the file next time a change is detected.

Further information on using Process Explorer, plus a download link can be found here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653