During the startup of SQL Server, a process called database recovery occurs for every database residing on the instance which includes system databases as well. In a scenario where for multiple reasons the recovery process fails, the SQL Server would report an error 3414 in the ERRORLOG and the Windows Application Event Log. The error indicates would look like this:
“An error occurred during recovery, preventing the database ‘YourDB’ (database ID 11) from restarting. Diagnose the recovery errors and fix them, or restore from a known good backup. If errors are not corrected or expected, contact Technical Support)”
A similar error is shown below from the Services Manager when starting SQL Server fails to start with error code 3414.
As mentioned earlier, there are several reasons that could be the root cause for this error. Until the error is resolved you will be restricted in working with the database. In order to resolve issue, you need to examine the error preceding this error in the ERRORLOG or Event Log to determine the underlying issue. In majority of cases, the database is set to ‘Suspect’ mode and may incur additional errors on further usage. The Error message 926 usually appears on your screen when you try to access the SQL database marked as ‘Suspect’.
One typical example of error 3414 is when recovery of a database fails and encounters a checksum error while attempting to read a block in the transaction log file. For such an example, you would see similar errors in your SQL error log below:
2018-08-20 14:30:37.68 spid15s Error: 824, Severity: 24, State: 4. 2018-08-20 14:30:37.68 spid15s SQL Server detected a logical consistency-based I/O error: (bad checksum). It occurred during a read of page (0:-1) in database ID 14 at offset 0x0000000000b900 in file ‘C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL12.SQL2K14\MSSQL\DATA\mydata_log.LDF’. Additional messages in the SQL Server error log or system event log may provide more detail. This is a severe error condition that threatens database integrity and must be corrected immediately. Complete a full database consistency check (DBCC CHECKDB). This error can be caused by many factors; for more information, see SQL Server Books Online. 2018-08-20 14:30:37.81 spid15s Error: 3414, Severity: 21, State: 1. 2018-08-20 14:30:37.81 spid15s An error occurred during recovery, preventing the database ‘mydata’ (database ID 14) from restarting. Diagnose the recovery errors and fix them, or restore from a known good backup. If errors are not corrected or expected, contact Technical Support
How to Resolve the SQL Server Error 3414?
There are 3 ways of rectifying this error code 3414 when the database recovery fails. The chart below shows what options are available to help resolve this issue.
Method 1: Restore from Good Known Backup
The most recommended option is restoring from a good known backup. The database curator needs to utilize the most current backup file for restoring the suspect database. To learn more about restoring a backup for a suspect SQL database, click this link.
Method 2: Manual Copy of Data / DBCC CHECKDB REPAIR
The next method of a resolution would be executing DBCC CHECKDB command. This manual intervention will be best to retrieve back your database in an online and accessible mode. However, due to the recovery failure, consistency of transactions is not guaranteed after a repair. It is almost impossible to track the transactions, which have been rolled back or forward but, were not completed. The commands below would attempt to repair the suspect database using the DBCC CHECKDB feature:
This set of commands would put the database in ethe mergency state.
EXEC sp_resetstatus 'db_name'; ALTER DATABASE db_name SET EMERGENCY
Perform an integrity and consistency check on the database.
DBCC CHECKDB ('database_name')
The check would recommend the minimal repair level. Set database to single user to allow repair.
ALTER DATABASE database_name SET SINGLE_USER WITH ROLLBACK IMMEDIATE
Run the repair command as shown below
DBCC CHECKDB ('database_name', REPAIR_ALLOW_DATA_LOSS)
Once the repair is complete, set database back to multi-user to allow connections.
ALTER DATABASE database_name SET MULTI_USER
In some cases, the steps provided using DBCC CHECKDB fails to repair and recover the suspect database. You can attempt to COPY OUT as much data as possible from the suspect database. In order to do that, you would need to put the database back into EMERGENCY mode. This would allow you to access the content of the database. At this point try to copy as much as possible out of the database into a new database. Use the following command below to put the database into EMERGENCY:
EXEC sp_resetstatus 'db_name'; ALTER DATABASE db_name SET EMERGENCY
Methods 3: Repair Using SQL Recovery Software
Finally, if you find yourself in the worst-case scenario where all the above solutions did not work out, then the Stellar Repair for MS SQL software can help you perform a SQL error 3414 repairs. The software has dedicated and easy-to-use mechanism to effectively repair corrupt SQL databases and safely recover all the database objects like tables, views, indexes, keys, constraints, etc. stored in the database. The renowned tool enables you to efficiently resolve error 3414 which saves you from the risk of looming data loss. The software supports all the latest SQL Server versions, from SQL Server 2019, 2017, 2016 to 7.0.
