Consolidating Data Capture with SQLdiag - SQL Server 2012 Internals and Troubleshooting - page 302

Now that you are familiar with the parameters, a few examples of their values and behaviors are
shown when used in conjunction with other parameters:
The following command tells SQLdiag to start data collection at 12:01AM on 25 th December, 2012,
and terminate data collection after two hours with a specii c output folder. / G parameter will skip
connectivity checks.

SQLDIAG /O D:\SQLDIAG_Data\ /G /B 20121225_00:01:00 /E +02:00:00

The command prompt window will display the following line on successful execution of the above
code indicating that SQLdiag is successfully initialized:

SQLDIAG Begin time 20121225_00:01:00 specified. Waiting

The following command instructs SQLdiag to collect data using a coni guration i le with i le com-
pression. The application name will be shown as DemoDiag with quiet mode enabled to suppress
any prompts.

SQLDIAG /O D:\SQLDIAG_Data\ /A DemoDiag /Q /I D:\SQLDIAG_Custom.xml

The following lines are what you will see in the command prompt window when SQLdiag initializes
successfully:

DIAG$DemoDiag Collector version

IMPORTANT: Please wait until you see 'Collection started' before attempting to
reproduce your issue

NOTE When attempting to collect diagnostic data, always wait for the message
“SQLdiag Collection started. Press Ctrl+C to stop” to appear (in a green font) in
the command prompt window before attempting to reproduce a problem
scenario for which diagnostic data needs to be collected.

The time required for SQLdiag to initialize varies according to the state of the Windows machine
from which the data is being collected. Because some of the servers used to collect diagnostic data
may be under severe stress in terms of physical resources, it may take a little more time than usual
to complete the initialization phase. Even the shutdown of the SQLdiag utility is extended due to
custom diagnostics coni gured. The most common sources of delays are as follows:
➤

Large SQL Server Error Logs collected during shutdown

➤

The long time taken to collect MSINFO32 output

➤

T-SQL scripts captured during shutdown, which take a long time to execute
The SQLdiag console output and the verbose log of the utility can be found in the internal folder
of the output directory in the i les ##console.log and ##SQLDIAG.LOG , respectively. When the
utility experiences a failure or does not behave as expected, these two i les can provide you with
additional insight about why the failure occurred.