I hereby christen this the Rich Benner Memorial Release. He’s still alive, it’s just that we’ll always remember him for the work he put into this month’s version. (I’m kidding, of course. We won’t remember him. (I’m kidding. Rich will appreciate the humor in that.))

You can download the updated FirstResponderKit.zip here, and Consultant Toolkit customers can grab their updated version in their My Accounts page. EU customers – check your email for the updated version.

Across-the-Board Changes

• Improvement: you can now call the procs with @VersionCheckMode = 1, and they’ll just set their version number & date output variables, then immediately return without doing any work. (#1949, thanks Jeff Chulg for the great idea and implementation.)

Here it is in action:

And the code for your copy/pasta delight:

sp_Blitz Changes

• Improvement: new check for SSAS, SSIS, SSRS services running. (#1943, thanks Rich Benner.)
• Improvement: added Azure SQL DB’s POOL_LOG_RATE_GOVERNOR as a poison wait. (#1971.)
• Fix: updated out-of-support version list to mark that SQL 2012 pre-SP4 is now an unsupported build. (#1967, thanks Rich.)
• Fix: typo in check IDs where check 222 was reporting that it was 114. (#1964, thanks Rich.)
• Fix: typo in documentation where checks 203 and 224 were swapped. (#1966, thanks Rich.)

sp_BlitzCache Changes

• Improvement: autocorrect for sort orders. If you pass in something that’s kinda-sorta-near a real sort order, we correct it. (#1945, thanks Rich Benner.)
• Improvement: Azure SQL DB and Hyperscale compatibility. (#1935)
• Fix: faster performance when you have a lot of missing indexes. We were missing a field in a join between two temp tables. (#1956, thanks Ron MacNeil for the eagle eye.)
• Note: in this release, #1935 also renamed all of the ##bou_ temp tables without bou, so just ##BlitzCacheResults. This was done to reduce the BOU branding in the Consultant Toolkit in case your customers start reading the scripts.

sp_BlitzFirst Changes

• Improvement: in the headline-news result set, batch requests/sec and wait time per core per second are now shown as decimals instead of integers. (#1940, thanks Rich Benner for being the perfect class attendee who actually improves the tools during the class.)
• Improvement: added Azure SQL DB’s POOL_LOG_RATE_GOVERNOR as a poison wait. (#1971.)

sp_BlitzIndex Changes

• Improvement: better index naming – removed the table name from the index to tighten up execution plan visualization. (#1938, thanks Rich Benner for doin’ it again.)
• Fix: to work around a bug in sys.dm_db_stats_histogram and sys.dm_db_stats_properties, we now only show statistics for tables when your database context is the same as the database you’re analyzing. This means if you wanna examine stats, you’ve gotta be in the same database as the object you want to analyze. (#1947, thanks Morten Abrahamsen.)
• Fix: works again with Azure SQL DB. (#1933, thanks Jacob Golden.)
• Fix: output to table works again. (#1952, thanks Aram Pendley for the bug report and Matt Monroe for the bug fix.)
• Fix: compression information truncation error for over 900 partitions. (#1973.)

Power BI Dashboard: Deprecated

You can totally keep using this, but you’re on your own for making improvements. Sadly, Power BI + source control = terrible nightmare. It’s a binary file, so it’s damn near impossible to deal with code contributions from outsiders.

Putting Power BI files in Github is bad for customers because when we update the Power BI file, you have to take it whole-hog, as-is. You can’t make your own tweaks, and then keep those tweaks with each release. You have to redo all your tweaks in their new version.

Putting Power BI files in Github is bad for open source maintainers because when someone wants to contribute changes, either they have to give you step-by-step instructions as to how to make the changes inside the PBIX file, or else you have to take their changed PBIX file as the new source of truth for your project. It’s like trying to source control Excel files when multiple people around the world are making changes.

The PBIX isn’t going away – it’s just moving into the Deprecated folder in Github. It’s still open source under the MIT License, so folks are absolutely welcome to take it and go start their own open source projects.

For Support

When you have questions about how the tools work, talk with the community in the #FirstResponderKit Slack channel. If you need a free invite, hit SQLslack.com. Be patient – it’s staffed with volunteers who have day jobs.

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 us!) 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.

You can download the updated FirstResponderKit.zip here, and Consultant Toolkit customers can grab their updated version in their My Accounts page. EU customers – check your email for the updated version.