SQL with Manoj

Sometime back there was discussion going on in an SQL Server forum regarding issues with IDENTITY property in the new SQL Server 2012. The issue was that, when restarting SQL Server (or service) the IDENTITY value in a particular table having IDENTITY column jumps to a higher random number and starts from there.

I tried to reproduce this issue, the SQL Server version I’m using is as follows:

Microsoft SQL Server 2012 RC0 - 11.0.1750.32 (X64) 
	Nov  4 2011 17:54:22 
	Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation
	Business Intelligence Edition (64-bit) on Windows NT 6.1  
	(Build 7601: Service Pack 1)

I reproduced the issue with following code:

-- CREATE a test table:
CREATE TABLE TEST_IDENTITY (
	ID INT IDENTITY(1,1), 
	NAME VARCHAR(200)
	);

-- INSERT some records:
INSERT INTO TEST_IDENTITY (NAME)
SELECT 'Manoj Pandey'

INSERT INTO TEST_IDENTITY (NAME)
SELECT 'Gaurav Pandey'
GO

-- Check recently inserted records:
SELECT * FROM TEST_IDENTITY -- 2 records, with ID value 1, 2.

-- Check the current IDENTITY value:
DBCC CHECKIDENT ('TEST_IDENTITY')
--Checking identity information: current identity value '2', current column value '2'.
--DBCC execution completed. If DBCC printed error messages, contact your system administrator.
GO


-- RESTART SQL Server and check the current IDENTITY value:
DBCC CHECKIDENT ('TEST_IDENTITY')
--Checking identity information: current identity value '11', current column value '2'.
--DBCC execution completed. If DBCC printed error messages, contact your system administrator.

-- INSERT a new record:
INSERT INTO TEST_IDENTITY (NAME)
SELECT 'Garvit Pandey'
GO

-- Check recently inserted records:
SELECT * FROM TEST_IDENTITY -- 3 records, with ID value 1, 2, 12.
GO

--// Final cleanup
DROP TABLE TEST_IDENTITY

Finally I got the following output:

As you can see by running the above test before I restarted SQL Server the IDENTITY value was 2, but when I restarted the IDENTITY value changed to 11.
Thus the new records was inserted with value = 12.

The above bug/issue has been logged in the Microsoft Connect site, [here].

Workaround: Right now there is no fix for this, so you need to check all tables in you database every time your SQL Server restarts and reseed the correct IDENTITY value. Check my blog post to reseed the IDENTITY value.