Activity Monitor (Process Info Page)

Use this page to view the properties of current processes.

Options

• Process ID
  SQL Server Process ID.

• User
  ID of the user who executed the command.

• Database
  Database currently being used by the process.

• Status
  Status of the process (for example, running, sleeping, runnable, and background).

• Open Transactions
  Number of open transactions for the process.

• Command
  Command currently being executed.

• Application
  Name of the application program being used by the process.

• Wait Time
  Current wait time in milliseconds. When the process is not waiting, the wait time is zero.

• Wait Type
  Indicates the name of the last or current wait type.

• Resource
  Textual representation of a lock resource.

• CPU
  Cumulative CPU time for the process. The entry is updated only for processes performed on behalf of Transact-SQL statements executed when SET STATISTICS TIME ON has been activated in the same session. The CPU column is updated when a query has been executed with SET STATISTICS TIME ON. When zero is returned, SET STATISTICS TIME is OFF.

• Physical IO
  Cumulative disk reads and writes for the process.

• Memory Usage
  Number of pages in the procedure cache that are currently allocated to this process. A negative number indicates that the process is freeing memory allocated by another process.

• Login Time
  Time at which a client process logged into the server. For system processes, the time at which SQL Server startup occurred is displayed.

• Last Batch
  Last time a client process executed a remote stored procedure call or an EXECUTE statement. For system processes, the displayed time is that at which SQL Server startup occurred.

• Host
  Name of the workstation.

• Net Library
  Column in which the client's network library is stored. Every client process comes in on a network connection. Network connections have a network library associated with them that allows them to make the connection. .

• Net Address
  Assigned unique identifier for the network interface card on each user's workstation. When the user logs in, this identifier is inserted in the Network Address column.

• Blocked By
  Process ID (SPID) of a blocking process.

• Blocking
  Indicates whether this process is blocking others. 1 = yes; 0 = no.

• Execution Context
  Execution context ID used to uniquely identify the subthreads operating on behalf of a single process.

Status Values

The following icons and status values are possible:

Icon	Term	Definition
	running	The process is currently performing work.
	runnable	The process has a connection and has successfully run in the past. It currently has no work to perform.
	sleeping	The process has work to perform, but is waiting for something, such as a lock or user input.
	background	A background process that wakes up periodically to execute work.
	suspended	The process has work to perform but has been stopped. The status field does not contain the reason the process was suspended. The Wait Type field may contain information about why the process is suspended.
	other	Process is not in one of the other statuses.

Permissions

Use Activity Monitor when troubleshooting database locking issues, and to terminate a deadlocked or otherwise unresponsive process.

To view the Activity Monitor the user needs VIEW SERVER STATE permission on a SQL Server 2005 server.

To view the Activity Monitor the user needs SELECT permission to the sysprocesses and syslocks tables in the master database on a SQL Server 2000 server. Permission to view these tables is granted by default to the PUBLIC database role.

Permission to KILL a process default to the members of the sysadmin and processadmin fixed database roles, and are not transferable.

See Also

Other Resources

sp_who (Transact-SQL)

Help and Information

Getting SQL Server 2005 Assistance

Change History

Release	History
5 December 2005	Changed content: Corrected the description of Blocking.