Linq Query Timing Out - asp.net-mvc

Question

I have this query that uses the DBContext entities I created.
var referral = entities.StudentReferrals.Where(x => x.ReferralID == p && x.SchoolYear == year).FirstOrDefault();
When I remove x.SchoolYear == year the query works fine, but with it my query times out. The opposite of what I would expect to happen, I would expect the more you narrow a query down via Where clause constraints the less likely it would time out.
SchoolYear is a field in the query and the query itself is valid, when I perform the query within SQL Studio Manager it returns results in less than a second.
My confusion is, why would adding a constraint to the Where clause cause a query to time out??
x.SchoolYear and year are both strings.
The full query is...
SELECT [Extent1].[BirthDate] AS [BirthDate],
[Extent1].[LegalFirstName] AS [LegalFirstName],
[Extent1].[LegalLastName] AS [LegalLastName],
[Extent1].[PreferredFirstName] AS [PreferredFirstName],
[Extent1].[PreferredLastName] AS [PreferredLastName],
[Extent1].[StudentNumber] AS [StudentNumber],
[Extent1].[LegacyStudentNumber] AS [LegacyStudentNumber],
[Extent1].[TranscriptSchoolCode] AS [TranscriptSchoolCode],
[Extent1].[OEN] AS [OEN],
[Extent1].[StatusIndicator] AS [StatusIndicator],
[Extent1].[SchoolYear] AS [SchoolYear],
[Extent1].[ReferralID] AS [ReferralID],
[Extent1].[PersonID] AS [PersonID],
[Extent1].[Active] AS [Active],
[Extent1].[ServiceTypeID] AS [ServiceTypeID],
[Extent1].[IsSchoolActive] AS [IsSchoolActive],
[Extent1].[Principal] AS [Principal],
[Extent1].[SchoolName] AS [SchoolName],
[Extent1].[SchoolCode] AS [SchoolCode],
[Extent1].[NearNorthSchoolCode] AS [NearNorthSchoolCode],
[Extent1].[TranscriptSchoolPrincipal] AS [TranscriptSchoolPrincipal],
[Extent1].[TranscriptSchoolName] AS [TranscriptSchoolName],
[Extent1].[TranscriptNearNorthSchoolCode] AS [TranscriptNearNorthSchoolCode],
[Extent1].[GuardianFirstName] AS [GuardianFirstName],
[Extent1].[GuardianLastName] AS [GuardianLastName],
[Extent1].[AreaCode] AS [AreaCode],
[Extent1].[ContactNo] AS [ContactNo],
[Extent1].[ReferredByFirstName] AS [ReferredByFirstName],
[Extent1].[ReferredByLastName] AS [ReferredByLastName],
[Extent1].[ReferredDate] AS [ReferredDate],
[Extent1].[Reason] AS [Reason],
[Extent1].[gender] AS [gender],
[Extent1].[grade] AS [grade],
[Extent1].[HomeroomTeacher] AS [HomeroomTeacher],
[Extent1].[IntakeTeamMember] AS [IntakeTeamMember],
[Extent1].[IntakeMemberID] AS [IntakeMemberID]
FROM (SELECT [StudentReferrals].[BirthDate] AS [BirthDate],
[StudentReferrals].[LegalFirstName] AS [LegalFirstName],
[StudentReferrals].[LegalLastName] AS [LegalLastName],
[StudentReferrals].[PreferredFirstName] AS [PreferredFirstName],
[StudentReferrals].[PreferredLastName] AS [PreferredLastName],
[StudentReferrals].[gender] AS [gender],
[StudentReferrals].[StudentNumber] AS [StudentNumber],
[StudentReferrals].[LegacyStudentNumber] AS [LegacyStudentNumber],
[StudentReferrals].[TranscriptSchoolCode] AS [TranscriptSchoolCode],
[StudentReferrals].[OEN] AS [OEN],
[StudentReferrals].[StatusIndicator] AS [StatusIndicator],
[StudentReferrals].[SchoolYear] AS [SchoolYear],
[StudentReferrals].[grade] AS [grade],
[StudentReferrals].[ReferralID] AS [ReferralID],
[StudentReferrals].[PersonID] AS [PersonID],
[StudentReferrals].[Active] AS [Active],
[StudentReferrals].[ServiceTypeID] AS [ServiceTypeID],
[StudentReferrals].[IsSchoolActive] AS [IsSchoolActive],
[StudentReferrals].[Principal] AS [Principal],
[StudentReferrals].[SchoolName] AS [SchoolName],
[StudentReferrals].[SchoolCode] AS [SchoolCode],
[StudentReferrals].[NearNorthSchoolCode] AS [NearNorthSchoolCode],
[StudentReferrals].[TranscriptSchoolPrincipal] AS [TranscriptSchoolPrincipal],
[StudentReferrals].[TranscriptSchoolName] AS [TranscriptSchoolName],
[StudentReferrals].[TranscriptNearNorthSchoolCode] AS [TranscriptNearNorthSchoolCode],
[StudentReferrals].[GuardianFirstName] AS [GuardianFirstName],
[StudentReferrals].[GuardianLastName] AS [GuardianLastName],
[StudentReferrals].[AreaCode] AS [AreaCode],
[StudentReferrals].[ContactNo] AS [ContactNo],
[StudentReferrals].[ReferredByFirstName] AS [ReferredByFirstName],
[StudentReferrals].[ReferredByLastName] AS [ReferredByLastName],
[StudentReferrals].[ReferredDate] AS [ReferredDate],
[StudentReferrals].[IntakeTeamMember] AS [IntakeTeamMember],
[StudentReferrals].[IntakeMemberID] AS [IntakeMemberID],
[StudentReferrals].[Reason] AS [Reason],
[StudentReferrals].[HomeroomTeacher] AS [HomeroomTeacher]
FROM [dbo].[StudentReferrals] AS [StudentReferrals]) AS [Extent1]
WHERE ([Extent1].[ReferralID] = #p__linq__0) AND ([Extent1].[SchoolYear] = #p__linq__1)
Here is the StudentReferral definition...
SELECT TOP (100) PERCENT p.person_id AS PersonID, p.birth_date AS BirthDate, p.legal_first_name AS LegalFirstName, p.legal_surname AS LegalLastName, p.preferred_first_name AS PreferredFirstName,
p.preferred_surname AS PreferredLastName, p.gender, p.student_no AS StudentNumber, p.legacy_student_number AS LegacyStudentNumber, p.transcript_school_code AS TranscriptSchoolCode,
p.oen_number AS OEN, s.status_indicator_code AS StatusIndicator, s.school_year AS SchoolYear, s.grade, CAST(CASE WHEN PATINDEX('%[^A-Za-z]%', s.Grade) = 0 THEN 1 ELSE CASE WHEN CAST(s.Grade AS int)
< 9 THEN 1 ELSE 0 END END AS bit) AS IsElementary, t.SchoolName, t.SchoolCode, t.NearNorthSchoolCode, pg.person_id AS GuardianID, pg.legal_first_name AS GuardianFirstName,
pg.legal_surname AS GuardianLastName, pt.area_code AS AreaCode, pt.phone_no AS ContactNo, pt.email_account AS Email
FROM Trillium.dbo.persons AS p INNER JOIN
Trillium.dbo.student_registrations AS s ON s.person_id = p.person_id INNER JOIN
dbo.Schools AS t ON t.SchoolCode = s.school_code INNER JOIN
NNDSB_AD_Routines.dbo.Students_Trillium_Guardians AS g ON s.person_id = g.student_person_id INNER JOIN
Trillium.dbo.persons AS pg ON g.contact_person_id = pg.person_id INNER JOIN
Trillium.dbo.person_telecom AS pt ON pg.person_id = pt.person_id
WHERE (s.status_indicator_code IN ('Active', 'PreReg')) AND (pt.telecom_type_name = 'home')
GROUP BY p.person_id, p.birth_date, p.legal_first_name, p.legal_surname, p.preferred_first_name, p.preferred_surname, p.gender, p.student_no, p.legacy_student_number, p.transcript_school_code, p.oen_number,
s.status_indicator_code, s.school_year, s.grade, CAST(CASE WHEN PATINDEX('%[^A-Za-z]%', s.Grade) = 0 THEN 1 ELSE CASE WHEN CAST(s.Grade AS int) < 9 THEN 1 ELSE 0 END END AS bit), t.SchoolName,
t.SchoolCode, t.NearNorthSchoolCode, pg.person_id, pg.legal_first_name, pg.legal_surname, pt.area_code, pt.phone_no, pt.email_account, g.primary_contact_priority
ORDER BY g.primary_contact_priority

Answer 1

I can almost guarantee that the query that EF produces and the query you're executing in SSMS are not the exact same SELECT statement. You probably wrote something like what Stephen Byrne has in his answer, i.e.
SELECT * from StudentReferrals WHERE ReferallID=1 AND SchoolYear='2015'
Right off the bat this query doesn't have a TOP qualifier on it which your EF query probably will due to the presence of the FirstOrDefault call.
Your first step should be to use something like SQL Profiler and grab the actual query that EF is generating. It's possible that with that query the optimizer is choosing to do a table scan because of the type of query that is being generated.
This likely won't make any difference, but you could also try rewriting your query as:
var referral = entities.StudentReferrals.FirstOrDefault(x => x.ReferralID == p && x.SchoolYear == year);
As an example, when I write the following query against my database:
OrganizationalNodes.FirstOrDefault(on => on.Name == "Justice League")
EF generates the following SQL:
SELECT
[Limit1].[C1] AS [C1],
[Limit1].[Id] AS [Id],
-- columns omitted for brevity
FROM ( SELECT TOP (1)
[Extent1].[Id] AS [Id],
[Extent1].[Name] AS [Name],
-- columns omitted for brevity
'0X0X' AS [C1]
FROM [dbo].[OrganizationalItems] AS [Extent1]
INNER JOIN [dbo].[OrganizationalNodes] AS [Extent2] ON [Extent1].[Id] = [Extent2].[Id]
WHERE N'Justice League' = [Extent1].[Name]
) AS [Limit1]

Answer 2

Well, to answer the question
why would adding a constraint to the Where clause cause a query to time out
The most likely cause is that you have a lot of data in the table, but no index covers the SchoolYear column. Therefore when you include in in a WHERE clause, this causes a Table Scan (because every row has to be checked to see if it should be included or not in the result set)
If you use SQL Server Management Studio and write the query manually for e.g
SELECT * from StudentReferrals WHERE ReferallID=1 AND SchoolYear='2015'
And then include the actual Execution Plan (Query->Include Actual Estimation Plan) then you will get the execution breakdown which will show you clearly if there is a Table Scan involved. If there is, create an index to "cover" the columns involved and it should fix your issue.
Update
Another possible solution could be to run DBCC FREEPROCCACHE to clear out any cached execution plans just in case for some reason SQL Server has picked something insane for whatever query is generated by Entity Framework.