Deadlock with Entity Framework when inserting several rows in parallel - entity-framework-4

We are having a problem inserting several entities with EF in parallel. A WCF operation is called by a lot of processes to generate an entity with a different distributed transaction in each call. As we see in the sql server profiler it generates the following sql:
(#0 int,#1 nvarchar(32),#2 datetime2(7),#3 nvarchar(64),#4 int,#5 int,#6 bit)
insert [dbo].[CommandRequests](
[CommandId]
, [DeviceId]
, [StartDateTime]
, [EndDateTime]
, [Parameters]
, [Caller]
, [Result]
, [Priority]
, [Timeout]
, [ParentRequestId]
, [IsSuccessful]
, [Host])
values (#0, #1, #2, null, null, #3, null, #4, #5, null, #6, null)
select [CommandRequestId]
from [dbo].[CommandRequests]
where ##ROWCOUNT > 0 and [CommandRequestId] = scope_identity()
So EF give us an insert and later a select. Because it is done in parallel lots of them are aborted by deadlock.
We are using the EF 4.0, not the 4.1 or 4.2.
Any idea how to solve this? I have seen this, but it is quite old:
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/adodotnetentityframework/thread/4f634d8f-1281-430b-b664-ec7ca413b387/

At the end the problem was with deadlocks in the serializable transaction, nothing to do with the creation of the id.
Here I explain the problem:
http://pablocastilla.wordpress.com/2012/01/19/deadlocks-in-serializable-transactions-with-sql-server/

I think the reason is CommandRequestId is not the primary key. If you set it as primary key you will not get dead lock. I had the same issue and when I set the Identity column as primary key it worked fine.

The situation is still the same. EF doesn't have any additional features to avoid this. So your solution can be:
Manual synchronization in the service so that only one call can insert record at time. This is pretty ugly and it will greatly affect throughput but it is quite easy solution to implement simple pessimistic locking only for this single operation so it depends on type of the application you are building.
The select you see at the end is caused by using autogenerated ID. EF needs to be informed about this ID. You cannot turn this feature off only for inserting. What you can do is not using auto-generated Ids in the database and handle Id generation in your application. You will move Id generation outside of DB/EF and you will have full control over its synchronization. After that you will never see this select again (you must also set StoreGeneratedPattern for Id property to None). You can for example implement custom HiLo Id algorithm.

Related

Grails findById( null ) returning "random" result

I found a very strange behavior in our grails application today that i want to share with you.
We are using grails 2.3.11 on mysql 5.1.48.
We had a DomainObject.findById( id ) in one of your Controller actions.
We failed to check the id for a null value so DomainObject.findById( null )
would be called when no id is passed as an argument.
Normally DomainObject.findById( null )
will return null but there is a special condition that will yield other results!
If the controller action called before that inserted a new record in the database (lets call it Object B), regardless of the domain object stored, the DomainObject.findById( null ) will find the DomainObject with the same Id the Object B got on insert.
So when the controller action called before saved anything the findById(null) will return a row. And that row will have the same id the last inserted element got.
I am totally aware that using findById(null) is not the desired way to do it but I was quite shocked about the results it yielded. But returning any seemingly "random" result seems very strange to me.
I also want to note that DomainObject.get(null) will not suffer from this problem.
Anybody else witnessed this?
There is an active Jira pointing in this direction: https://jira.grails.org/browse/GRAILS-9628 but its not really describing this issue.
We don't really support passing null as an argument to a dynamic finder like that. Dynamic finders have explicit support for querying by null. Instead of DomainClass.findByName(null) you would call DomainClass.findByNameIsNull(). If you have a reference that may or may not be null, instead of passing that as an argument to a dynamic finder, the code can almost always be made cleaner by writing a criteria query or a "where" query that has a conditional in it.
I hope that helps.
Thx for your information scot.
I have further details. This behaviour is also altered by the underlying database.
While mysql suffers from this, maria-db (a mysql clone) does not!
So what happens is bound to the underlying database system.
That should not happen to an abstraction layer ....

Mygeneration autonumber field bug with MS Access database

I am using Mygeneration tools to create the abstract classes responsible for dealing with database to perform CRUD operation as well as some other dooDad operations. Problem is I cant retrieve the auto number field (it is also Primary Key) of table using the code
Employees newObj = new Employees();
newObj.ConnectionString = connectionString;
newObj.AddNew();
// Your Properties will be different here
newObj.FirstName = "Joe";
newObj.LastName = "Plank Plank";
newObj.Save();
int staffid=newObj.StaffID;
The same thing is working fine in MS SQL server or other databases. Looks like auto number is not generated instantly which can be accessed once I added the entry. But, later, when I am checking the database, I found that auto number is generated there. Not sure, why this is happening. Anybody having expertise with dooDads, please help with info.
Edited:
The main problem is I cant access the autonumber field instantly after I create the fresh row entry. Looks like MS Access autonumber takes some time to show up and even in VS, you can see this phenomenon. How to fix this problem?
I have built many applications using Doodads , using MS Access , you have only to make the filed as autonumber .. and generate the stored procedures and other classes.
i.e your code should work ..
also I made modification to Dodads to return list of Objects
How to get list of objects from BusinessEntity using myGeneration?

Locking before save with fixed concurrencymode

I'm learning about concurrency in conjunction with EF4.0 and have a question about the locking pattern used.
Say I configure a fixed concurrency mode on a version number property.
Now say I fetch a record (entity) from the database (context) and edit some property. Version gets incremented and when SaveChanges is called on its context. If the current database (context) version matches the version of the original record (entity) the save continues, otherwise an OptimisticConcurrencyException gets thrown by EF.
Now, my point of interest is the following: between the check of the versions there's always a small period of time, however small, it is there. So in theory someone else could've just updated the record between the comparison and the actual save, thus possibly corrupting the data.
How does this get solved? It feels as if the problem just gets pushed forward.
There is no period of time between checking versions and updating record because the database command looks like:
UPDATE SomeTable
SET SomeColumn = 'SomeValue'
WHERE Id = #Id AND Version = #OldVersion
SELECT ##ROWCOUNT
The check and update is one atomic operation. Rowcount will return 0 if no record with Id = #Id and Version = #OldVersion exists and that zero is translated to the exception.
This can (and probably is) solved using locking hints.
For SQL Server, EF can query (SELECT) from the database WITH UPDLOCK.
This tells the Database Engine that, you want to read a/several records, and nobody else can change those records until you perform an update thereafter.
If you want to see this for yourself, check out the Sql Server Profiler which will show you the queries in real-time.
Hope that helps.
CAVEAT: I can't say for sure that this is the way EF handles this scenario because I haven't checked myself but, certainly if you were going to do it yourself, this is one way to do it.

Why am I getting a "Unable to update the EntitySet because it has a DefiningQuery..." exception when trying to update a model in Entity Framework?

While updating with the help of LINQ to SQL using Entity Framework, an exception is thrown.
System.Data.UpdateException: Unable to update the EntitySet 't_emp' because it has
a DefiningQuery and no <UpdateFunction> element exists in the
<ModificationFunctionMapping>
The code for update is :
public void Updateall()
{
try
{
var tb = (from p in _te.t_emp
where p.id == "1"
select p).FirstOrDefault();
tb.ename = "jack";
_te.ApplyPropertyChanges(tb.EntityKey.EntitySetName, tb);
_te.SaveChanges(true);
}
catch(Exception e)
{
}
}
Why am I getting this error?
The problem was in the table structure. To avoid the error we have to make one primary key in the table. After that, update the edmx. The problem will be fixed
Three things:
Don't catch exceptions you can't handle. You're catching every exception possible, and then doing nothing with it (except swallowing it). That's a Bad Thing™ Do you really want to silently do nothing if anything goes wrong? That leads to corrupted state that's hard to debug. Not good.
Linq to SQL is an ORM, as is Entity Framework. You may be using LINQ to update the objects, but you're not using Linq to SQL, you're using Entity Framework (Linq to Entities).
Have you tried the solution outlined here? The exception you posted is somewhat cut off, so I can't be sure it's exactly the same (please update your post if it isn't), and if it is the same, can you comment on whether or not the following works for you?
"[..] Entity Framework doesn't know whether a given view is updatable
or not, so it adds the <DefiningQuery> element in order to safeguard
against having the framework attempt to generate queries against a
non-updatable view.
If your view is updatable you can simply remove the <DefiningQuery>
element from the EntitySet definition for your view inside of the
StorageModel section of your .edmx, and the normal update processing
will work as with any other table.
If your view is not updatable, you will have to provide the update
logic yourself through a "Modification Function Mapping". The
Modification Function Mapping calls a function defined in the
StorageModel section of your .edmx. That Function may contain the
name and arguments to a stored procedure in your database, or you can
use a "defining command" in order to write the insert, update, or
delete statement directly in the function definition within the
StorageModel section of your .edmx." (Emphasis mine, post formatted for clarity and for Stack Overflow)
(Source: "Mike" on MSDN)
But You can Set primary Key in Model if use MVC Asp.net
Just Open model.edmx in your table ,go to your field property and set Entity Key = True

Why is Entity framework loading data from the db when I set a property?

I have two tables (there are more in the database but only two are involved here).
Account and AccountStatus, an account can have an AccountStatus (active,inactive etc).
I create a new Account and set a couple of properties but when I reach this code:
1. var status = db.AccountStatuses.SingleOrDefault(s => s.ID == (long)AccountStatusEnum.Active);
2. account.AccountStatus = status;
3. db.Accounts.AddObject(account);
The first line executes fine, but when I reach the second line it takes a REALLY long time, and when I step in to the code it seems that every single account is loaded from the database.
I don't see why it should even want to load all the accounts?
We use Entity Framework 4 and Poco and we have lazy loading enabled.
Any suggestions?
Cheers
/Jimmy
You have to be careful which constructs you use to fetch data, as some will pull in the whole set and filter afterword. (aside: the long time delay may be the database being created and seeded, if there isn't one already, it will occur the first time you touch it, likely with a query of some sort. Also remember that when you retrieve a whole dataset, you may in actuality only have what amounts to a compiled query that won't be evaluated until you interact with it).
Try this form instead and see if you have the same issue:
var status = db.AccountStatuses.Where(s => s.ID == (long)AccountStatusEnum.Active);

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