Is "The size of ... is larger than expected" saying anything profound?

[Breck_Carter]

Is this message saying anything useful about fragmentation, sparse pages and the like, or is just saying that 33G is "too big" on general principles?

SQL Anywhere Network Server Version 11.0.1.2960
...
Note: The size of 'D:\\xxx.db' is larger than expected

[johnsmirnios · Accepted solution]

The message means that the database/log file header says it is "X" bytes in size but the OS says it is "Y" bytes in size and X < Y.

Generally, that's not a problem. It might be an indication that the database file was growing at the time of the last crash. If the server was shut down cleanly, I wouldn't expect to see that message.

If ever X > Y, you will be in trouble. That means the OS lopped of a useful part of the file.

[Breck_Carter · Accepted solution]

Thanks... so yes, it is being profound, it's telling me that I killed dbsrv11.exe for being unresponsive 🙂