We all use SSMS everyday and it is the main work tool for a DBA/Developer. This post contains info on known issues (bugs) with SQL Server Management Studio. Sharing this in case you are running into any of these known issues, the fix information is given below.

Issue 1

IntelliSense feature stops working in SQL Server 2008/R2 Management Studio

FIX: The IntelliSense feature in SSMS 2008 R2 may stop working after you install Visual Studio 2010 SP1
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2531482

• Install cumulative update 7 for SQL Server 2008 R2 to fix this issue.
• Issue happens if you have installed Visual Studio 2010 SP1 alongside SSMS 2008 R2.

Issue 2

SSMS Hangs on a computer with more than 32 processors. When you click on Connect to Database Engine, the application just hangs and does not connect.

FIX: An application that is based on the .NET Framework 2.0 stops responding on a computer that has more than 32 processors, and the .NET Framework 2.0 Service Pack 2 or the .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 is installed
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2276255

• This is a known issue with .NET 2.0 or .NET 3.5 SP1
• The above KB has fixes for Windows Vista/Server 2008 and above. If your computer is running Windows Server 2003, then you can apply the below hotfix to resolve this issue. This will patch your .NET 2.0 to a higher build than above KB and fix the issue.

KB –> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2461007
Download –> http://hotfixv4.microsoft.com/.NET%20Framework%202.0%20-%20Windows%20%202000,%20Windows%202003,%20Windows%20XP%20(MSI)/sp2/DevDiv937463/50727.5066/free/425615_intl_x64_zip.exe

Issue 3

SQL Server Management Studio take a long time to open

When running "SQL Server Management Studio" the application may load slowly.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555686

• This is usually observed if the server/computer is not directly connected to the internet or it could be due to 32-bit SSMS running on 64-bit OS (Refer http://support.microsoft.com/kb/906892 )
• The reason for the slow start up of SSMS is during start up, the .NET Runtime tries to contact crl.microsoft.com to ensure that the certificate is valid.
• If the machine isn’t connected to the internet, the connection will eventually time-out (hence the delay)
• The workaround is to disable “Check publisher’s certificate revocation” under Internet Options.

There are a few other useful tips given in this blog to speed up SSMS –> http://eniackb.blogspot.com/2009/06/sql-server-management-studio-slow.html

If you know of any other issues, leave a comment behind with the info and I’ll add it to the blog post. Cheers!