SPID stuck in KILLED/ROLLBACK state

Question

Hi All,
SQL Server 2008R2 (10.50.4279) I've noticed a process that hungs, the wait type was "PREEMPTIVE_OS_PIPEOS" and the process itself was a SQL Server Agent job.
First thing is that in Job Activity monitor I could not see any job running.
I've tried to kill the spid from Activity monitor but now the SPID is stuck in "KILLED/ROLLBACK" state, and the wait is always "PREEMPTIVE_OS_PIPEOS".
I've checked that the job executes a stored procedure that invokes sp_send_dbmail with an attachment, I've tried to restart the SQL Server Agent, but the spid is always there.
How can I kill the process?

Answer 1

I can't reboot a production server so easily, come on!
Then you will have to live with it. The wait type PREEMPTIVE_OS_PIPEOPS means that the process is performing an OS call to something related to PIPEOPS. SQL Server employs cooperative multi-tasking. That is, processes yields everyone once in a while to let
other other processes run. And that's when they check if they have been killed. But if the process is running an OS call, they are outside the realm of SQL Server and will never see the kill flag.
What you can try is to see if there is some other activity on the machine that appears to be related to this job. For instance, the process may be running xp_cmdshell and be stuck there.
Erland Sommarskog, SQL Server MVP, [email protected]