Why is SQL Server 2008 Management Studio Intellisense not working?

Question

I\'m being driven to insanity trying to figure out why Intellisense just fails to work at all. The server I\'m using is local and is 2008, the database is set to 2008 compat

Answer 1

After finding this thread, I discovered that my Intellisense only broke after taking a database offline, and any offline database(s) on the instance would kill Intellisense.

In this thread, explaining that in order to restore Intellisense, you must

• take the necessary databases offline, then
• restart the server instance, and finally
• refresh the Intellisense cache.

This procedure has worked for me and Intellisense is now working again.

Answer 2

For SQL Server 2008 R2, installing Cumulative Update 7 will fix the problem. The file you need is

SQLServer2008R2_RTM_CU7_2507770_10_50_1777_x86
or
SQLServer2008R2_RTM_CU7_2507770_10_50_1777_x64

I also had to uninstall and re-install SQL Server 2008 first (which didn't fix it, but the CU did).

Answer 3

I recently wrote a tip about troubleshooting IntelliSense. The title says SQL Server 2012 but most of the techniques can be applied to earlier versions of Management Studio as well.

http://www.mssqltips.com/sqlservertip/2591/troubleshooting-intellisense-in-sql-server-management-studio-2012/

Answer 4

Visual Studio 2010 SP1 breaks SSMS 2008 R2's IntelliSense. There is a connect about that, and fortunately there is also a fix for that.

(In short, you will need to install Cumulative Update package 7 for SQL Server 2008 R2 by requesting SQLServer2008R2_RTM_CU7_2507770_10_50_1777_x86or

SQLServer2008R2_RTM_CU7_2507770_10_50_1777_x64

from this hotfix request page.)

EDIT: As @Paul Lemke noted, one might need to get the latest CU package. This blog contains the SQL server releases. (As of this writing, the latest is CU14)

Answer 5

Same problem, but just re-installing SQL Management Studio 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 worked for me. I left my DB engine alone. The DB engine is not the problem, just SQL Management Studio getting hosed by Visual Studio SP1.

Installers here...

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=26727

I installed SQLManagementStudio_x86_ENU.exe (32 bit for my machine).

Answer 6

When trying the accepted answer, I was getting an installation error: A failure was detected for a previous installation, patch, or repair blah, blah, blah...

To fix this, in my registry, I changed all DWORD values to 1 in the following Keys: (As always be careful modifying the registry and create a backup of the key before changing anything)

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\100\ConfigurationState HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\MSAS10_50.MSSQLSERVER\ConfigurationState HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\MSRS10_50.MSSQLSERVER\ConfigurationState HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10.SQLEXPRESS\ConfigurationState HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10_50.MSSQLSERVER\ConfigurationState

See my full post about Fixing Intellisense issue in SSMS.