Hello, I have an ASP.NET 2.0 application that I made to keep track of disruption reports about our public transport system. The architecture is pretty straight-forward; an MSSQL Express 2008 database, ADO.NET and a DataSet/DAL with a few methods to access the database. There is a set of .aspx pages for the UI in use by our dispatchers and on our public website, as well as a set of SOAP and REST webservices and an RSS feed.

Everything worked just fine for more than a year, until two weeks ago. Now and then, it seems as the database enters an unstable mode, and the application starts responding something right, something wrong. The typical error is that apparently, an empty DataTable is returned to the public disruption overview or to the RSS generator. Thus, the user gets e.g. an empty GridView, but no exception is thrown AFAIK, and nothing is written to the Windows Application log. After a restart of the MSSQL Express service, the situation is back to normal.

It has to be said that the situation first time appeared a few days after I made a new minor upgrade of the application. The RSS generator was slightly rewritten, and I added a WCF REST service. But the DAL and the database schema were untouched...

Any hints of how we could keep the database stable? It is a bit annoying not to have a clue ;-)