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hrTooManyOpenIndexes
Where the operation crossed the contract
hrTooManyOpenIndexes means the engine exhausted index descriptor blocks through excessive open/index-selection activity.
This is the legacy Directory Service backup/restore HRESULT form of JET_errTooManyOpenIndexes (0xC8000582).
The key comparison is: hrTooManyIndexes is a schema limit; this result is runtime descriptor pressure. The first useful observation is to count open tables, duplicated cursors, current-index switches, and index metadata requests. This evidence identifies the exhausted pool so a leak, long transaction, concurrency spike, and hard capacity limit are not confused.
Reconstruct the engine state
- Code-specific observation: count open tables, duplicated cursors, current-index switches, and index metadata requests.
- live resource counts grouped by session and request owner; associate it with this result rather than with a later generic exception.
- relevant JET_param values and process or system capacity at first failure.
- the oldest transaction, longest-held cursor, or file growth operation retaining the resource.
The ESE objects in play
| Diagnostic layer | bounded engine, process, and storage resources |
|---|---|
| Typical API surface | instance system parameters, sessions, cursors, temporary tables, database attachment, and file growth |
| Code-specific condition | the engine exhausted index descriptor blocks through excessive open/index-selection activity |
| First corrective direction | close cursors and reduce concurrent index traversal before considering configuration changes |
Long transactions can retain versions and indirectly amplify memory and log pressure. A retry without closing owners or adding capacity often repeats the same failure and increases load.
Repair without destroying evidence
- Freeze the failing request context and record
0xC8000582, the Jet API name, and the current instance/session ownership. - Verify the code-specific precondition: count open tables, duplicated cursors, current-index switches, and index metadata requests.
- Apply the targeted fix: close cursors and reduce concurrent index traversal before considering configuration changes.
- Before retrying the operation, reconcile resource counts, owner cleanup, and capacity after the correction.
Do not collapse these codes together
hrTooManyOpenDatabases | a session or instance exceeded the number of simultaneously open databases |
|---|---|
hrTooManyOpenTables | the workload exhausted open table/cursor capacity |
hrTooManyAttachedDatabases | the instance reached its attached-database limit |
Actions that can hide or worsen the problem
- Do not raise limits before checking ownership and release paths.
- Do not create a retry storm while the exhausted resource remains unavailable.
Technical references
- JET_param enumeration.
- Transactions and save points
- ESE files and storage paths
- ESE source repository
- Microsoft: JET_ERR enumeration
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