SSMS V22 times out on large queries where v19 did no

Question

SSMS V22 times out on large queries where v19 did no

Claudio Cavalli 5

Hello,

I use my laptop with SQL Developer to prototype databases before publishing them on a live SQL server. My laptop crashed and I had to reinstall all of the software. In my old laptop I was using SQL Server v2016 (not sure about this version) and SSMS 19.
On the new laptop I am using SQL Server v2022 and SSMS 22. I restored my DB but when I run queries with a lot of rows (we are talking over 1M rows sometimes) my SSMS queries now timeout. I determined that is it not a server side issue by running an SQL query in a CMD window with output to a CSV file. THerefore it is a SSMS issue.

Why is this happening? How do you release a newer version of a piece of software that breaks what was previously working? THis is maddening!

Sam Price 0 Reputation points

2025-10-06T17:36:37.41+00:00

Same issue here. V20.2 ran long queries with no issues, v21.5.14 is timing out after 30 seconds. I have checked the execution time-out specified in the answer by @Erland Sommarskog it is set to 0 on my machine.

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Sam Price 0 Reputation points

2025-10-06T17:36:37.41+00:00

Same issue here. V20.2 ran long queries with no issues, v21.5.14 is timing out after 30 seconds. I have checked the execution time-out specified in the answer by @Erland Sommarskog it is set to 0 on my machine.

Answer 1

Erland Sommarskog 127.6K MVP Volunteer Moderator

Cool down. When you use software for things that are outside of their main intended scope, you may be on the margin of their capabilities, which means that works this week, may stop working the next.

Running queries that return one million rows into SSMS is not a regular use case. At least not how I use SSMS. I use SSMS to look at and diagnose data. Working with one million rows in the results grid in SSMS is very impractical.

That said, by default, SSMS does not use a timeout when you execute queries from a query window. You can right-click in a query window and select Query Options at the bottom of the dropdown. You will see something like this:

User's image

What is the exact error message that you get?

Claudio Cavalli 5 Reputation points

2025-09-29T17:55:16.6966667+00:00

Yeah, maybe but it used to work in 19.3. And yes, I did have the 0 set for Execution time-out. I finally just installed 19.3 and I am back to having a working environment. And BTW you may use SSMS your way, but pardon me for using it MY way.

Anyway, my original point stands.
Erland Sommarskog 127.6K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator

2025-10-01T19:41:27.1166667+00:00

By the way, I happened to see https://developercommunity.visualstudio.com/SSMS?q=timeout. Possibly, this is the issue you were running into. It is marked as Fixed - Pending release, so the fix should appear in the next release of SSMS 21.

Answer 2

Erland Sommarskog 127.6K MVP Volunteer Moderator

I have since learnt that there is a known issue, reported here: https://developercommunity.visualstudio.com/t/Execution-Timeout-Expired/10963347?q=timeout

The status of this bug is "Fixed, release pending", which means that the fix will appear next time when there is an update of SSMS.

Erland Sommarskog 127.6K MVP Volunteer Moderator

This issue has now been resolved with the release of SSMS 21.6.17. However, note this in the release notes:


	Reinstated the execution timeout default value to 0. See Execution Timeout Expired. Note: this change doesn't update the execution timeout value for existing connections. To resolve this issue, delete all previously created connections or manually update the execution timeout to 0.

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SSMS V22 times out on large queries where v19 did no

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