Sql-server – Dividing DBCC CHECKDB over multiple days

The query processor can produce an invalid execution plan for the (correct) query generated by DBCC to check that the view index produces the same rows as the underlying view query.

The plan produced by the query processor incorrectly handles NULLs for the ImageObjectID column. It incorrectly reasons that the view query rejects NULLs for this column, when it does not. Thinking that NULLs are excluded, it is able to match the filtered nonclustered index on the Users table that filters on ImageObjectID IS NOT NULL.

By producing a plan that uses this filtered index, it ensures that rows with NULL in ImageObjectID are not encountered. These rows are returned (correctly) from the view index, so it appears there is a corruption when there is not.

The view definition is:

SELECT
    dbo.Universities.ID AS Universities_ID, 
    dbo.Users.ImageObjectID AS Users_ImageObjectID
FROM dbo.Universities
JOIN dbo.Users
    ON dbo.Universities.AdminUserID = dbo.Users.ID

The ON clause equality comparison between AdminUserID and ID rejects NULLs in those columns, but not from the ImageObjectID column.

Part of the DBCC generated query is:

SELECT [Universities_ID], [Users_ImageObjectID], 0 as 'SOURCE'
FROM [dbo].[mv_Universities_Users_ID] tOuter WITH (NOEXPAND) 
WHERE NOT EXISTS
( 
    SELECT 1 
    FROM   [dbo].[mv_Universities_Users_ID] tInner
    WHERE 
    (
        (
            (
                [tInner].[Universities_ID] = [tOuter].[Universities_ID]
            ) 
            OR 
            (
                [tInner].[Universities_ID] IS NULL
                AND [tOuter].[Universities_ID] IS NULL
            )
        )
        AND
        (
            (
                [tInner].[Users_ImageObjectID] = [tOuter].[Users_ImageObjectID]
            ) 
            OR 
            (
                [tInner].[Users_ImageObjectID] IS NULL 
                AND [tOuter].[Users_ImageObjectID] IS NULL
            )
        )
    )
)
OPTION (EXPAND VIEWS);

This is generic code that compares values in a NULL-aware fashion. It is certainly verbose, but the logic is fine.

The bug in the query processor's reasoning means that a query plan that incorrectly uses the filtered index may be produced, as in the example plan fragment below:

The DBCC query takes a different code path through the query processor from user queries. This code path contains the bug. When a plan using the filtered index is generated, it cannot be used with the USE PLAN hint to force that plan shape with the same query text submitted from a user database connection.

The main optimizer code path (for user queries) does not contain this bug, so it is specific to internal queries like those generated by DBCC.

Paul's explanation might answer your question , you can take a look here http://www.sqlskills.com/blogs/paul/checkdb-from-every-angle-why-would-checkdb-run-out-of-space/. I have copy pasted a snippet from his post related to your question:

There’s another reason that DBCC CHECKDB may stop with an out-of-space error. DBCC CHECKDB has to validate the contents of the whole database. As such it needs to store info about things it has seen at one point during database scanning so that it can match that info against things it sees at later points during database scanning. These bits of info are stored in an in-memory worktable. In many cases though, the amount of info being stored exceeds the available memory and the worktable needs to spill over to tempdb. (For example, running DBCC CHECKDB against a 1TB database on a machine with 16GB of memory – the amount of info that DBCC CHECKDB needs to store the intermediate pieces of info will likely exceed the memory available to SQL Server). So – if tempdb isn’t big enough to store the worktable, it has to grow. If it can’t grow, then DBCC CHECKDB will fail because it needs the worktable to operate.