SQL Server – Fixing Ola Hallengren’s Output File Cleanup Not Deleting Files

ola-hallengrensql server

We run Ola Hallengrens backup,dbcc & index jobs but we have not scheduled Output File Cleanup for some reason. Noticed this today and when we tried to run it on a server that had 2 or more instances it doesn't delete old logs.
We have for example set up 1 server with 2 instances and it's set up with AvailabilityGroups.
When running the script this is the output: (I've deleted a few rows so it didn't take up the whole page but it deleted a few files)

Date 2017-07-04 10:57:55 Log Job History (Output File Cleanup)

Step ID 1 Server SERVER1183\INST01 Job Name Output File Cleanup
Step Name Output File Cleanup Duration 00:01:54 Sql Severity 0 Sql
Message ID 0 Operator Emailed Operator Net sent Operator Paged
Retries Attempted 0

Message Executed as user: VT\sqladmin-internaltes.
…8C0E25584E08C4CB393567C2C66083E_1_20170301_132833.txt" del
"E:\MSSQL\INST01\MSSQL12.INST01\MSSQL\Log"\"DatabaseBackup_0x18C0E25584E08C4CB393567C2C66083E_1_20170304_200000.txt"
del
"E:\MSSQL\INST01\MSSQL12.INST01\MSSQL\Log"\"DatabaseBackup_0x6DFC82E95…
Process Exit Code 0. The step succeeded.

After checking in the Logs folder which is located: E:\MSSQL\INST01\MSSQL12.INST01\MSSQL\Log we still have 12500 files.

The jobs are set up as standard when adding Olas jobs, with output file config:

$(ESCAPE_SQUOTE(SQLLOGDIR))\IndexOptimize_$(ESCAPE_SQUOTE(JOBID))_$(ESCAPE_SQUOTE(STEPID))_$(ESCAPE_SQUOTE(STRTDT))_$(ESCAPE_SQUOTE(STRTTM)).txt

We have not changed the job command at all which is:

cmd /q /c "For /F "tokens=1 delims=" %v In ('ForFiles /P
"$(ESCAPE_SQUOTE(SQLLOGDIR))" /m *_*_*_*.txt /d -30 2^>^&1') do if
EXIST "$(ESCAPE_SQUOTE(SQLLOGDIR))"\%v echo del
"$(ESCAPE_SQUOTE(SQLLOGDIR))"\%v& del
"$(ESCAPE_SQUOTE(SQLLOGDIR))"\%v"

The script works fine when it's a single instance or default instance.
It's sql 2014 if that's relevant but we have this problem on 2008 & 2012 aswell.

Anyone got this figured out or know how to fix this?

Best Answer

I should add that this works fine with 2 or more instances that are not set up with availability groups. It's only when it's more then 1 instance and AG set up. But what I did instead was to edit the parameters and change $(ESCAPE_SQUOTE(SQLLOGDIR)) to the actual path folder and it worked great.

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