Revision #1

“Someone dropped my table that I have been working on and  ... now I have to start again…” a good old excuse for not completing the task on time. I am sure, as DBA everyone definitely had a situation like this and you want to find out who is actually dropping the table.  Here a hidden treasure to the information you looking for, a great functionality that has been introduced in SQL Server 2005 -  default trace

According to BOL “Default trace provides troubleshooting assistance to database administrators by ensuring that they have the log data necessary to diagnose problems the first time they occur.”

Properties Of default trace

To get the properties of the default trace execute the following system function like this

            SELECT * FROM  ::FN_TRACE_GETINFO(DEFAULT)

     

   

Alternatively you can query sys.traces table to get the same information

            SELECT * FROM SYS.traces WHERE is_default=1

When trace file reaches the max size system create a next file called Log_1.trc.  By default SQL Server keeps last 5 default trace files and deletes trace files prior to that.

Now let’s get back to our original question.  The following select will provide information what we looking for 

SELECT TE.name ,v.subclass_name ,DB_NAME(DatabaseId) AS DBName ,T.NTDomainName ,

t.NTUserName ,t.HostName ,t.ApplicationName ,t.LoginName ,t.Duration ,

t.StartTime ,t.ObjectName ,CASE t.ObjectType

WHEN 8259 THEN 'Check Constraint'

WHEN 8260 THEN 'Default (constraint or standalone)'

WHEN 8262 THEN 'Foreign-key Constraint'

WHEN 8272 THEN 'Stored Procedure'

WHEN 8274 THEN 'Rule'

WHEN 8275 THEN 'System Table'

WHEN 8276 THEN 'Trigger on Server'

WHEN 8277 THEN '(User-defined) Table'

WHEN 8278 THEN 'View'

WHEN 8280 THEN 'Extended Stored Procedure'

WHEN 16724 THEN 'CLR Trigger'

WHEN 16964 THEN 'Database'

WHEN 16975 THEN 'Object'

WHEN 17222 THEN 'FullText Catalog'

WHEN 17232 THEN 'CLR Stored Procedure'

WHEN 17235 THEN 'Schema'

WHEN 17475 THEN 'Credential'

WHEN 17491 THEN 'DDL Event'

WHEN 17741 THEN 'Management Event'

WHEN 17747 THEN 'Security Event'

WHEN 17749 THEN 'User Event'

WHEN 17985 THEN 'CLR Aggregate Function'

WHEN 17993 THEN 'Inline Table-valued SQL Function'

WHEN 18000 THEN 'Partition Function'

WHEN 18002 THEN 'Replication Filter Procedure'

WHEN 18004 THEN 'Table-valued SQL Function'

WHEN 18259 THEN 'Server Role'

WHEN 18263 THEN 'Microsoft Windows Group'

WHEN 19265 THEN 'Asymmetric Key'

WHEN 19277 THEN 'Master Key'

WHEN 19280 THEN 'Primary Key'

WHEN 19283 THEN 'ObfusKey'

WHEN 19521 THEN 'Asymmetric Key Login'

WHEN 19523 THEN 'Certificate Login'

WHEN 19538 THEN 'Role'

WHEN 19539 THEN 'SQL Login'

WHEN 19543 THEN 'Windows Login'

WHEN 20034 THEN 'Remote Service Binding'

WHEN 20036 THEN 'Event Notification on Database'

WHEN 20037 THEN 'Event Notification'

WHEN 20038 THEN 'Scalar SQL Function'

WHEN 20047 THEN 'Event Notification on Object'

WHEN 20051 THEN 'Synonym'

WHEN 20549 THEN 'End Point'

WHEN 20801 THEN 'Adhoc Queries which may be cached'

WHEN 20816 THEN 'Prepared Queries which may be cached'

WHEN 20819 THEN 'Service Broker Service Queue'

WHEN 20821 THEN 'Unique Constraint'

WHEN 21057 THEN 'Application Role'

WHEN 21059 THEN 'Certificate'

WHEN 21075 THEN 'Server'

WHEN 21076 THEN 'Transact-SQL Trigger'

WHEN 21313 THEN 'Assembly'

WHEN 21318 THEN 'CLR Scalar Function'

WHEN 21321 THEN 'Inline scalar SQL Function'

WHEN 21328 THEN 'Partition Scheme'

WHEN 21333 THEN 'User'

WHEN 21571 THEN 'Service Broker Service Contract'

WHEN 21572 THEN 'Trigger on Database'

WHEN 21574 THEN 'CLR Table-valued Function'

WHEN 21577

THEN 'Internal Table (For example, XML Node Table, Queue Table.)'

WHEN 21581 THEN 'Service Broker Message Type'

WHEN 21586 THEN 'Service Broker Route'

WHEN 21587 THEN 'Statistics'

WHEN 21825 THEN 'User'

WHEN 21827 THEN 'User'

WHEN 21831 THEN 'User'

WHEN 21843 THEN 'User'

WHEN 21847 THEN 'User'

WHEN 22099 THEN 'Service Broker Service'

WHEN 22601 THEN 'Index'

WHEN 22604 THEN 'Certificate Login'

WHEN 22611 THEN 'XMLSchema'

WHEN 22868 THEN 'Type'

ELSE 'oops .. I do not know '

END AS ObjectType

FROM [fn_trace_gettable](CONVERT(VARCHAR(150), ( SELECT TOP 1 value FROM [fn_trace_getinfo](NULL)WHERE [property] = 2)), DEFAULT) T

JOIN sys.trace_events TE ON T.EventClass = TE.trace_event_id

JOIN sys.trace_subclass_values v ON v.trace_event_id = TE.trace_event_id

AND v.subclass_value = t.EventSubClass

WHERE EventClass IN ( 46, 47, 164 )

AND t.ObjectType NOT IN ( 21587 )

AND DatabaseID <> 2

AND StartTime > DATEADD(HH, -24, GETDATE())

ORDER BY t.StartTime DESC ;

Hope this helps someone..