SharePoint content DB status is in stopped state for all the content DB from central admin under manage content DB section

Question

When i tried to create a new site collection, we found " SharePoint content DB status is in stopped state for all the content DB from central admin under manage content DB section. "

1. We did perform SharePoint patching couple of months ago. Can we assume it happened successfully if the DB`s are in offline state since long ago?

2. What could be the possible reasons how to avoid it future?

Answer 1

I have seen a database switching status without user-intervention once. Customer promised he didn't flip that switch. I never found an answer on that.

I also didn't put too much effort on that question because the stopped state is very misleading. It gives the impression that the database is completely unusable. A database in stopped state doesn't harm your farm very much. The database is fully operational (read & write). It just doesn't accept any new SiteCollections by default. You can work around that limitation if you create the SiteCollection via PowerShell and explicitly specifcy the database with the -ContentDatabase parameter.

Answer 2

There are reasons when one stop the content in SharePoint from central admin / powershell.

Main reason, when a content database is becoming huge in size then admin stop the content database & create a new content database for new site provisioning. it could also be possible that during the upgrade SharePoint stop it but failed to bring it online.

There are couple of issues when db marked as stopped.

1. No new site will provision in this db
2. User Profile Syncing with the content database will stop that's mean no profile updates from UPA to User Information list in dbs.
3. if you run get-spcontentdatabase then stop database will not be listed.

their is no way to avoid it as SharePoint administrator can do it, but you can use a monitoring tools to monitor your db or you can write your own script which will check the DB status & email/ update a list if anyone stopped.