Retrieve the error logs
Find the path of the SQL Server ERRORLOG files with SERVERPROPERTY, identify the rotated logs, and zip them to send them for analysis.
To analyze problems on a SQL Server instance, retrieve the SQL Server error logs (ERRORLOG). They hold a great deal of useful information.
Retrieve the logs
The error logs are text files, in a specific directory under the SQL Server data folder.
You can find its path with this query:
SELECT SERVERPROPERTY('ErrorLogFileName');
There you will find ERRORLOG, the current log, and the ERRORLOG.* files, where * is a number. After a rotation — usually at instance restart — the previous log becomes number 1, the one before it number 2, and so on.
Zip them: these files compress extremely well.
Then send me the archive.