Why Intellisense doesn't work in SQL Server Management Studio 2008 R2?

Question

I have SQL Server Management Studio 2008 R2.

I have tried these:

1. Tools->Options->Query Execution->SQL Server->General, make sure “By default, open new queries in SQLCMD mode” is unchecked

2. Go to Tools >> Options >> Text Editor >> Transact-SQL >> General >> IntelliSense Select Auto List Members and Check Parameter Information.

3. Restarted, repaired Visual Studio 2010

4. Installed VS 2010 SP1

5. Query/Intellisense Enabled selected

But still it doesn't work.

Any clue?

Answer 1

Offline databases cause Intellisense to stop working in SSMS 2016 and Sql Server 2016 RTM, possibly earlier versions as well. Verified this by opening a new query window and verifying Intellisense is working. Then took a database Offline and tried Intellisense... it stopped working. Brought the database back Online and Intellisense comes back to life and starts working again.

Answer 2

Had this today as well. Following a thread I found elsewhere the solution was to detach all offline databases. Restarted the service and boom! started working.

Answer 3

This is a pretty old question, but I ran into the same issue and the fix for it was to do a repair on sql server 2008. The catch was that I had to go into add/remove programs before doing the repair to uninstall "Microsoft SQL Server Compact <Ver> <SP1/2> <Lang>" before the repair because its setup file name is different in the Sql Server installer than the VS installer.

Answer 4

Visual Studio 2010 SP1 apparently broke something:

https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/feedback/details/650569/ssms-2008-r2-is-losing-intellisense-after-installing-visual-studio-2010-sp1

Answer 5

Apparently when you install VS2010 SP1 it breaks intelliSense of SQL Server 2008 R2. You will need to install either CU or SP1 for SQL Server 2008 R2 mentioned in this Support KB from MSFT.