Will a SQL Server Job skip a scheduled run if it is already running?

sql sql-server scheduled-tasks sql-server-agent
Sam Schutte picture Sam Schutte · May 14, 2009 · Viewed 26.7k times · Source

If you schedule a SQL Server job to run every X number of minutes, and it does not finish the previous call before the # of minutes is up, will it skip the run since it is already running, or will it run two instances of the job doing the same steps?

Answer

Jose Basilio picture Jose Basilio · May 14, 2009

The SQL Server agent checks whether the job is already running before starting a new iteration. If you have long running job and its schedule comes up, it would be skipped until the next interval.

You can try this for yourself. If you try to start a job that's already running, you will get an error to that effect.

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