Question: I'm in the process of decommissioning a database server and migrating the databases from one server to another. I was attempting to get the the properties of the database and received a SQL Error popup.

*Property Owner is not available for Database '[database name]'. This property may not exist for this object, or may not be retrievable due to insufficient access rights. (Microsoft.SqlServer.Smo)*

Facts:

* Server 2003 Standard with SP2
* SQL Server 2005 Standard - 9.0.1399
* I'm a sysadmin, so it shouldn't be perms issue
* Had another sysadmin perform the operation with the same error
* DBCC CheckDB listed no errors
* Able to backup w/o error
* Took DB offline/online w/o error

Any suggestions or tests that I can perform and report on?

Answer: 
You could probably have just set the database owner to `[sa]` (or any valid login really) rather than detach / re-attach.

```
ALTER AUTHORIZATION ON DATABASE::dbname TO [sa];

```

This probably happened because the login responsible for creating, attaching or restoring the database initially no longer exists. The UI isn't smart enough to fail gracefully when there isn't a valid owner.
Fixed the issue, but not sure what caused the problem.

I detached/reattached the database and then was able to access the database properties.

It appears that this database lost its owner somehow. How does that even happen?!