title: What's blocking "Select top 1 * from TableName with (nolock)" from returning a result?
body: <p>I'm currently running the following statement</p>
  
  <pre><code>select * into adhoc..san_savedi from dps_san..savedi_record
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>It's taking a painfully long time and I'd like to see how far along it is so I ran this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>select count(*) from adhoc..san_savedi with (nolock)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>That didn't return anything in a timely manner so for the heck of it I did this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>select top 1 * from adhoc..san_savedi with (nolock)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Even that seems to run indefinitely.  I could understand if there are millions of records that the count(*) could take a long time, but I don't understand why selecting the top 1 record wouldn't come back pretty much immediately considering I specified nolock.</p>
  
  <p>In the name of full disclosure, dps_san is a view that pulls from an odbc connection via linked server.  I don't think that'd be affecting why I can't return the top row but just throwing it out there in case I'm wrong.</p>
  
  <p>So I want to know what is keeping that statement from running?</p>
  
  <p>EDIT:  </p>
  
  <p>As I mentioned above, yes dps_san..savedi_record is a view.  Here's what it does:</p>
  
  <pre><code>select * from DPS_SAN..root.SAVEDI_RECORD
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>It's nothing more than an alias and does no grouping/sorting/etc so I don't think the problem lies here, but please enlighten me if I'm wrong about that.</p>