kevaburg (3/17/2013)
My thought was that if a user did not necessarily have sysadmin rights but still had rights to take a database offline, that the act of bringing it back online would imply an ability to at least browse the structure. The fact that the initial poster said the database was listed but couldn't be expanded until it was taken offline and then brought back online put me in that direction.
Anyone who has enough rights to take a DB offline has enough rights to connect to the DB, that's all that's required for the management studio tree.
Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability