But at least there is some...

I'm still hoping someone can help me with this.

Here is what i'm finding so far.

If I adjust the local servers Remote Login Timeout value, either up or down (tried...

CELKO (9/3/2014)

---

A few decades ago, when I started posting on CompuServe, etc. I was super-polite and politically correct. Nobody heard me....

Robert.Sterbal (9/8/2014)

---

well, you can tell which links are working before you have to wait on the ones that aren't.

You could also just use the links that replied within a...

Robert.Sterbal (9/8/2014)

---

The workaround suggested by the most experienced person in my group was to use sqlcmd and parse the results.. You could name the output file by server name, then...

Sorry for the slow reply; was away at comp. conference.

I changed the...

I have changed the timeout values both for the local server and for the linked servers, but they seem to...

Does anyone know the proper way to shorten the login timeout when using the sp_testlinkedserver?

Currently my timeouts seem to take between 20-27 seconds to timeout which is a problem...

I don't know if this is significant but the linked server are mostly SQL 2005 servers.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

I'm running the call in SSMS.

You were prob. much more caffeinated! I'm actually west coast of Canada (Vancouver area).

Good catch! I can't believe I missed that one. Well actually, I can - it was real early here & the coffee hadn't hit the min. cognizance level.

Your welcome!...

the only other possibility that I see (haven't set up a test) is that you have aliased the inner table names without the $ so you might have to use...

the "as Country" in the inner query aliases the field (which could have diff. names) as Country, so you need to use that in the outer query. Try this (Country...

You have CountryName in the outer query and have renamed them to Country in the inner union queries.

Really dumb that they don't give something even remotely helpful for messages.