What's wrong with a simple ALTER INDEX cl_ix ON schema.table REBUILD ... ? ( as that does not impact the non-clustered indexes )

Keep in mind this will also interfere with...

• This reply was modified 1 month ago by  Johan Bijnens.

replay the deadlock with SentryOne PlanExplorer (free) ! It shows what is happening and causing the deadlock !!!

btw: this is the...

I would suggest BOL : https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/database-engine/availability-groups/windows/failover-and-failover-modes-always-on-availability-groups

Try to break it in your DBADEV environments, then figure out what and how to fix it. #YourMindIsYourStrength

Shrink file is the better choice because of its scope
Keep in mind you need to rebuild all indexes in that file after your shrink datafile ( not log )...

With SQLServer 2017 or the current Azure SQL Managed Instance, you also need to set configuration clr strict security to 0 !
( it is 1 by default !!...

did you perform full database maintenance after the upgrade to the new engine ?

You've seen the "missing index", right ?

What's the cluster service account ? Does it have AD auth to register computer objects ?

You have to register the Listener computer object in AD yourself and grant the cluster computer object full authority to manage that listener object !

I always configure it using Powershell.
As marked: did you restart the cluster resource to enable the listener ?

# create listener with default DHCP
$NewAGListener =...

can you find any information in the SQLServer Errorlog file or in the cluster logfile ?

" ... just installed an instance of SQL 2017 and restarted the server.... "  
chances are, that may have reset the folder / file permissions.

Could you elaborate why these databases would be in recovery pending state ?
Apparently the SQLServer service account cannot access the folder E:\Databases

How did you configure the listener ?  ( TSQL / Posh script please )
Check your cluster logs !

what seeding setting do you currently have on your AGs ?
I've set it to "manual" once I have my AGs in a fucntioning state.