No it errored after that.
I think I have a partial solution though. As I described in my post above when I traced the merge process it showed that the error occurred as the database was executing a user view called WWT\robl.uvw_WSBRC_NonNotableFilter. This lists every record in the database with a flag saying whether the species is considered non-notable in Wiltshire. We intended to use this in an additional filter to exclude from wizard report which selects species with notable statuses, those species which we do not consider to be locally notable, despite their national status (such as Scots Pine). Since this view displays all 1.5 million records it is a bit slow to use, but very helpful.
However at the time that I created the view, for some reason I didn't like the result (can't remember the reasoning, but probably permissions related) so I created another (identical one) called dbo.WSBRC_NONNOTABLEFILTER and this was the one which I put into the USEABLE_FIELD table, the other version was not used.
I have just deleted the WWT\robl version and now the merge works properly. I have no idea exactly why the database was processing that view when logged into through Recorder UI, but it seems clear that something was indeed timing out and now does not.
Can you shed any light Mike, I sometimes feel I understand less about SQL dbs than I really should?
Rob Large
Wildlife Sites Officer
Wiltshire & Swindon Biological Records Centre