I don't understand fully what your problem is, but maybe you can check for @@CURSOR_ROWS > 0 after opening second cursor.

>I am back at this one agian. 2 cursors
>
>cursor 1 pulls ID's and start/end time times.
>
>I get 4 patients with start and end times from an answer form. So far so good!
>
>I then take that against a details table in a second cursor.
>
>select z.duration from ds_sleep.dbo.TBL_ACTIGRAPH_FILE_DETAILS z
>where z.file_id = (select file_id from ds_sleep.dbo.TBL_ACTIGRAPH_FILES
>where registration_id = @pt_id )
>and z.date_time between @rundate and dateadd(n,6,@rundate)
>
>I have ONE patient that does not have their detail in this file. Why won't the While @@FETCH_STATUS = 0 prevent the crunching of that data? Is there another alternative to a cursor with nothing in it ?
>
>I tried an if Exists ( ) but that won't work on the above query:
>Only one expression can be specified in the select list when the subquery is not introduced with EXISTS.
>
>TIA
>
>__Stephen