SQL Server View with TOP - sql

Question

I have a view that is driving me absolutely crazy..
Table AlarmMsg looks like this:
[TypeID] [smallint] NULL,
[SEFNum] [int] NULL,
[ServerName] [nvarchar](20) NOT NULL,
[DBName] [varchar](20) NOT NULL,
[PointName] [varchar](50) NOT NULL,
[AppName] [varchar](50) NOT NULL,
[Description] [varchar](100) NOT NULL,
[Priority] [tinyint] NOT NULL,
[Value] [float] NOT NULL,
[Limit] [float] NOT NULL,
[Msg] [nvarchar](255) NULL,
[DateStamp] [datetime2](7) NULL,
[UID] [uniqueidentifier] NOT NULL
On top of that AlarmMsg table is a view applied looking like this:
CREATE VIEW AlarmMsgView
AS
SELECT TOP (2000) WITH TIES
SEFNum, ServerName, DBName,
PointName, AppName, Description,
Priority, Value, Limit, Msg,
DateStamp, UID
FROM dbo.AlarmMsg WITH (NOLOCK)
ORDER BY DateStamp DESC
This query straight against the table returns the expected ten (10) rows:
SELECT TOP(10) [SEFNum]
FROM [RTIME_Logs].[dbo].[AlarmMsg]
where [Priority] = 1
The same query against the view returns....nothing (!):
SELECT TOP(10) [SEFNum]
FROM [RTIME_Logs].[dbo].[AlarmMsgView]
where [Priority] = 1
The table AlarmMsg contains some 11M+ rows and has a FT index declared on column Msg.
Can someone please tell me what's going on here, I think I'm losing my wits.

Answer 1

NOLOCK causes this issue.
Read this and this.
Basically, NOLOCK came from SQL Server 2000 era. It needs to be forgotten. You have upgraded your SQL Server (I hope), so you need to upgrade your queries. Consider switching to READ_COMMITTED_SNAPSHOT to read data in "unblocked" manner. Read here to decide which isolation level is best for your situation
EDIT:
After reading the comments from the author, I think this is the reason:
SQL Server is not doing anything wrong. Treat your view as a subquery of the main query, something like this:
SELECT * FROM (SELECT TOP(2000) col1, col2 FROM aTable ORDER BY Date1 DESC) WHERE priority = 1.
In this case the query in the brackets will be executed first, and the WHERE clause will be applied to the resulting set