deadlock on concurrent processes separated by transaction isolation level

We have a workorder table. A server agent jobs grabs 100 entries from this table in a cursor and do some work. To parallelize this there are 10 server agent jobs, which call the following procedure (each with its own @process_id):

CREATE PROCEDURE sp_do_workorder @process_id INT
AS
BEGIN TRY
    DECLARE @wo_id NCHAR(40),
        @wo_action NVARCHAR(100),
        @created_at DATETIME,
        @source_proc_name NVARCHAR(100),

    UPDATE procedure_ctrl SET [status]='running' WHERE [procedure]='sp_do_workorder_'+CAST(@process_id AS NVARCHAR(100)) AND [status]='idle'

    WHILE 1=1
    BEGIN
        IF NOT EXISTS (SELECT * FROM procedure_ctrl WHERE [procedure]='sp_do_workorder_'+CAST(@process_id AS NVARCHAR(100)) AND [status]='running') BREAK

        SET TRANSACTION ISOLATION LEVEL SERIALIZABLE
        BEGIN TRANSACTION
            UPDATE workorder SET hash=CAST(@process_id AS NVARCHAR(100))
            FROM workorder x
            INNER JOIN (
                SELECT TOP 100 id FROM workorder WHERE hash='' AND workorder_step=0 ORDER BY created_at ASC
            ) y ON x.id=y.id
        COMMIT TRANSACTION
        SET TRANSACTION ISOLATION LEVEL READ COMMITTED

        DECLARE wo_cur CURSOR FAST_FORWARD FOR SELECT id,action,created_at,optin_source FROM workorder WHERE hash=CAST(@process_id AS NVARCHAR(100)) AND workorder_step=0 ORDER BY created_at ASC
        OPEN wo_cur
        FETCH NEXT FROM wo_cur INTO @wo_id,@wo_action,@created_at,@source_proc_name
        WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS=0
        BEGIN
            EXEC sp_basisprozess @wo_id,@wo_action,@created_at,@source_proc_name,@process_id
            FETCH NEXT FROM wo_cur INTO @wo_id,@wo_action,@created_at,@source_proc_name
        END
        CLOSE wo_cur
        DEALLOCATE wo_cur

        WAITFOR DELAY '00:00:01'
    END

    UPDATE procedure_ctrl SET [status]='idle' WHERE [procedure]='sp_do_workorder_'+CAST(@process_id AS NVARCHAR(100)) AND [status]='running'
END TRY
BEGIN CATCH
    EXEC dbo.sp_listerror
    DECLARE @error NVARCHAR(4000)
    SET @error='[sp_do_workorder]_'+CAST(@process_id AS NVARCHAR(100))+': critical problem'
    RAISERROR(@error, 12, 1)    
END CATCH

We get a deadlock really often for most of these 10 agent jobs. Has anyone a hint why this is so? To prevent side effects we use serialize transaction isolation level, so only one agent job can grab one workorder entry. Without setting transaction isolation lev开发者_运维知识库en the deadlock are gone, but then it often occurs, that two (or more) agent jobs grab the same workorder entry.

I haven't tried to work out specifically why the deadlock would occur in your case but it seems as though you are effectively using a table as a queue in which case see this linked article for an approach that uses the OUTPUT clause and locking hints to maximise concurrency without deadlocks.