How to refresh AD security group on Sql Server permissions

The user need to log off of their workstation and log back on. That's why the changes appear to take effect the next day. The reason for this is that when the user logs on the next day they get a new token from the domain controller and this token contains the list of domain groups that they are a member of. This token with the list of domain groups is only updated when the user logs in to their computer, so if the user never logs out the token isn't ever updated.

There's also multi-site domain replication delays which need to be taken into account if your domain controllers are in different physical locations.


When a user logs on, they're assigned a security token that includes all the information about their group membership.

This token persists until the user logs off -- at which point it's discarded -- even if you make changes to the group membership in AD in the mean time. The changes you make will only take effect the next time the user logs on and receives a new security token.

You can reproduce the same scenario when assigning permissions on a file system, for example; it's an AD behaviour, not a SQL Server behaviour.