Error: SQL Server does not exist or access denied

[Dave Navarro]

My client has a server running Windows 2003 Server and SQL Server 2000.
The sole purpose of the server is to run a single web site.

It was previously hosted with Verio and except for a problem backing up
the SQL database, it ran just fine.

Since it's been moved to the new web server we've had intermittant
connection problems between the ASP code and the SQL server:

Microsoft OLE DB Provider for SQL Server error '80004005'
[DBNETLIB][ConnectionOpen (Connect()).]SQL Server does not exist or
access denied.
/gov/vendor/index.asp, line 106

All you have to do is wait a few seconds, refresh and everything is
fine.

What's strange is that we don't have this problem on our development
server which is set up 99% the same as the client's server. However,
their server is running dual 3 Ghz P4's with 4 gigs of RAM and my
development server is a 633Mhz system with 512 megs of RAM.

I looked up the error on ASPFAQ and came across:

[url]http://www.aspfaq.com/show.asp?id=2009[/url]

which only pointed me to a knowledge base article:

[url]http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=328306[/url]

Niether of which helps. My guess is that too many people could be
connected to the web site and SQL counts each web connection as a
seperate connection. Does that sound plausible?

If so, how do I increase the number of simultaneous connections
supported by SQL?

The SQL server on this machine strictly supports the web site. No other
applications or users need to connect to it other than the web server
for this one web site.

Thanks!

[Bob Barrows [MVP]]

Dave Navarro wrote:

> My client has a server running Windows 2003 Server and SQL Server
> 2000. The sole purpose of the server is to run a single web site.
>
> It was previously hosted with Verio and except for a problem backing
> up the SQL database, it ran just fine.
>
> Since it's been moved to the new web server we've had intermittant
> connection problems between the ASP code and the SQL server:
>
> Microsoft OLE DB Provider for SQL Server error '80004005'
> [DBNETLIB][ConnectionOpen (Connect()).]SQL Server does not exist or
> access denied.
> /gov/vendor/index.asp, line 106
>
> All you have to do is wait a few seconds, refresh and everything is
> fine.
>
> What's strange is that we don't have this problem on our development
> server which is set up 99% the same as the client's server. However,
> their server is running dual 3 Ghz P4's with 4 gigs of RAM and my
> development server is a 633Mhz system with 512 megs of RAM.
>
> I looked up the error on ASPFAQ and came across:
>
> [url]http://www.aspfaq.com/show.asp?id=2009[/url]
>
> which only pointed me to a knowledge base article:
>
> [url]http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=328306[/url]
>
> Niether of which helps. My guess is that too many people could be
> connected to the web site and SQL counts each web connection as a
> seperate connection. Does that sound plausible?

No, that would raise a different error message. This problem sounds
network/hardware-related. Perhaps a bad NIC?

You might want to try this question on a SQL Server newsgroup. The relevant
ones seem to be .sqlserver.connect and .sqlserver.server. You will want to
provide them with any relevant-looking entries from the SQL Server error
logs.

Bob Barrows

--
Microsoft MVP -- ASP/ASP.NET
Please reply to the newsgroup. The email account listed in my From
header is my spam trap, so I don't check it very often. You will get a
quicker response by posting to the newsgroup.

[Aaron Bertrand [MVP]]

> Niether of which helps. My guess is that too many people could be

> connected to the web site and SQL counts each web connection as a
> seperate connection. Does that sound plausible?

Why do you think SQL would be imposing a limitation on the number of people
connected? You're not running on Windows XP (which has a 10-connection
limitation), and you're not running MSDE (which has a governor that kicks in
after 5 simultaneous user workloads).

I think it is more likely that your network is not optimized and that
traffic is causing problems that make one server think another is down. If
the network is flooded with traffic, you're going to see this kind of
problem. If you have too many loopbacks / lookups, you might see this
problem as well. Are you accessing the server by servername? And is this
going through WINS, local DNS, remote DNS, ...? Use the IP address, this
will take one step out of the process. The web server should use the
internal, local IP address, not go out through the Internet to connect back
to a SQL Server that is right on your own network.

Also, what does SELECT @@VERSION tell you? Hopefully your build is 8.00.760
or greater, otherwise you might be a victim of SQL slammer.

> The SQL server on this machine strictly supports the web site. No other
> applications or users need to connect to it other than the web server
> for this one web site.

Again, this is largely irrelevant... *ANY* network traffic can be causing
slowdowns and timeouts. They don't have to be connecting to the SQL Server,
they just have to be sharing the same bandwidth. I might even go so far as
to run network monitor and see if someone is having a field day with MP3s...

--
Aaron Bertrand
SQL Server MVP
[url]http://www.aspfaq.com/[/url]

[Dave Navarro]

In article <eGJaReVIEHA.580@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl>, reb01501
@NOyahoo.SPAMcom says...

> No, that would raise a different error message. This problem sounds
> network/hardware-related. Perhaps a bad NIC?

Even though both IIS and SQL are running on the same box?

I'm accessing the server using LOCALHOST as suggested by ASPFAQ.

--Dave

[Dave Navarro]

In article <#2KpgCXIEHA.3144@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl>,
[email]aaron@TRASHaspfaq.com[/email] says...

> I think it is more likely that your network is not optimized and that
> traffic is causing problems that make one server think another is down. If
> the network is flooded with traffic, you're going to see this kind of
> problem. If you have too many loopbacks / lookups, you might see this
> problem as well. Are you accessing the server by servername? And is this
> going through WINS, local DNS, remote DNS, ...? Use the IP address, this
> will take one step out of the process. The web server should use the
> internal, local IP address, not go out through the Internet to connect back
> to a SQL Server that is right on your own network.

Both SQL and IIS are installed on the same box. And I am accessing SQL
in my server string as LOCALHOST

--Dave

[Bob Barrows [MVP]]

Dave Navarro wrote:

> In article <eGJaReVIEHA.580@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl>, reb01501
> @NOyahoo.SPAMcom says...

>> No, that would raise a different error message. This problem sounds
>> network/hardware-related. Perhaps a bad NIC?

>
> Even though both IIS and SQL are running on the same box?
>

Yes. The network is still involved, even if a loopback adapter is being
used.

> I'm accessing the server using LOCALHOST as suggested by ASPFAQ.

Try using the actual server name. Are you using ODBC or SQLOLEDB?

Bob Barrows

--
Microsoft MVP -- ASP/ASP.NET
Please reply to the newsgroup. The email account listed in my From
header is my spam trap, so I don't check it very often. You will get a
quicker response by posting to the newsgroup.

[Dave Navarro]

In article <#2KpgCXIEHA.3144@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl>,
[email]aaron@TRASHaspfaq.com[/email] says...

> Again, this is largely irrelevant... *ANY* network traffic can be causing
> slowdowns and timeouts. They don't have to be connecting to the SQL Server,
> they just have to be sharing the same bandwidth. I might even go so far as
> to run network monitor and see if someone is having a field day with MP3s...

The server itself is isolated from the local network. Only the network
administrator can access it via the local network.

The only thing running on the server are SQL and IIS. And there is only
one web site running. No MP3s or other files of any kind.

There are no trojans or viruses on the server and everything is up-to-
date.

[Jeff Cochran]

On Tue, 13 Apr 2004 14:16:18 -0400, Dave Navarro <dave@dave.dave>
wrote:

>In article <#2KpgCXIEHA.3144@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl>,
>aaron@TRASHaspfaq.com says...

>> I think it is more likely that your network is not optimized and that
>> traffic is causing problems that make one server think another is down. If
>> the network is flooded with traffic, you're going to see this kind of
>> problem. If you have too many loopbacks / lookups, you might see this
>> problem as well. Are you accessing the server by servername? And is this
>> going through WINS, local DNS, remote DNS, ...? Use the IP address, this
>> will take one step out of the process. The web server should use the
>> internal, local IP address, not go out through the Internet to connect back
>> to a SQL Server that is right on your own network.

>
>Both SQL and IIS are installed on the same box. And I am accessing SQL
>in my server string as LOCALHOST

Have you tried the server name or IP address? Have you tried pinging
localhost to make sure it resolves the 127.0.0.1 address and connects
(from the server)? Is there a possibility you have a hardware issue
or routing issue? And what has changed from when it worked as
expected?

Jeff

[Aaron Bertrand [MVP]]

> Both SQL and IIS are installed on the same box. And I am accessing SQL

> in my server string as LOCALHOST

Use 127.0.0.1. And are you connecting as sa, a lesser SQL user, or through
windows authentication?

--
Aaron Bertrand
SQL Server MVP
[url]http://www.aspfaq.com/[/url]

[Aaron Bertrand [MVP]]

> I'm accessing the server using LOCALHOST as suggested by ASPFAQ.

Actually, [url]http://www.aspfaq.com/2126[/url] has this:

<snip>
If you are running SQL Server or MSDE on the same machine as your ASP pages,
you are probably tempted to use the hostname "localhost." This doesn't
always work, due to different configuration issues, so try (local),
127.0.0.1, the actual host name, or simply a period (".").
</snip>

And in the 80004005 article to which I think you're referring (it is a
rather large site, so saying the site suggested it is rather vague), it
suggested using 127.0.0.1 or LOCALHOST if the *network name* is failing.
Did you try 127.0.0.1, the local network name, (local), ., the local IP
address, ...?

--
Aaron Bertrand
SQL Server MVP
[url]http://www.aspfaq.com/[/url]

[Mark Schupp]

How many SQLServer CALs do you have?

--
Mark Schupp
Head of Development
Integrity eLearning
[url]www.ielearning.com[/url]


"Dave Navarro" <dave@dave.dave> wrote in message
news:MPG.1ae5f87abfa21e509897eb@news-40.giganews.com...

> In article <#2KpgCXIEHA.3144@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl>,
> [email]aaron@TRASHaspfaq.com[/email] says...

> > I think it is more likely that your network is not optimized and that
> > traffic is causing problems that make one server think another is down.

If

> > the network is flooded with traffic, you're going to see this kind of
> > problem. If you have too many loopbacks / lookups, you might see this
> > problem as well. Are you accessing the server by servername? And is

this

> > going through WINS, local DNS, remote DNS, ...? Use the IP address,

this

> > will take one step out of the process. The web server should use the
> > internal, local IP address, not go out through the Internet to connect

back

> > to a SQL Server that is right on your own network.

>
> Both SQL and IIS are installed on the same box. And I am accessing SQL
> in my server string as LOCALHOST
>
> --Dave

[Aaron Bertrand [MVP]]

If I guess where you're coming from, SQL Server doesn't actively enforce CAL
limitations... e.g. if you are licensed for 5 users and 6 connect, it won't
deny the 6th user...

--
Aaron Bertrand
SQL Server MVP
[url]http://www.aspfaq.com/[/url]


"Mark Schupp" <mschupp@ielearning.com> wrote in message
news:OBNwfLbIEHA.3224@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...

> How many SQLServer CALs do you have?

[Bob Barrows]

Plus, there would be a different error message ...

There is a setting in Licensing Services that will limit the number of
connections. But the error message generated leaves no doubt about the
reason for the connection failure.

Bob Barrows

Aaron Bertrand [MVP] wrote:

> If I guess where you're coming from, SQL Server doesn't actively
> enforce CAL limitations... e.g. if you are licensed for 5 users and 6
> connect, it won't deny the 6th user...
>
>
> "Mark Schupp" <mschupp@ielearning.com> wrote in message
> news:OBNwfLbIEHA.3224@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...

>> How many SQLServer CALs do you have?

--
Microsoft MVP - ASP/ASP.NET
Please reply to the newsgroup. This email account is my spam trap so I
don't check it very often. If you must reply off-line, then remove the
"NO SPAM"

[Dave Navarro]

In article <O6#M17ZIEHA.2972@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl>,
[email]aaron@TRASHaspfaq.com[/email] says...

> > I'm accessing the server using LOCALHOST as suggested by ASPFAQ.

>
> Actually, [url]http://www.aspfaq.com/2126[/url] has this:
>
> <snip>
> If you are running SQL Server or MSDE on the same machine as your ASP pages,
> you are probably tempted to use the hostname "localhost." This doesn't
> always work, due to different configuration issues, so try (local),
> 127.0.0.1, the actual host name, or simply a period (".").
> </snip>
>
> And in the 80004005 article to which I think you're referring (it is a
> rather large site, so saying the site suggested it is rather vague), it
> suggested using 127.0.0.1 or LOCALHOST if the *network name* is failing.
> Did you try 127.0.0.1, the local network name, (local), ., the local IP
> address, ...?

Using the 127.0.0.1 works. The connection problems haven't appeared in
the past several hours.

Many, many thanks!

--Dave

[Dave Navarro]

In article <#86cD3ZIEHA.2260@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl>,
[email]aaron@TRASHaspfaq.com[/email] says...

> > Both SQL and IIS are installed on the same box. And I am accessing SQL
> > in my server string as LOCALHOST

>
> Use 127.0.0.1. And are you connecting as sa, a lesser SQL user, or through
> windows authentication?

127.0.0.1 works. And I'm connecting as a lesser SQL user. The SA
account was disabled.

--Dave