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soapergem
Asked: 2009-11-06 16:22:00 +0800 CST

How do I get this SQL Server ODBC Connection working?

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Note: I've obviously changed the server names and IPs to fictitious ones.

Here's what's going on. I've got a server, which I'm calling MYSERVER, running Microsoft SQL Server Express 2005. Right on this server itself, I've got an ODBC connection set up pointing at itself, and that already works perfectly. I log in using SQL Server Authentication (not Windows authentication), and it's set up like this:

Image of good ODBC connection

Like I said, that one works. But next, I've got another computer which is on a totally different domain/not on the intranet, that needs to access this same SQL Server hosted on MYSERVER. Because it's on a different domain, it doesn't recognize the name "MYSERVER"; I have to point it at the IP address of MYSERVER, which we'll say is 123.456.789.012. But the ODBC connection doesn't seem to work there. I tried setting it up like this:

Image of bad ODBC connection

This doesn't work. When I put in the username and password and press Next, it stalls for a good 10 to 20 seconds, and then finally comes back with the following error:

Connection failed:
SQLState: '01000'
SQL Server Error: 1326
[Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][DBNETLIB]ConnectionOpen (Connect()).
Connection failed:
SQLState: '08001'
SQL Server Error: 17
[Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][DBNETLIB]SQL Server does not exist or access denied.

If I try the same thing, but change the "server" from 123.456.789.012\SQLEXPRESS to just plain old 123.456.789.012, I get a different error:

Connection failed:
SQLState: '01000'
SQL Server Error: 14
[Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][DBNETLIB]ConnectionOpen (Invalid Instance()).
Connection failed:
SQLState: '08001'
SQL Server Error: 14
[Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][DBNETLIB]Invalid connection.

Now I know what you're thinking. You might be thinking, "duh, you probably didn't open the firewall for port 1433, dummy." Except I did, and I verified this, as I can successfully run:

telnet 123.456.789.012 1433

...from the command line all I want. So I'm not sure what to do. I know the SQL Server exists, works, and an ODBC connection can be set up properly; I'm just not sure what it is I've got wrong in my connection settings that's throwing these errors. Based on the latter error I listed, it would seem that it can connect to the server, but simply cannot find the instance (since I didn't specify one that time). So does that mean I just need to use some different syntax to specify the IP along with an instance name? What do I do? Thanks in advance.

sql-server

11 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Named pipes and TCIP protocols for SQL server 2005 are disabled by default. Have you enabled them under "SQL server configuration manager"? You can find the protocols in the SQL Server Network configuration and under SQL Native client xx configuration.

    The connection on the server itself works thanks to the "Shared memory" protocol.

    • 19

  2. Have you enabled the SQL Server Browser service as per How to configure SQL Server 2005 to allow remote connections?:

    If you are running SQL Server 2005 by using an instance name and you are not using a specific TCP/IP port number in your connection string, you must enable the SQL Server Browser service to allow for remote connections. For example, SQL Server 2005 Express is installed with a default instance name of Computer Name\SQLEXPRESS.

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  3. This thread fixed the same error message for me when using Access to connect to a MSSQL 2008 server. MSSQL 2005 and earlier worked fine just using the computer name in the connection string, but I had to change to the connection string in Access to the full form when the instance was upgraded to 2008:

    servername\instancename,portnumber

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  4. I had this same issue and managed to resolve it by changing the SQL driver to the SQL Native Client driver too. This was weird as in my case this had been working fine for years and then just stopped working. I suspect this is something along the lines of the driver being corrupt, perhaps a reinstal of MDAC might assist, but for the time being I'm happy that it is working at all!

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  5. Would it recognize the server name if it were fully qualified? If it were MYSERVER.domain.com? We've had to do that with SQL Server when connecting from a different domain. If you can get the ODBC System DSN to connect when you test the data source, you're making progress. If it doesn't connect in the ODBC setup, you have to fix that first.

    • 1

  6. Are you using named pipes or TCP on the ODBC connection that does work? Is TCP enabled?

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  7. Make sure you have remote tcp connectios enabled for the SQL server.

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  8. Just a wild shot here but what happens if you put a double backslash before the server name or IP address? It just seems to me that it's normally required for most other Windows/Microsoft connections.

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  9. I had a similar issue. In my case another sw configures the ODBC setting so i cannot change the driver. I solved my case like this:

    1. Set TCP/IP settings for server to use the port 1433
    2. On the client enter the server address like: 192.168.1.5,1433 (no instance name)

    Then it started to work. Client OS: Win7 x64 Driver: sqlsrv32.dll

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  10. For what it's worth, I started getting this error on a connection that had been previously working. It turned out that the MSSQL$SQLEXPRESS service had somehow got stopped. Restarting it fixed the problem.

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