Unable to connect to SQL Express "Error: 26-Error Locating Server/Instance Specified)

Question

I am at an loose end with one particular box that is running SQL Server 2008 R2 Express.

• Windows Firewall is configured to allow inbound TCP & UDP 1433, 14

Answer 1

I had a similar problem which was solved by going to the "SQL Server Configuration Manager" and making sure that the "SQL Server Browser" was configured to start automatically and was started.

I came across this solution in the answer of this forum post: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sqlexpress/thread/8cdc71eb-6929-4ae8-a5a8-c1f461bd61b4/

I hope this helps somebody out there.

Answer 2

This really Works .. i had verified lot of sites and finally got the answer

This may occurs when the master.mdf or the mastlog.ldf gets corrupt . In order to solve the issue goto the following path

C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10_50.MSSQLSERVER\MSSQL , there you will find a folder ” Template Data ” , copy the master.mdf and mastlog.ldf and replace it in

C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10_50.MSSQLSERVER\MSSQL\DATA folder .

Thats it . Now start the MS SQL service and you are done .

Answer 3

The active firewall on the server might be causing this. You can try to (temporarily) turn it off and see if it resolves the issue.

If it is indeed caused by the firewall, you should allegedly be able to resolve it by adding an inbound rule for TCP port 1433 set to allowed, but I personally haven't been able to connect this way.

Answer 4

Have you Disabled the VIA setting in the SQL configuration manager? If not, do disable it first (if VIA is enabled, you cannot get connected) and yes TCP must be enabled. Give it a try and it should be working fine.

Make the changes only for that's particular instance name.

Cheers!

Answer 5

Here is a simple method to troubleshoot connection issues:

1. Create an empty file called test.udl using a text editor
2. Double click the file test.udl, then specify your connection properties
3. Hit the "Test Connection" button.

Answer 6

I recently encountered the same issue however I am using Windows 10 Technical Preview Build 10041 and SQL Server 2014 (Advanced).

Follow the same advice from above:

In particular, my problem was that I did not enable the TCP/IP in Sql Server Configuration Manager->SQL Server Network Configuration->Protocols for SQLEXPRESS.

Once you open it, you have to go to the IP Addresses tab and for me, changing IPAll to TCP port 1433 and deleting the TCP Dynamic Ports value worked.

Follow the other steps to make sure 1433 is listening (Use netstat -an to make sure 0.0.0.0:1433 is LISTENING.), and that you can telnet to the port from the client machine.

Finally, I second the suggestion to remove the \SQLEXPRESS from the connection.

AND ----> That last line is important! It looks like to be Windows 10 specific; remove \SQLEXPRESS from your connection string. What was frusting was that SQL Management Studio connects just fine using either connection string (full or short), however Visual Studio only accepted the connection string without the \SQLEXPRESS.