When trying to access a SQL Server 2008 server in my domain, I get a "server not found or was not accessible" error

Question

When setting up a system that requires a remote computer to access SQL 2008 stored on another computer in the same domain, I'm running into the following error:

The server was not found or was not accessible.
Verify that the instance name is correct and that SQL Server
is configured to allow remote connections.

When I installed SQL Server, I was sure I set up the system just so. How can I troubleshoot this?

Answer 1

I appreciate this thread is old now and already has an accepted answer, but I found a slightly different solution with regards to this issue that others may find useful. From reading this issue description I found that there were two SQL Server services in the standard Windows Local Services control panel: MSSQLSERVER and SQLEXPRESS (see below).

I found that SQLEXPRESS was running, but MSSQLSERVER was not. So I simply started that service, and I was able to connect to SQL Server again.

Answer 2

A couple of things to try...

• check the Configuration settings to ensure that the TCP protocol is enabled.
• try accessing the remote server via IP instead of the server name, this has worked for me in the past (oddly).

I'm assuming its running on the default port, if it isnt then you will need to specify the port number after the server-name / ip separated by a comma:

sql-server-name,{port}