SQL does not exist or access denied

Question

Hello - extreme newbie

Context: I was using some software without problems for the past couple weeks, occasionally it crashed but when started again worked fine without lost data. Today, crashed and would not start.

The error: "Cannot open database TCM. Check database settings or contact your system administrator. [DBNETLIB][ConnectionOpen (Connect()).] SQL Server does not exist or access denied.;clsSBDAO;OpenDataBase, -2147467259"

What I tried: 0) restart computer 1) opened SQL Studio Express 2005 and checked database - looks fine. 2) create new database and restore with backup files - preparing first run --> "Could not connect to server. check that SQL server / MSDE is running and information is correct."

I must resolve this problem as soon as possible.

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forest

Answer 1

Hello,

Please check the engine errorlog located in the log directory of the instance. Check to see if there are any messages regarding that login.

-Sean

Answer 2

Error: 17054, Severity: 16, State: 1.

else there is nothing that looks unusual - I see the attempts to start the db that generates the error message 'Cannot open db' but nothing that is clear - I searched this error message but the discussions relating to it are outside my knowledge.

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forest

Answer 3

Hello,

17054: The current event was not reported to the Windows Events log. Operating system error = %s. You may need to clear the Windows Events log if it is full.

This is saying that the windows event log is full and needs to be cleared.

I'm more interested in the fact that there is an error saying "cannot open db" as that's probably the database the app is trying to open. Can you give us more information?

-Sean

Answer 4

I found a work around - by iterating through possible password/username login I found that tcm/tcm and changing the (local) db location to <machineName>\SQLEXPRESS works

the software developer wrote me back that "Using "tcm" and "tcm" does not sound strange because it is the system administration account created by the installer. In a typical installation this account will be defined to be something else. This does not explain what happened originally. Sounds like some problem with MS SQL Server accounts."

So, right now I am back to work but I'd like to know what happened? And, I'd like to return to login with windows authentication.

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forest

Answer 5

Hi Forest. Perterson,

>> changing the (local) db location to <machineName>\SQLEXPRESS works

Regarding to your description, seems your SQL Server Express installed as a named instance. So you changed something like "yourComputerName\SQLEXPRESS", which works. 

According to the system administration account is created by the installer as you mentioned because SQL Server Authentication is used when you have created a user name and password in SQL Server. So you can login through password/username as you said.  

Meanwhile only the local admin group will be able to access the database because, this group is added to the sql server instance by default as Built-in\Administrator. Any other users than this group has to be added to the server as login and Database as user explicitly.

Based on my research, this might be related to SQL Server permissions issue. Please refer to this article http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms191465.aspx.

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Regards, Amber zhang