Maintenance task plans in toolbox grayed out (SQL-Server 2012 Enterprise)

Question

Hello,

I used the Task Toolbox to create a maintenance plan, so all was working until... this happened - please read the following problems people have:

http://www.sqlservercentral.com/blogs/sqldownsouth/2011/10/13/sql-server-2012-ssis-_1320_-why-is-my-toolbox-empty_3F00_/

http://www.jamesserra.com/archive/2013/01/ssis-2012-empty-toolbox/

This exactly describes my problem. However none of the solutions or workarounds work for me. First - yes, I click on the "toolbox" icon at the right top hand corner. Yet still all my tasks are grayed out. I tried resetting the toolbox, nothing.I checked all possible Menu -> Tools, menu->View options and can't find anything leading me to the solution.

I can't submit any pictures here, so my words only. Anyone willing to help? MS documentation doesn't help either. Not a clue.

[EDIT]

Ok, so instead of using the Toolbox I opened the Management -> Maintenance plans from where I created a new Maintenance subplan. Then when I clicked on my maintenance pland and pressed Modify I had the plan window open and from there I can see my Toolbox items are not grayed out. So how do I actually open the Maintenance plan design window? This I believe is where the problem is.

Thanks

Ryszard

Answer 1

Hi Richlion

As I understand it; you cannot modify an existing maintenance plan but you can create a new one is this correct?

Can you create a new Maintenance Plan and then edit the new Plan?

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Please click "Mark As Answer" if my post helped. Tony C.

Answer 2

Hello,

Could you please try to run the following tool and try to find any errors related to the SSIS toolbox like access denied or file not found errors?

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896645.aspx

Hope this helps.

Regards,

Alberto Morillo
SQLCoffee.com

Answer 3

I can create a new maintenance plan and edit it. I don't have any errors, so there is nothing wrong with any permissions. The only thing is missing is the DESIGN window gone, that is why my Toolbox has all items grayed out. When I "edit" an existing Maintenance Plan then the Toolbox is ok and grayed out items are no longer grayed out. Sorry to be so elaborate.

I can't find any other way to get the DESIGN window back. When I started first using the Toolbox it was there somehow by default. I must have then clicked something and it disappeared, so I am trying to find out how can get it displayed again.

Look at figure 1 on this example:

http://programming4.us/database/16876.aspx

Maintenance plan in the middle, on the right panel you see the design window, that is what I don't have.

Thanks

Ryszard

Answer 4

Ok, has the Server been moved to another domain?

If it has then this is the issue; this is a problem I came across quite a few years ago.  If your Services are using domain credentials rather than local Server credentials then this can cause this issue as "sa" can no longer authenticate with the Credentials/domain which were in place when the original Maintenance Plan was created.

You will need to delete the old maintenance plan and recreate your database maintenance.

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Please click "Mark As Answer" if my post helped. Tony C.

Answer 5

This could also be a problem with the management studio interface. Have you tried to do this from SSMS running in a different computer?

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Just because there are clouds in the sky it doesn't mean it isn't blue. But someone will come and argue that in addition to clouds, birds, airplanes, pollution, sunsets, daltonism and nuclear bombs, all adding different colours to the sky, this is an undocumented behavior and should not be relied upon.

Answer 6

I recall that I introduced the Maintenance plans to run backups because my team wanted to change the IP address of the server. When I setup the Maintenance plans all was working. The domain, instance and server name remained untouched. So I assume this happened sometime after the IP address change.

I would be surprised if this could cause such a problem. However, I've seen such odd problems people had with this "thing", for example using some very specific type of mouse could disable the Toolbox functions.

Answer 7

The problem is due to limits on our licenses I only have one production server. No other servers I can use as a test.

When I run tests I clone this server as a VM and this unfortunately replicates the problem and I don't have any previous full backups of the system in the form of the whole cloned-like server.

On my PC I have Sql-Server Express installed, but that does not have the options the full SQL-Server has, there are no maintenance plans in the Toolbox.

Answer 8

You will need to delete the old maintenance plan and recreate your database maintenance.

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I have no problem creating/using the maintenance plan, only the Toolbox requires opening an existing plan to open the DESIGN window, I can then use the Toolbox.

Answer 9

You can install SSMS on additional machines without the need for additional SQL Server licenses. The licenses are only for the instance, but SSMS is free of charge.

This is most likely a problem with the client tool, not the server. This is why im recommending you to try it out on a fresh installed SSMS.

If that doesn't work we'll look at some other options.

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Just because there are clouds in the sky it doesn't mean it isn't blue. But someone will come and argue that in addition to clouds, birds, airplanes, pollution, sunsets, daltonism and nuclear bombs, all adding different colours to the sky, this is an undocumented behavior and should not be relied upon.

Answer 10

After a couple of days of fiddling with the maintenance plans I came to the conclusion that the Toolbox list will always be disabled unless you do one of the following:

1) Create a new Maintenance plan - the editor opens

2) Edit and existing plan.

In the end I don't think there is anything wrong with the Toolbox.

Thanks to everyone for all the suggestions.

Regards,

Ryszard

Answer 11

I just had the exact same issue with the Toolbox "Maintenance Plan Tasks" being grayed out and no design window.

I found some one had installed a newer version of SQL Server Management Studio!!!

I was trying to use SQL Management Studio 2008R2. I then used SQL Management Studio 2005 and there was the design window and all the tasks!

Regards

Alan