Connect to Server ------------------------------ Cannot connect to Desktop ------------------------------ ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: A network-related or instance-specific error occurred while establishing a connection to SQL Server.

Question

Connect to Server ------------------------------ Cannot connect to Desktop ------------------------------ ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: A network-related or instance-specific error occurred while establishing a connection to SQL Server.

Ankita thakur 30

I am not able to connect to database engine

How can i solve this error?

TITLE: Connect to Server

Cannot connect to DESKTOP-PE7MEJS\SSMS.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

A network-related or instance-specific error occurred while establishing a connection to SQL Server. 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. (provider: SQL Network Interfaces, error: 26 - Error Locating Server/Instance Specified) (Microsoft SQL Server, Error: -1)

For help, click: https://docs.microsoft.com/sql/relational-databases/errors-events/mssqlserver--1-database-engine-error

Seeya Xi-MSFT 16,586 Reputation points

2023-01-23T10:56:35.46+00:00

Hi Ankita thakur,

We have not received a response from you. Did the reply could help you? If the response helped, do "Accept Answer". If it doesn't work, please let us know the progress. By doing so, it will benefit all community members who are having this similar issue. Your contribution is highly appreciated.

Best regards,

Seeya
Seeya Xi-MSFT 16,586 Reputation points

2023-01-24T06:08:55.5566667+00:00

Hi Ankita thakur,

In order to benefit all community members who are having this similar issue, please choose an answer to accept for the answer you think is useful to you. Your contribution is highly appreciated.

Best regards,

Seeya

Accepted answer

3 additional answers

Your answer

Seeya Xi-MSFT 16,586 Reputation points

2023-01-23T10:56:35.46+00:00

Hi Ankita thakur,

We have not received a response from you. Did the reply could help you? If the response helped, do "Accept Answer". If it doesn't work, please let us know the progress. By doing so, it will benefit all community members who are having this similar issue. Your contribution is highly appreciated.

Best regards,

Seeya
Seeya Xi-MSFT 16,586 Reputation points

2023-01-24T06:08:55.5566667+00:00

Hi Ankita thakur,

In order to benefit all community members who are having this similar issue, please choose an answer to accept for the answer you think is useful to you. Your contribution is highly appreciated.

Best regards,

Seeya

Answer 1

Michael Taylor 60,161

Unfortunately you didn't provide us enough information. How are you trying to connect to the DB? Are you using SSMS, Data Sources, etc? Screenshots and more information would be greatly helpful in speeding up getting answers.

The error itself indicates there is no SQL instance listening. This could be for a variety of reasons:

There is no SQL instance on that machine.
The SQL instance is using a non-default SQL instance name. You have to specify the instance name if it is not the default.
You are attempting to connect over the network and the remote SQL instance does not have network listening enabled.
On the local machine you can use (localhost) or . instead.

Ankita thakur 30 Reputation points

2023-01-30T14:39:33.2933333+00:00

This is the SS of issue
Ankita thakur 30 Reputation points

2023-01-30T14:41:53.7633333+00:00
Michael Taylor 60,161 Reputation points

2023-01-30T14:58:43.41+00:00

The second screenshot indicates your SQL Server instance isn't running so SSMS won't be able to connect to it. You'll need to resolve why that is. Take a look at the System event log and see why your SQL Server instance is failing. You may need to repair the installation but it unclear at this point what you might have actually installed. It is also odd that it is running as local system. All newer versions of SQL Server run with a dedicated service account. I wonder if that instance is actually valid.

It also seems odd to me that the instance name for SQL is SSMS. Did you really call it that? If so then when you connect using SSMS you have to include the instance name. So you'd use something like .\SSMS.

Run the following command from Powershell and let us know what you get. Get-service mssql*
Ankita thakur 30 Reputation points

2023-01-30T15:13:16.1533333+00:00

sorry for the leat reply.

I am using ssms. I am also not getting what is the issue. My laptop got updated from windows 10 to 11 after that i am facing this issue .

i did try to uninstall ssms then install it again but still the issue is not resolved.

after that i reseted my laptop and try to install it again but still the problem was same .

I did try to use (localhost) and . also , still i am getting the issue
Ankita thakur 30 Reputation points

2023-01-30T16:12:22.4266667+00:00

Status Name DisplayName

Stopped MSSQL$SSMS SQL Server (SSMS)

getting this after running the command
Ankita thakur 30 Reputation points

2023-01-30T16:16:07.56+00:00

this is what i had installed.

Status Name DisplayName

Stopped MSSQL$SSMS SQL Server (SSMS)

this is what i am getting after running Get-service mssql* this command

How am i able to tell you the exact problem of what should i do so that you can understand the problem what exactly it is
Michael Taylor 60,161 Reputation points

2023-01-30T16:26:42.62+00:00

You have a single instance of SQL Server installed with an instance name of SSMS. If that service won't start using start-service 'mssql$ssms' (running as an admin account) then your service install is corrupted.

I notice in the list of files that you listed that you have both SQL Server 2022 and SQL Express 2022. But it isn't clear which one you actually installed. Can you show us what your list of installed SQL programs are from the Programs & Features UI of Windows?

I would recommend you repair the installation of SQL Server first. Then verify the service starts. Until it does SSMS is a mute point.
Ankita thakur 30 Reputation points

2023-01-31T04:25:30.21+00:00

Thank you for your help the issue is resolved by formatting the laptop and getting back to windows 10
Erland Sommarskog 121.4K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator

2023-01-31T21:52:37.2466667+00:00

That's a horrible customer experience. I don't think this step was necessary. You should have been able to get by with the information I posted in my answer below. (I have deleted my first answer, since it is no longer relevant.)

But I can understand that you just gave up and flattened the disk.

Answer 2

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Answer 3

Hi Ankita thakur,

As Erland said, SSMS is just a visual tool to help you use SQL Server better, but it is not SQL Server itself. If you don't have it installed, you need to install a SQL Server instance. You can see the name of your instance in SQL Server Configuration Manager.

You can download from here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-sg/sql-server/sql-server-downloads

Please refer to this article about how to install SQL Server: https://www.c-sharpcorner.com/article/step-by-step-installation-of-microsoft-sql-server-on-windows-system/

This article has some options of features that you can install according to your needs.

If we misunderstood you, please feel free to let us know.

Best regards,

Seeya

If the answer is the right solution, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment".

Answer 4

You said tihs started to appear after you had upgraded to Windows 11. There is a known issue that may affect you.. To see if you are affected by this issue, check the SQL Server errorlog, which you find in C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL15.SSMS\MSSQL\LOG\ERRORLOG. (The exact path may be different; I have to guess a little about your installation.)

If you see a message about 256 misaligned reads, you are facing the known issue. See https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/sql/database-engine/database-file-operations/troubleshoot-os-4kb-disk-sector-size for workarounds.

If you don't see this error, feel free to upload your errorlog here. (You need to rename it to ERRORLOG.txt to be able to.

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Connect to Server ------------------------------ Cannot connect to Desktop ------------------------------ ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: A network-related or instance-specific error occurred while establishing a connection to SQL Server.

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Your answer