SQL Server – Issue with opening SQL Server Management Studio 2014.

Hi All,

Today new issue and solution 🙂

Error : 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).

Today in office, as usual I try to open Sql Server Express, to start the day with my project. Suddenly my Sql Management studio tool crashed, when click Connect button and it throw an unexpected error as in the following figure.

I was thinking, if there is any configuration change done to Sql Server but ensured that, there was nothing like that. Then I try to check, if the Sql Server (Instance name) service is running or not and found that, the service is running as expected. After that I came across a nice blog (https://blog.sqlauthority.com/2009/05/21/sql-server-fix-error-provider-named-pipes-provider-error-40-could-not-open-a-connection-to-sql-server-microsoft-sql-server-error/) where, it specified that the above issue can be arise due to many reason.

I have solved my issue using the second option as specified in this blog by Enabling TCP/IP in SQL Server Configuration. 

Hope this helps you and will save time 🙂

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