error:26 when connecting to sql server express...

I've got an ASP.net 2.0 application that I published and moved to a publicly available server. From my machine it works fine, but not from the production machine.

I'm attempting to connect to a machine that has sql server express installed.

The message in the browser:

An error has occurred while establishing a connection to the server. When connecting to SQL Server 2005, this failure may be caused by the fact that under the default settings SQL Server does not allow remote connections. (provider: SQL Network Interfaces, error: 26 - Error Locating Server/Instance Specified)

So, I went by the kb article and made sure tcpip is enabled. This uses port 3288. server browser is enabled and the machine accepts remote connections.My connection string is (minus the ip & user/pwd):

<add name="IRRMAConnectionString" connectionString="Data Source=<ip_address>\SQLEXPRESS,3288;Initial Catalog=IRRMA;User ID=<user>;password=<pwd>" providerName="System.Data.SqlClient"/>

I can ping the db server from my app server. On my dev machine it connects. Windows firewall is turned off on the db server.

This seems to be an issue with a firewall, I think?

Any direction would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Scott Jones

Scott@.fourindianajones.com

You should check this out and go from there.

http://blogs.msdn.com/sql_protocols/archive/2007/05/13/sql-network-interfaces-error-26-error-locating-server-instance-specified.aspx

I would say it has to do with the UDP 1434 or the sqlbrowser.exe in the exceptions. But once you follow all the steps you should get closer to the resolution.