Hello,
I have been developing a fairly simple website for several weeks now. It connects to one database hosted by CT. I have been making use of both Sql and Object data sources. The last thing I did to the project was publish a working, updated version to our CT hosted domain. Suddenly, my local development environment gets an SqlException every time it tries to connect to the database. I haven't changed anything since publishing, and the published version still works fine. I am still able to connect to the database through Management Studio Express and through Visual Studio. If I use the Configuration wizard for an SqlData source, and get to the last page where it lets me test the Select statement, it works perfectly too. But the connection fails when running the pages through Visual Studio or on IIS.

So I know the problem is not my connection string, it is not a syntax error because all pages were effected simultaneously, and it's not the SQL server because the published version is still connecting.

I haven't been able to develop for 2 days because of this and the deadline's approaching, please help!

By "connection fails" what do you mean? Is an exception thrown? Is there simply no data returned?

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An SqlException is thrown with this message:

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: Named Pipes Provider, error: 40 - Could not open a connection to SQL Server)

Chances are CT has set up a Firewall between the internet and the SQL servers and are only allowing certain IP's through said firewall. Contact them and see if this is the case. One thing to note is that unless you are paying for a static IP address through your ISP you are probably not going to be able to touch your production database from your dev system. Since you would have a dynamic IP address that would refresh and possibly change after a given period of time it makes it impossible for CT to whitelist your IP.

hth.

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Read this if you want to know how to get a correct reply for your question:
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.: Wrox Technical Editor / Author :.
Wrox Books 24 x 7
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I'll check on that. I've been developing this way on CT for 2 years so that would suck. If that were the case wouldn't I not be able to connect through Management Studio Express, Visual Studio's server explorer, and visual studio's web forms designer?

Is it possible that my IIS and Visual Studio web server are using the wrong port for the connection?

I have verified that a software update for the web monitoring tool Covenant Eyes from version 4.2.6b to 4.2.7 has caused this problem. I am contacting tech support with the company about it.

Sorry, I lost track of this thread. Glad you got an answer to your problem though! =]

================================================== =========
Read this if you want to know how to get a correct reply for your question:
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
================================================== =========
.: Wrox Technical Editor / Author :.
Wrox Books 24 x 7
================================================== =========