Chapter 15. "Sign Up for new account" gets error: 26

Tanya Roslyakova · March 7th, 2011, 10:59 AM

Hi there,

I am on 15th chapter of this woderful book and everything worked fine so far.

Now i am getting an error on attempt to Create new account via CreateUserWizard on SignUp.aspx - just the beginning of the chapter.

PC settings: Windows Vista (64x), MS SQL Server 2008 R2

Any advice is appreciated.

Thanks,
Tanya

Erro info:
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)

Imar · March 7th, 2011, 03:47 PM

Hi there,

Sounds like you'e not using a standard installation of SQL Server, right? (E.g. not .\SqlExpress). If so, check out Appendix B to learn how to reconfigure the Application Services to work with a different instance of SQL Server.

Cheers,

Imar

Tanya Roslyakova · March 7th, 2011, 07:05 PM

Hey Imar,

Thank you for prompt reply.

I've read the appendix B "Configuring Application Services" did some modifications to machine.config file: replaced ConnectionStringName with "PlanetWroxConnectionString1" (previously it was LocalSqlServer)

Code:

	<add name="AspNetSqlMembershipProvider" type="System.Web.Security.SqlMembershipProvider, System.Web, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a" connectionStringName="PlanetWroxConnectionString1" enablePasswordRetrieval="false" enablePasswordReset="true" requiresQuestionAndAnswer="true" applicationName="/" requiresUniqueEmail="false" passwordFormat="Hashed" maxInvalidPasswordAttempts="5" minRequiredPasswordLength="7" minRequiredNonalphanumericCharacters="1" passwordAttemptWindow="10" passwordStrengthRegularExpression=""/>

Now it works fine.

Should i do that every time for every new website i create?
What impact does it have?

Thanks again :)

Regards,
Tanya

Imar · March 8th, 2011, 10:34 AM

Quote:

Should i do that every time for every new website i create?

Yes, as long as you want to target a non SQL Server Express edition.
You could mess with machine.config but I don't recommend that.

Quote:

What impact does it have?

It changes your application from non-working to working ;-)

In the machine.config, there's a LocalSqlServer connection string that points to .\SqlExpress. This is used by default for stuff like Membership. By overriding or changing the connection string, you simply point the application to a different database. You'll probably need to do the same again when you deploy the application.

VWD 2010 has made this a little easier and now includes the connection strings in web.config when you create a new site, making this a little more transparent and easier to configure.

Cheers,

Imar