“Cannot connect to the configuration database” and SharePoint
Today I’ve received another of the cases when SharePoint (v2) couldn’t connect to the configuration database. This can be a common problem but it’s not so horrible to solve it.
The reason for this is that SharePoint lost the connection to the database.
Reasons may be the following:
-
SQL or WMSDE database may not be running
- IIS may be running in IIS 5.0 isolation mode
- The account for connecting to SQL or WMSDE might be gone or with changed password
- update – SQL Server Embedded Edition might not be running (check services) – Thanks, deanoc (see the comments)
The solution to these is on the following link:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/823287/en-us
But I’ve found another reason that could be. Simple: The SQL is running, credentials are also ok and IIS isn’t in the 5.0 isolation mode. The problem may occur if sharepoint simply can’t find the database. Reasons for this may be many: the database has moved, dns has changed, … In my case was the later. By changing the DNS server in the network we’ve had to add one more record manually to point to the correct one and the sites started to work.
Hi, I’ve just found another reason why WSS 3.0 “Cannot connect to the configuration database”:
If WSS installs SQL Server Embedded Edition and uses that to host the config DB, make sure that the SQL Server 2005 Embedded Edition Service is running.
We found that the service was set to Manual startup, and after a server reboot WSS failed.
Thanks for the info, deanoc. I’ve updated my post.
I have a MOSS2007 app server that works well w/ SQL2000. But after the server is running for several hours, it starts to show the “Cannot connect to the configuration database” i checked the w3wp.exe seemed to have doubled in size 320,000kb and it happens once every end of business day. Would the search crawl cause such a problem?
Hi, In my situation,
all the following conditions are working fine.
->SQL or WMSDE database is running
->IIS 6.0 is running
->The account for connecting to SQL or WMSDE have not been changed.
->updated – SQL Server Embedded Edition & running
Still i am getting the same error ‘Connot connect to the configuration database’. what should i do ???
my configuration is:
WSS 3.0
SQLExpress 2005
plz give a reply
thanks
Surya prakash adari,
Hi, adari. Sorry for late reply. If all is working, try also the following:
1. Check in IIS if application pool used for sharepoint central admin is running
2. If you don’t have the SQL Server 2005 Express management studio, download it and check if you have the configuraiton database in the sharepoint.
3. Did you perhaps change the NETBIOS ( Domain name of the server? This might also be the reason.
Hi, I have this problem. I installed MOSS and WSS 3.0 on my machine, First when I open central admin site, it opens fine and I created webapplication and SSP and everything. Then after some time if I open the central admin, I get the message “Cannot connect to the configuration database.”. The possible reason that I can see in the SQL management studio I can’t see Sharepoint_Config database connected. So what I can do to solve this? Any help would be more than appreciated.
Hi all,
we have the same problem. We checked everything according to MS (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/823287), but nothing changed. In our case it turned out to be FILE PERMISSIONS problem. Eventually in the morning one of the guys installed windows server security patch. It seems that this patch changed file permissions for config DB file to Administrator only.
I dont know if this will help anyone but I had issues similiar to this and nothing seemed to work. I checked the application Pool – properties- Identity and sure enough that was it. It was set to predefined network service but it actually needed to set to configurable and the user name /password that it was originally set up with. Very strange but this worked for me.
Look at the Networks credentials,it may change upon installation security patch .Same was happened with me.
Upon resting it.Problem resolved.
“I dont know if this will help anyone but I had issues similiar to this and nothing seemed to work. I checked the application Pool – properties- Identity and sure enough that was it. It was set to predefined network service but it actually needed to set to configurable and the user name /password that it was originally set up with. Very strange but this worked for me.”
Yay! This worked for me as well.
(Now on to the next dumb obstacle that Sharepoint throws my way =)
Thanks Anon for sharing!
We found a fix for this to be a password change issue. There was an admin account vs. using a svc (service) account in both IIS and the SS Admin. We made the update of the new password and we were back online.
still using an admin account in the following places:
1. IIS > Application Pools > SharePoint -80 > Properties > Identity
2. And Shared Services Administration > Default Shared Services (dropdown) > Edit Properties >
hope this helps.
I’ve Found a SQL scanner that can locate any SQL server at your network (multi-subnet) it can also try to brute force the SA user account (or any other account) to make sure the password is not easy.
you can get it here: http://www.softpedia.com/get/Internet/Servers/Database-Utils/SQL-Locator.shtml
Thanks for sharing.
“By changing the DNS server in the network we’ve had to add one more record manually to point to the correct one and the sites started to work”…where did you add a record and what info was in the record?
We seem to have the same problem after moving our DNS to another server….
Plz help.
grrr
Hi,
I’ve installed SharePoint 2010, everything was fine until I installed Windows Updates on both my SQL Server and Front End server…
I get “Cannot conncet to the config database” error msg when I try to access my Central Administration or any other site. I have a separate SQL to the SharePoint Server
please assiste…
thanks
@Tshepo: There are quite a lot of posibilities of what could be wrong. Quite some options are discussed also in previous comments. Have you checked? I usually first check if SP server can see the SQL server and if SP account has permissions, next if SQL is running,…
Finally I resolved this problem.
I tried several solutions like restarting sql services, resetting IIS, changing service accounts, checking account permissions…etc before, but faild.
For most of cases, the problem was Account Permissions.
I’m not sure it would work for your casees… but If you get “Cannot connect to the configuration database” after windows update or hotfix, try these:
1. Navigate to IIS management -> Select SharePoint sites -> Right click and Edit Permissions -> Add WSS_ADMIN_WPG group with full control, add WSS_WPG group for each sites.
2. Navigate to ADSI management -> Select Action -> Connect -> Select Domain name -> Select CN=System -> Right click and make new “Container” -> Fill the value with “Microsoft SharePoint Products”
3. Select the container you just made(CN=Microsoft SharePoint Products) -> Right click and open the property, Security tab -> Add Sharepoint System account(The account you set as farm admin account) -> Advanced settings -> Select Sharepoint System account you just added and make sure you allowed on “serviceConnectionPoint object creation” (or you just add the Sharepoint System account to the Built-in Administrator Account Group to skip step 3)
4. Run SharePoint Configuration Wizard to restore your SP server.
hope this helps, too.
I think in my case this is the problem
The account for connecting to SQL or WMSDE might be gone or with changed password
now I want to give a new user the permission to b the admin and accept the configuration with the server.
can any body tell me how can I do this ?