Symptoms
You may find that you cannot create a portal site in Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003.When you try to create a portal site, you may experience one or more of the following symptoms: You receive an error message that is similar to the following:

System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an objectEntries that are similar to the following are logged to the log file:

Time Start- Add custom roles to fine-grained lists
Time End- Add custom roles to fine-grained lists
Time Exit InitCategories()
Time Failed to create portal successfully
Time cmd.CommandText set as: Update dbo.orgle_errormsg set LocalizedMsg = N’User’ where ErrorID=’-1′ Update dbo.orgle_errormsg set LocalizedMsg = N’Target Audiences’ where ErrorID=’-2′ Update dbo.orgle_errormsg set LocalizedMsg = N’Select Audience’ where ErrorID=’-3′ Update dbo.orgle_errormsg set LocalizedMsg = N’Select’ where ErrorID=’-4′ Update dbo.orgle_errormsg set LocalizedMsg = N’Compilation failed to start due to an error connecting to the database. Please check the AudienceJob log file for details.’ where ErrorID=’1′ Update dbo.orgle_errormsg s
Resolution
This issue may occur in situations when there arenetwork connectivity problems that prevent you from connecting to the server that is running Microsoft SQL Server 2000, and the server that is running SQL Server 2000 uses the following configuration:The server is configured to use named pipes.The server is not configured to use TCP/IP.