SQL Server Q&A

Symptoms
Consider the following scenario:You have a database mirroring session in Microsoft SQL Server 2005. The database mirroring session does not have a witness. You set up a witness server. On the principal server and on the witness server, you do not use DNS together with DHCP for name resolution. Instead, you specify that a host file should be used for name resolution. On the principal server instance, you try to set the witness.In this scenario, you receive the following error message:

Msg 1456, Level 16, State 3, Line 1
The ALTER DATABASE command could not be sent to the remote server instance ‘TCP://ServerName:port’. The database mirroring configuration was not changed. Verify that the server is connected, and try again.
Resolution
A database mirroring session must use a fully qualified domain name (FQDN) to resolve the name of the witness server.

Symptoms
You upgrade a clustered instance of Microsoft SQL Server 2005 to Microsoft SQL Server 2008. Then, you uninstall the clustered instance of SQL Server 2008 and all the remaining components of SQL Server 2005. When you try to reinstall SQL Server 2005, you receive the following error message:

This application has failed to start because the application configuration is incorrect. Reinstalling the application may fix this problem.
Resolution
This problem occurs because the runtime components of Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Service Pack 1 (SP1) are uninstalled when you uninstall SQL Server 2008. When you uninstall SQL Server 2008, the cluster resource files (.dll files) are not uninstalled and are shared by the later SQL Server 2005 installation. However, the runtime components of Visual C++ 2005 SP1 are required for you to use these .dll files.
When you install a clustered instance of SQL Server 2005, these .dll files are used to cluster the instance. However, SQL Server 2005 includes only the release version of the Visual C++ 2005 runtime. Therefore, an error occurs when the Setup program tries to load these .dll files.

Symptoms
When you install Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2 (SP2), SQL Server 2005 Express Edition (SQL Server Express) SP2, or SQL Server Express with Advanced Services SP2, you receive the following error message:

SQL Server Setup failed to execute a command for server configuration.The error was [Microsoft] [SQL Native Client] [SQL Server] CREATE DATABASE failed. Some File names listed could not be created. Check related errorrs.. Refer to the server error logs and Setup logs for detailed error information.Note In this error message, “errorrs” is a misspelling of the word “errors.” Also, the sentence “Check related errorrs..” has two period (.) characters.
Additionally, you experience one of the following symptoms.
Symptom 1When you perform a new installation of SQL Server Express SP2 or of SQL Server Express with Advanced Services SP2, the following error message is logged in the SQLSetup0001_ComputerName_SQL.log file:

SQL Server Setup failed to execute a command for server configuration. The error was [Microsoft] [SQL Native Client] [SQL Server]Incorrect syntax near ‘=’.
[SQL Server]Cannot dump ##MS_AgentSigningCertificate##. SYSDBUPG.SQL terminating.This problem occurs if the length of the installationpath exceeds 58 characters.
Symptom 2When you install SQL Server Express SP2 or SQL Server Express with Advanced Services SP2 on an existing instance of SQL Server Express, the followingerror messages is logged in the SQLSetup0001_ComputerName_SQL.log file:

SQL Server Setup failed to execute a command for server configuration. The error was [Microsoft][SQL Native Client][SQL Server]CREATE DATABASE failed. Some file names listed could not be created. Check related errors.. Refer to the server error logs and Setup logs for detailed error information.Note In this error message, the sentence “Check related errors..” has two period characters.
This problem occurs if the length of the installationpath exceeds 58 characters.
Symptom 3When you install SQL Server 2005 SP2 on an existing instance ofSQL Server 2005 Service Pack 1 (SP1) or on an existing instance of the original release version of SQL Server 2005, the following error message is logged in the SQL9_Hotfix_KB921896_Sqlrun_Sql.msp.log file:

[SQL Server]Incorrect syntax near ‘=’.
[SQL Server]Cannot dump ##MS_AgentSigningCertificate##. SYSDBUPG.SQL terminating.This problem occurs if the length of the installation path exceeds 128 characters.
Resolution
This problem occurs because the script in the Sysdbupg.sql file contains the following code to escape quotations in a file name.

SELECT @certificate_name = QUOTENAME(@certificate_name, ””)The QUOTENAME function returns null if the length of the input value exceeds 128 characters. The longer path name triggers an error in the script.

Symptoms
When you install Microsoft SQL Server 2005 on a computer that is running the original release version of Microsoft Windows XP, you receive the following error message:

This application has failed to start because the application configuration is incorrect.
Reinstalling the application may fix this problem.Additionally, the following event is logged in the System log:
Source: SideBySide
Event ID: 59
Description:
Resolve Partial Assembly failed for Microsoft.VC80.CRT. Reference error message: The system cannot find the file specified.
Resolution
This problem occurs because SQL Server 2005 requires the GetSystemTimes function. The GetSystemTimes function is included in Windows XP Service Pack 1 (SP1) and inlater Windows XP service packs.

Symptoms
When you create a trusted connection from Microsoft ASP.NET to Microsoft SQL Server, you may receive the following error message:

Login failed for user ‘MachineName\ASPNETFor computers that run Internet Information Services (IIS) 6.0, you may receive the following error message:

Login failed for user ‘NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE’Note You receive either of these error messages specifically when you use integrated security (when you include the integrated security=sspi attribute in a connection string).
Resolution
When you use ASP.NET, the default security context is the ASPNET account (or NetworkService account, for an application that runs on IIS 6.0) for both Aspnet_wp.exe (or W3wp.exe, for an application that runs on IIS 6.0) and the request to SQL Server. By default, the ASPNET account (or NetworkService account, for an application that runs on IIS 6.0) does not have any permissions in SQL Server, and therefore it cannot access the database.

Symptoms
When creating a new SQL Server Data Source Name (DSN) using the ODBC API SQLConfigDataSource function, a network library must be specified. If the network library name is in lowercase letters, the Client Configuration dialog box may show it as “Other”.
Resolution
In Control Panel, the Client Configuration dialog box in ODBC Data Source Administrator is case-sensitive. It compares the network library name from the registry to uppercase network library names. See the “More Information” section for information on the registry entries that are affected by SQLConfigDataSource.