Raoul Pop

Just had two fun days of troubleshooting this by working together with Adobe/Macromedia support, and found the solution.

Here’s the original issue: could not set up a new data source connecting locally (localhost, 127.0.0.1) to SQL Server 2000 Standard running on the web server; kept getting a SQL Exception error. Was told SQL just wasn’t listening on port 1433, or any TCP port for that matter, even though TCP/IP and Named Pipes were clearly enabled in the SQL Network Config Utility. Even in the registry, port 1433 was specified, yet could not connect to SQL on TCP by any means. Coudn’t even telnet to the machine on that port.

Turns out that even though I’d upgraded SQL Server 2000 to SP4, I needed to downgrade to SP3. Still doesn’t make sense, after all, MS SPs are supposed to be roll-ups, but hey, that’s what worked. Luckily, the server I was working was running on VMware, so I reverted to a snapshot I took after I installed SQL and before I upgraded to SP4. Installed SP3, and was able to set up the data source immediately! Something to keep in mind if you’re in the same boat.

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