Today’s blog is originated from a blog interaction. After hardening a server, my friend was not able to start SQL Browser service. When we try to start from services, we get below standard error, which is not very helpful. Let us fix the error related to SQL Configuration.
The SQL Server Browser service on Local Computer started and then stopped. Some services stop automatically if they are not in use by other services or programs.
Then we looked into Event Logs and found below messages in application event log.
The SQL Server Browser is closing. There are no instances of SQL Server or SQL Server Analysis Services.
and below…
The SQL configuration for SQL is inaccessible or invalid.
Initially we thought that our SQL configuration is corrupted so we thought that we need to uninstall SQL Server. But NO, it was something else.
WORKAROUND/SOLUTION
We started SQLBrowser from command line and found error there also. Later, we found below registry key which is needed to start the SQL Browser.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\90\SQL Browser
In our case, due to hardening, the key was deleted, so we created key and added two values under that.
They keys are AnalysisServiceListener and SsrpListener and value should be 1.
Have you ever seen issues due to server level hardening by Windows team?
Reference: Pinal Dave (https://blog.sqlauthority.com)
7 Comments. Leave new
Hello Pinal,
Could you please elaborate how come registry keys were deleted during server hardening ? I always though hardening means making some configuration changes before releasing the DB server into production.
Appreciate your response. Thank you.
I checked with client and they told that they were given as a word document to follow bunch of steps to secure SQL Server. So, it was a manual deletion.
Thank you Pinal for your reply !
:) my pleasure.
Thanks, this was hugely helpful and resolved my issue!
I recently installed SQL 2019 on a server that had SQL 2016. Ever since the SQL browser function seems to be broken though the service is running.
we cannot connect to the SQL 2016 instance without specifying the port number.
WOuld you know why?
This I do not know and may need an expert with access to your system’s advice.