Cannot start SQL Server Browser

Hello,

I use SQL Server 2005 for multi-user access. In the Surface Area Configuration, I changed the protocol from TCP/IP to Named Pipes and restarted the service. Then I went to SQL Server Browser, stopped it and clicked on Start to restart. I am getting a message "An error occurred while performing this operation". I am not able to get the Browser started.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Check the Windows event log and report back with the errors listed by SQL Browser service this will help with diagnosis.|||

I checked the error log and found a few messages for SQL Browser. Here they are:

1. SQL Browser Service was unable to establish SQL instance and connectivity discovery
2. The SQL Browser service port was unavailable for listening, invalid
3. The configuration of the AdminConnection\TCP protocol in the SQL instance SQLEXPRESS is not valid.
4. The SQL Browser is enabling SQL instance and connectivity discovery support
5. The SQL Browser service has started
6. The SQL Browser service has shut down

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The key one is "The SQLBrowser service port is unavailable for listening, or invalid.".

So what happens is SQL Browser starts up and enumerates all network interfaces and attempts to bind to UDP port 1434 on each one found. If it cannot bind to any of the network interfaces, you will get the above error.

So run this from a command prompt first to locate the process id bound to UDP 1434 ->

netstat -aon -p UDP

Look for things bound to 1434, like for example PID 4736 below:

Proto Local Address Foreign Address State PID
UDP 0.0.0.0:445 *:* 4
UDP 0.0.0.0:500 *:* 1156
UDP 0.0.0.0:1025 *:* 1792
UDP 0.0.0.0:1026 *:* 1792
UDP 0.0.0.0:1027 *:* 1792
UDP 0.0.0.0:1434 *:* 4736
...

Next look up the PID in Task Manager to see what process this is. If it's a SQL Server process try shutting down all SQL Server instances and then restart SQL Browser. If it is some other process let me know what it is.

It is also possible that SQLBrowser did not find any network interfaces to bind to, for example if the computer has no NICs. Let me know if this is a NIC-less PC.

|||

check whether firewall is enabled on this machine.. check UDP port 1434 is excempted.... Refer http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms165724.aspx

Madhu

|||Thank you Matt for your help. I tried the "netstat -aon -p UDP" command. The Windows 2000 Server does not seem to support the -o switch which shows the Process ID. I could only do "netstat -an -p UDP", without the "o". I can see that 1434 was listed, but do not know the process ID. How may I proceed?|||

Most likely it is another SQL Server service, do you see sqlservr.exe in the Task Manager? So go to control panel Services and stop all SQL Server services you see, then start SQL Browser. Once SQL Browser loads up it will automatically disable the other SQL Server services from binding to UDP 1434. Then you can restart the other SQL Server services. Look in Services for things like MSSQL$<Something> these are SQL Server instances.

Try running this from command prompt to find the running SQL Services (I think it might work on Windows 2000):

sc query | findstr /I "MSSQL"

Look for things like:

SERVICE_NAME: MSSQLSERVER

or

SERVICE_NAME: MSSQL$INSTANCE1

Then stop these services, start SQL Browser, then restart the SQL Services.

|||

I followed your suggestion and stopped the SQL Server services (MS SQL Server and SQL Server (SQLExpress). Then I was able to start the SQL Server Browser. Then I restarted the Database Engine Service from Surface Area Configuration. It is working fine and the client can connect.

Thank you very much. It was a great help.

|||Thank you Madhu for the information. Though it did not solve my problem, I find the information helpful.|||

Hi,

I am having a problem with starting the browser, I have checked the UDP port and it is certainly available.

I get this error repeated every 1 minute in the event log "The SQLBrowser is enabling SQL instance and connectivity discovery support." with a "SQLDmpr###.mdmp" dumped to C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Shared\ErrorDumps in a beautiful harmony with the events.

Does anyone have a clue as to what is happening here, this is the only server I have this problem with (SQL server 64bit Enterprise edition)

Many thanks

Mike

|||

Does not sound good. I'll check Watson to see if your dumps are showing up.

Check the event log to and post back with the messages from SQLBrowser service.

|||

Hey Matt, thanks for the response,

The browser service keeps repeating this error:

The SQLBrowser is enabling SQL instance and connectivity discovery support.

and this error

The SQL Server Browser service terminated unexpectedly. It has done this 45 time(s). The following corrective action will be taken in 60000 milliseconds: Restart the service.

If I run "sqlbrowser.exe -c" then I end up with an output like this:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Shared>sqlbrowser -c
SQLBrowser: starting up in console mode
SQLBrowser: starting up SSRP redirection service
SQLBrowser is successfully listening on 0.0.0.0[1434]
[3608]: Waiting for next request...
[3600]: Waiting for next request...
[3616]: Waiting for next request...
[3612]: Waiting for next request...
[3608]: Received request...
[3600]: Received request...
[3608]: Waiting for next request...
SQLBrowser: starting up OLAP redirection service
[3600]: Waiting for next request...

then it crashes and leaves the dmp file.

Getting hard to see this one... there not that much that could get in the way right!? I have disabled windows firewall. Single instance is easily accessible. I had heard that KB910437 caused a conflict with the exe; have you heard of that before, so I tried removing that. no joy.

Cheers

Mike

|||

Looks like a problem with OLAP redirection dll. We host this in sqlbrowser. The dll is named msmdredir.dll and it's located in the C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Shared folder. You could try as a temporary fix renaming this dll to msmdredir.dll_ but in general this looks like an invalid setup type issue.

|||

Matt,

That worked. I am amazed that it did... but it did.

How would an invalid setup have affected this? I have just run a fresh install and service packed to SP2, but this problem persisted.

I'm going to need that DLL though, this server is supposed to run analysis services and OLAP. Whatamigonnado?

Do you know what the setup validity error is?

Thanks for your help so far bud,

Great.

mike

|||

Most likely some runtime dependancy on the olap redirector dll did not get properly installed.

If you could send me one of these .mdmp files I can get this over to OLAP folks for diagnosis.

My email is mattn (at microsoft.com).