SQL server error: 18452 - connection to SQL error

[jime0726]

hey guys, i dont know if this is the right forum for SQL errors but i need some help on the following error:

Connection failed:
SQL state: '28000'
SQL Server Error:18452
[Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][SQL Server]Login failed for user '(null)'. Reason: Not associated with a trusted SQL Server connection.

ok, so now that you have the error, here's what i'm doing. in the odbc under the system dsn tab, we have a driver for connection to our case management system which has SQL server installed on that server, its called "dataserver". the way we connect is by just dropping a shortcut from that server right to the desktop. there's no installation on the client machine. we used to be able to connect to this software using TCP/IP connection and "windows NT authenication using the network login ID". our primary server went down, we had to switch to connect through named pipes which is DOGGING everyones connection to that server. we finally brought our primary server back up and tried switching a few people back to TCP/IP and now we get the above error. running windows 2000 server and SQL server 2000, everyone is using w2k pro on all workstations. configurations are all set (at least we think) in enterprise manager. we are using mixed modes, so its set to both SQL authentication AND windows NT. any help would be greatlly appreciated!

also in the EM, all the security and permissions seem to be set correctly.

[bentkey]

Just a thought, but have you tried creating a new odbc driver connection to that server?

[jime0726]

yes, i've tried many time creating a new odbc driver....the way we have everyone logging in is the group domain users has been added to the sql server in EM so i've even added myself as an individual user in the the EM on sql server with owner rights to the server but that does nothing.

[bentkey]

When your main server went down, was it the only domain controller? How did you restore it? IOW was active directory still intact and recovered?

[jime0726]

we actually have another server, "ntserver" that was acting as the backup controller in case our primary server ever went down. because of that, we didnt lose anything in our AD and just pulled all the data from "ntserver" to the new domain controller when we brought it back up. so we never in fact lost anything, AD was still intact, except having a problem with DNS, which is now working again. i just had someone tell me that i need to recreate the users in SQL since the controller went down, but i would think that would the case if we lost the entire AD....correct me if i'm wrong.

[bentkey]

That was actually what I was alluding to. I don't see how you could save the AD directory on NT4 since NT4 doesn't support it, unless there is some MS utility I don't know about, which of course is possible. I have had Windows2000 do some really weird things involving users and some of those questions remain unanswered to this day. So yes, I would definetly try recreating some users in the SQL server and see what happens.

[jime0726]

our ntserver is actually not running NT4, its running w2k server, as is our entire server farm, and SQL server 2000. so thats how we were able to retain all the AD data and dump it back onto our new DC. so i will delete the group "domain users" in the EM and see if i can re-create it but i wont be able to restart SQL service until the end of the day so i will let you know if that worked. thanks for you help.

[jime0726]

i found out that the server we cant connect to with TCP/IP is not trusted with our new DC....i'm working on trying to set up a trust between the 2 but am having trouble with that....any help is appreciated. thanks

[bentkey]

Ok, hehe ntserver was just a name not a designation. I'm so easily fooled these days! About all I can say off hand about that, is that it is done through Active Directory Domains and Trusts on a domain controller. If the server was installed as a member server of the domain it should already be there though.

[jime0726]

yea, i hear you on that one....we actually spent hrs last night running diagnostics on the server to see what connections it had and what it didnt. using netdiag, we found it had no trust relationship to the domain so we tried this other utility "netdom" which did nothing for us because it kept giving us interface unknown errors. that was supposed to help us reset the trust relationship but never worked. so we finally sucked it up and had to rejoin that server to the domain because everything else was failing and we were VERY lucky we didnt lose connection to anything else. so that finally worked for us and everyone is back on tcp/ip in ODBC drivers. although our trust is pointing to the backup controller, everything is working fine. i am just wondering if there is a way to point the trust relationship to the primary controller instead of the backup, but thats not a big deal....thanks for your help with everything!