Network Management

Configuration wizard fails with "SQL Network Interfaces, error: 26 - Error Locating Server/Instance Specified" causing Certificate Management Service (CMS) not starting

This article provides information where CMS does not properly start due to connection using encryption fails to connect.

First published date

3/22/2025 2:29 AM

Last published date

11/15/2025 7:26 PM

Overview

After upgrading to SolarWinds Platform 2024.4 and above and running the configuration wizard, the following error message may appear:

Configuring Certificate Management FAILED

StatusCode="Unavailable", Detail="Error starting gRPC call. HttpRequestException: An error occurred while sending the request. WebException: Unable to connect to the remote server SocketException: No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it 127.0.0.1:17732", DebugException="System.Net.Http.HttpRequestException: An error occurred while sending the request.") ---> System.Net.Http.HttpRequestException: An error occurred while sending the request. ---> System.Net.WebException: Unable to connect to the remote server ---> System.Net.Sockets.SocketException: No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it 127.0.0.1:17732

The Certificate Management Service (Solarwinds.CertificateManagementService.log) will fail to open connection to the SQL server with the following error message:

SqlException: A network-related or instance-specific error occurred while establishing a connection to SQL Server. The server was not found or was not accessible. Verify that the instance name is correct and that SQL Server is configured to allow remote connections. (provider: SQL Network Interfaces, error: 26 - Error Locating Server/Instance Specified)

Product section

Network Performance Monitor

Cause

This issue occurs because due to CMS (by default) is making a connection to SQL using encryption. In some scenarios, this will fail when:

When encryption is not selected during the configuration wizard, the initial connection to SQL will not be encrypted, but CMS will still try to connecting using connection and fail.
If encryption is allowed and CMS tries to connect, but the connection may fail due to other reasons.

Resolution

To resolve this issue, please upgrade to SolarWinds Platform 2025.2.1 and above. After the upgrade, if encryption is not selected during the configuration wizard, then CMS will also not utilize encryption during the connection.

If an upgrade is not possible, you can workaround this problem by disabling "Force Encryption":

Try to enable Shared Memory protocol in SSCM

Restart SQL Server, and retry configuration wizard.

If it does not help set both protocol flags Force Strict Encryption or Hide Instance to No and re-run wizard.

If any of the SQL server protocol flags Force Strict Encryption or Hide Instance is set to Yes on SQL Server 2022

or flag Hide Instance is set to Yes on SQL Server 2019

If the options above do not show, check the "Named pipes" option in SQL Server Configuration Manager, and enable it if it is disabled.

Once done, re-run the Configuration Wizard.

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