Posted on: 3/26/2014 9:34:48 AM | Views : 537

Last night our SQL Server Express 2008 (running on Windows 2003 server) stopped accepting remote connections. 
1. We restarted the SQL Server -- no resolution.
2. We rebooted the host Windows 2003 server - no resolution.
3. telnet localhost 1433: says Could not open connection to the host on port 1433... connection failed.
4. netstat -an indicates that the server is not listening on port 1433
5. SQL Server Network Configuration -> Protocols for SQLEXPRESS2008A -> (properties) -> TCP-IP (enabled), Listen All (yes)
6. SQL Native Client 10.0 Configuration -> Client Protocols -> (properties) TCP-IP (enabled), Default port (1433)
Fragment from the server error log:

2014-03-26 08:50:41.09 Server      A self-generated certificate was successfully loaded for encryption. 2014-03-26 08:50:41.11 Server      Server is listening on [ 'any' <ipv4& ...

Go to the complete details ...