SQL SERVER – SQL Browser not Starting. Error – The SQL Configuration for SQL is Inaccessible or Invalid

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_MACHINESOFTWAREWow6432NodeMicrosoftMicrosoft SQL ServerSQL 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 (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)