No connection could be made because the target machine
actively refused it
You may get this error while trying to establish a
connection to a SQL Server database remotely. Here are a few things you should
check.
- Make sure your server name is correct.
- Make sure database server is up and running. You can see
MSSQLSERVER service or whatever is your SQL Server instance name is running.
- Try to ping your server name and see if IP is correct.
- Ping the IP address and see it is resolving.
- If your server is behind firewall, you may want to add a
port number to your connection string. Port 1433 is the default port for SQL
Server.
By default, SQL Server uses port number 1433. To create a
connection string over firewall with the IP and port number, use the following format:
<add name="connection" connectionString="Data Source=[YOURIP XX.XX.XX.XX],1433;Network
Library=DBMSSOCN;Initial Catalog=[YOURDBNAME];User ID=[YOURUSERID];Password=[YOURPASSWORD]"/>
You need to make sure you
replace variables in this connection string with correct values.