Intermittent connection timeout / general network error

We have a SQL 2005 clustered server (Microsoft Cluster Services) that is queried from 4 IIS6 Windows Server 2003 frontends. Each frontend runs both classic ASP apps connection with SQL Server ODBC and .NET2 apps connecting with System.Data.SqlClient. Ocassionaly we get a string of errors/timeouts opening a connection lasting maybe 2 minutes.

One the classic ASP apps we log one of these two errors:

Microsoft OLE DB Provider for ODBC Drivers (0x80004005)
[Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][DBNETLIB]General network error. Check your network documentation

or

Microsoft OLE DB Provider for ODBC Drivers (0x80004005)
[Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver]Timeout expired

on the ADODB.Connection.Open

On the .NET2 apps we log

Message Timeout expired. The timeout period elapsed prior to completion of the operation or the server is not responding.

StackTrace at
System.Data.ProviderBase.DbConnectionPool.GetConnection(DbConnection owningObject)
at System.Data.ProviderBase.DbConnectionFactory.GetConnection(DbConnection owningConnection)
at System.Data.ProviderBase.DbConnectionClosed.OpenConnection(DbConnection outerConnection, DbConnectionFactory connectionFactory)
at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlConnection.Open()
at System.Web.SessionState.SqlSessionStateStore.SqlStateConnection..ctor(SqlPartitionInfo sqlPartitionInfo)

Source .Net SqlClient Data Provider

Any ideas for further debugging?

What does your connection string look like? Please try add "Connect Timeout=120" or "Connection Timeout = 120" in it, and see wether the problems go away.

Thanks!

Ming.

|||<add name="default" connectionString="Data Source=server;Initial Catalog=db;Integrated Security=False; uid=user; password=pw" providerName="System.Data.SqlClient"/>

for .NET via TCP/IP

The regular ASP websites are having problems as well though using ODBC.

Upping the timeout seems like a band-aid at best and may lead to connections piling up and making the situation worse. There isn't a good reason for communication between the frontends and db server over a private Gigabit link to take over 30 seconds to connect.
|||You can use your HOSTS file to define the servername-IP address combination to resolve DNS names. If you have a DNS server, define this in your DNS server. Try a simple test. Try installing any SQL Server client tool(Query Analyzer, Enterprise Manager, etc) on the server running your .NET app. Connect to your database server using this client tool. If it takes more than 5 seconds to connect, there's something wrong with your network|||

Did you get an answer for this?

we are facign similar issues.

We have 4 way cluster sql server 2005 on SP2

|||No I haven't had any answers. The problem is definitely more pronounced during heavier traffic so I wasn't able to debug much during the lull during the summer.