
Veeam Backup & Replication is comprehensive data protection and disaster recovery solution that provides a centralized console for administering backup, restore, and replication operations in all supported platforms (virtual, physical, cloud). Regardless of what your needs are ranging from flexible hybrid cloud capabilities from AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, or the most robust ransomware protection and recovery options. Kindly refer to these related guides: Veeam Certified Architect: A review of the VMCA Training & Certification, how to set up Veeam ONE 11 Server, how to uninstall Veeam Backup and Replication from your server, and how to set up Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure [Part 1].
Here is the Eror message "Error 1064: An exception occurred in the service when handling the control request: No connection can be made because the active machine rejected it".
Veeam brings hardened immutable storage options, dependable cloud-native backup options, Continuous Data Protection, and much more all under one platform, with a single portable license for all workloads. I created this blog post due to the following error described in this guide “Windows could not start the SQL Server service on local computer 17051: A network-related or instance-specific error occurred while establishing a connection to SQL Server“.
Kindly refer to these related guides:
- How to install MSSQL Server 2019 Developer Edition and SSMS on Windows, and
- How to download and install Microsoft SQL Server 2019 Express edition and SSMS, and
- The server was not found or was not accessible: A network-related or instance-specific error occurred while establishing a connection to SQL Server.
The following is a related error “Failed to connect to Veeam Backup & Replication Server: No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it“. Even when you try to start the service, it does not start and it fails with the following error.


Reason for the error
This is because the evaluation period of 180 days has expired. Kindly refer to this guide on MSSQL licensing: How to upgrade SQL Server instance. Also, I decided to take a look at the log as shown below. Microsoft Windows servers, logs are stored in the following directory: %ProgramData%\Veeam\Backup. On a Linux machine, and ESXi hosts, logs are stored in the following directory: /var/log/VeeamBackup/
or /tmp/VeeamBackup
.

[21.02.2022 21:59:45] <04> Info [DB] Connecting to SQL Server (CurrentUser=[TECHDIRECTARCHI\Christian], ServerInstance=[MBAMSERV1\MBAM], Options=[Direct])
[21.02.2022 21:59:45] <04> Info [DB] Removing 'Initial Catalog' property from connection string
[21.02.2022 22:01:45] <04> Info [DB|ERROR] Failed to connect to server . (Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Common.ConnectionFailureException)
[21.02.2022 22:01:45] <04> Info [DB|ERROR] at Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Common.ConnectionManager.Connect()
[21.02.2022 22:01:45] <04> Info [DB|ERROR] at Veeam.Backup.DBCreator.DatabaseConnector.Connect(DatabaseConnectorOptions options)
[21.02.2022 22:01:45] <04> Info [DB|ERROR] 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: Named Pipes Provider, error: 40 - Could not open a connection to SQL Server) (System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException)
As you can see below, the SQL Server service isn’t running.

Upon resolving this issue by upgrading the SQL Server instance, I was now able to start the service as shown below. Kindly refer to these related guides: How to install MSSQL Server 2019 Developer Edition and SSMS on Windows, and how to download and install Microsoft SQL Server 2019 Express edition and SSMS.

Yet, the Veeam Backup and Replication console could not be started with the following error “Failed to connect to the Backup and Replication Server - No connection can be made because the active machine rejected it"
.

To fix these issues, you will need to grant the Veeam Backup Service local administrative rights. For me, the local system account did not work.
Note: The account used to run the Veeam Backup Service must be a LocalSystem account or must have local Administrator permissions on the backup server.

Upon granting these rights, I was able to start the Veeam Backup and Replication Console. The console allows you to automate and schedule routine data protection operations and integrate with solutions for alerting and generating compliance reports.
I hope you found this blog post helpful. If you have any questions, please let me know in the comment session.