The target principal name is incorrect Cannot generate SSPI context

Question

I am struggling to get a SQL Server connection from machine A to machine B which is running the SQL Server   I have Googled extensively and all the things I have found have not worked  Nor do they lead you step by step through the process of solving this   We are not using Kerberos  but NTLM where configured     The machines involved are  xx is used to obscure some of the machine name for security purposes     xxPRODSVR001 - Windows Server 2012 Domain Controller xxDEVSVR003 - Windows Server 2012  This machine is generating the error  xxDEVSVR002 - Windows Server 2012  This machine is running SQL Server 2012    The following SPN s are registered on the DC  xxPRODSVR001   I have obscured the domain with yyy for security purposes      Registered ServicePrincipalNames for CN xxDEVSVR002 CN Computers DC yyy DC local               MSSQLSvc xxDEVSVR002 yyy local 49298              MSSQLSvc xxDEVSVR002 yyy local TFS              RestrictedKrbHost xxDEVSVR002              RestrictedKrbHost xxDEVSVR002 yyy local              Hyper-V Replica Service xxDEVSVR002              Hyper-V Replica Service xxDEVSVR002 yyy local              Microsoft Virtual System Migration Service xxDEVSVR002              Microsoft Virtual System Migration Service xxDEVSVR002 yyy local              Microsoft Virtual Console Service xxDEVSVR002              Microsoft Virtual Console Service xxDEVSVR002 yyy local              SMTPSVC xxDEVSVR002              SMTPSVC xxDEVSVR002 yyy local              WSMAN xxDEVSVR002              WSMAN xxDEVSVR002 yyy local              Dfsr-12F9A27C-BF97-4787-9364-D31B6C55EB04 xxDEVSVR002 yyy local              TERMSRV xxDEVSVR002              TERMSRV xxDEVSVR002 yyy local              HOST xxDEVSVR002              HOST xxDEVSVR002 yyy local       Registered ServicePrincipalNames for CN xxDEVSVR003 CN Computers DC yyy DC local               MSSQLSvc xxDEVSVR003 yyy local 1433              MSSQLSvc xxDEVSVR003 yyy local              Hyper-V Replica Service xxDEVSVR003              Hyper-V Replica Service xxDEVSVR003 yyy local              Microsoft Virtual System Migration Service xxDEVSVR003              Microsoft Virtual System Migration Service xxDEVSVR003 yyy local              Microsoft Virtual Console Service xxDEVSVR003              Microsoft Virtual Console Service xxDEVSVR003 yyy local              WSMAN xxDEVSVR003              WSMAN xxDEVSVR003 yyy local              TERMSRV xxDEVSVR003              TERMSRV xxDEVSVR003 yyy local              RestrictedKrbHost xxDEVSVR003              HOST xxDEVSVR003              RestrictedKrbHost xxDEVSVR003 yyy local              HOST xxDEVSVR003 yyy local    Now if only the SQL Server error message was more descriptive and told me what principal name it was trying to connect to I might be able to diagnose this    So can anyone step me through how to solve this one or can you see anything in what I have provided that is wrong    I would be happy to generate more debug info  just tell me what you need

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In my Case since I was working in my development environment  someone had shut down  the Domain Controller and Windows Credentials couldn t be authenticated  After turning on the Domain Controller  the error disappeared and everything worked just fine

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In case anyone is wondering  I untangled the MS terminology  Target    active directory  target  Active directory target   target server running the domain controller  Domain controller   server that verifies your login information  Principal name   your windows username  SSPI   security support provider interface  Security support provider interface   software interface that manages  quot authenticated  communications quot  and allows SSPs like TLS to allow SSL  among others  SSP   security support provider  SSPI implementation   TLS SSL   you should already know this      Can t verify your password

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This Microsoft Tool is like Magic  Run it  connect it to the SQL server  and click Fix  The old version linked here worked on SQL server 2017    Kerberos Configuration Manager for SQL Server https   www microsoft com en-us download details aspx id 39046

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Try setting Integrated Security true to remove this param from the connection string     IMPORTANT  As user  Auspex commented       Removing Integrated Security will prevent this error  because the error occurs when trying to login with your Windows credentials  Unfortunately  most of the time  you want to be able to login with your Windows credentials

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Check your clock matches between the client and server   When I had this error intermittently  none of the above answers worked  then we found the time had drifted on some of our servers  once they were synced again the error went away  Search for w32tm or NTP to see how to automatically sync the time on Windows

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I was testing out IPv6 on a cluster of PC s in an isolated network and ran into this issue when I reverted back yo IPv4  I had been play in the active directory  DNS and DHCP so have no idea what I prodded to break the Kerberos setup   I retested the connection outside of my software with this useful tip to connect remote connectivity I found   https   blogs msdn microsoft com steverac 2010 12 13 test-remote-sql-connectivity-easily   then after a brief search found this on the Microsoft website https   support microsoft com en-gb help 811889 how-to-troubleshoot-the-cannot-generate-sspi-context-error-message   run the tool on the SQL server see if there are any issue if the status says error then hit the fix button that appears   This resolved the problem for me

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My issue turned out to be so strange and simple    SQL Server Windows Service on ServerA  configured to run using DOMAIN svcAccountA  SQL Server Windows Service on ServerB  configured to run using DOMAIN svcAccountB    Both DOMAIN svcAccountA and DOMAIN svcAccountB are service accounts in our Active Directory domain   Even though all permissions were setup properly for DOMAIN svcAccountA to connect to ServerB  a C  CLR  running as DOMAIN svcAccountA  on ServerA could no longer connect to ServerB using a SqlConnection  same strange uninformative error message  The target principal name is incorrect  Cannot generate SSPI context    The simple part   After rebooting ServerA  the SQL Server Windows Service would no longer start automatically   That was the clue to discovering that someone had changed the password for DOMAIN svcAccountA and I had to correct the SQL Server Windows Service configuration here     After correcting the password  the SQL Server Windows Service on ServerA started fine  and the C  CLR  running as DOMAIN svcAccountA  on ServerA could now connect to ServerB using a SqlConnection

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I was getting the same error when trying through windows authentication  Sounds ludicrous but just in case it helps someone else  it was because my domain account got locked somehow while I was still logged in      Unlocking the account fixed it

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I ran into a variant of this issue  here were the characteristics    User was able to successfully connect to a named instance  for example  connections to Server Instance were successful   User was unable to connect to the default instance  for example  connections to Server failed with the OP s screenshot regarding SSPI   User was unable to connect default instance with fully qualified name  for example  connections to Server domain com failed  timeout    User was unable to connect IP address without named instance  for example  connections to 192 168 1 134 failed   Other users not on the domain  for example  users who VPN to the network  but using domain credentials were able to successfully connect to the default instance and IP address   So after many headaches of trying to figure out why this single user couldn t connect  here are the steps we took to fix the situation    Take a look at the server in the SPN list using setspn -l Server a  In our case  it said Server domain com   Add an entry to the hosts file located in C  Windows System32 drivers etc hosts  run Notepad as Administrator to alter this file    The entry we added was Server domain com Server   After this  we were able to successfully connect via SSMS to the default instance

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I ll add this here as it caught me out and may help someone else  Caveat emptor  I am not a windows person  but had to look at a scenario that included SQL server   I downloaded the developer version of the full SQL Server product and installed it on Windows 10  All good for local connections  nothing for the remote client   Tried many of the above but it eventually dawned on me that the Windows Authentication wanted to authenticate remoteclient myuser and there was no way in a standalone Windows world to create a mechanism to authenticate against  As I understand it kerberos   The error message being  Cannot generate SSPI context    Using SQL Authentication didn t appear to work either   I eventually went back to SQL Server Express which has a combined mode and I could then use SQL Authentication from the remote clients

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I had this problem when accessing the web application  It might be due to i have changed a windows password recently   This issue got resolved when i have updated the password for the app pool where i have hosted the web application

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I ran into this today and wanted to share my fix  since this one is simply overlooked and easy to fix   We manage our own rDNS and recently redid our server naming scheme   As part of that  we should have updated our rDNS and forgot to do this   A ping  turned up the correct hostname  but a ping -a  returned the wrong hostname   Easy fix  change the rDNS  do an ipconfig  flushdns  wait 30 seconds  just something I do   do another ping -a   see it resolving the correct hostname  connect     profit

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I had the same issue  I recently changed my windows password and my website was throwing the error  I tried to logout and login but not worked  Then I realized I configured my defaultappppol using my account in the  custom account  section and I configured the account once again using the new password  This did the magic    Please let me know your feedback on this solution

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I had the same problem for SQL Server 2014 and all I had to do was to run the application as an administrador

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Seems to be issue is related to DNS Server  To resolve this issue change the IP Address to ComputerName   Example  Change the value  10 0 0 10 TestDB  to  YourcomputerName TestDB

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I too had this problem on SQL Server 2014 while logging with windows Authentication  to resolve the issue i have Restarted my server once and then try to login  it worked for me

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This is usually due to missing  incorrect or duplicated Service Principle Names  SPNs   Steps to resolve    Confirm what AD account SQL Server is using Run the following command in Powershell or CMD in administrator mode  service account should not contain the domain     setspn -L  lt ServiceAccountName gt    Select-String  lt ServerName gt    select line     Make sure the returned output contains an SPN which is fully qualified  no fully qualified  with a port and without a port   Expected Output     Registered ServicePrincipalNames for CN  lt ServiceAccountName gt  OU CSN Service Accounts DC  lt Domain gt  DC com   MSSQLSvc  lt ServerName gt   lt domain gt  com 1433 MSSQLSvc  lt ServerName gt  1433                                            MSSQLSvc  lt ServerName gt   lt domain gt  com MSSQLSvc  lt ServerName gt    If you don t see all of the above  run the following command in PowerShell or CMD in admin mode  make sure to change the port if you don t use default 1433     SETSPN -S  MSSQLSvc  lt ServerName gt   lt Domain gt   lt ServiceAccountName gt   SETSPN -S  MSSQLSvc  lt ServerName gt   lt Domain gt   lt Domain gt   lt ServiceAccountName gt   SETSPN -S  MSSQLSvc  lt ServerName gt  1433  lt Domain gt   lt ServiceAccountName gt   SETSPN -S  MSSQLSvc  lt ServerName gt   lt Domain gt  1433  lt Domain gt   lt ServiceAccountName gt      Once above is complete it normally takes a few minutes for DNS propagation   Also  if you get a message about duplicate SPNs found  you may want to delete them and recreate them

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I had this problem when trying to connect to my SQL Server 2017 instance via L2TP VPN on a domain-joined Windows 10 machine   The problem ended up being in my VPN settings  In the security settings  in Authentication  using EAP-MSCHAPv2 and in the Properties dialog  I had selected Automatically use my Windows logon name and password  and domain if any      I turned this off and then re-connected my VPN and then I was able to connect to SQL Server successfully   I believe this was causing my SQL login  with Windows account security  to use Kerberos instead of NTLM  causing the SSPI error

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In my situation I was trying to use Integrated Security to connect from a PC to SQL Server on another PC on a network without a domain  On both PCs  I was signing in to Windows with the same Microsoft account  I switched to a local account on both PCs and SQL Server now connects successfully

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Make sure that  Named Pipes  are enabled from   SQL Server Configuration Manager   This worked for me    Open  SQL Server Configuration Manager   Expand  SQL Server Network Configuration   from the list on the left  Select  Protocols for  Your Instance Name    Right click on  Named Pipes   from the list on the right   Select  Enable  Restart your Instance service

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I had the same issue  but locking  and unlocking the machine worked for me  Sometimes  firewall issues will give errors   I am not sure it will work for you or not  just sharing my experience

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I just ran into this and fixed it by doing 2 things    Granting read write servicePrincipalName permissions to the service account using ADSI Edit  as described in https   support microsoft com en-us kb 811889 Removing the SPNs that previously existed on the SQL Server computer account  as opposed to the service account  using   setspn -D MSSQLSvc HOSTNAME domain name com 1234 HOSTNAME   where 1234 was the port number used by the instance  mine was not a default instance

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In my case  the problem was setting up DNS on the wifi  I removed the settings  and left them empty  and worked

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Integrated Security false  Make this flag as false in webconfig connection string  It will work

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I had the same problem while using face recognition to logon to Windows 10  The workaround is to hold shift and right-click on the SSMS and use Run As Different User and provide username with password

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The SSPI context error definitely indicates authentication is being attempted using Kerberos  Since Kerberos authentication SQL Server s Windows Authentication relies on  Active Directory  which requires a thrusted relationship between your computer and your network domain controller  you should start by validating that relationship  You can quickly check that relationship  thru the following Powershell command Test-ComputerSecureChannel  Test-ComputerSecureChannel -verbose   If it returns False  you must repair your computer Active Directory secure channel  since without it no domain credencials validation is possible outside your computer  You can repair your Computer Secure Channel  thru the following Powershell command  Test-ComputerSecureChannel -Repair  Check the security event logs  if you are using kerberos you should see logon attempts with authentication package  Kerberos  The NTLM authentication may be failing and so a kerberos authentication attempt is being made   You might also see an NTLM logon attempt failure in your security event log  You can turn on kerberos event logging in dev to try to debug why the kerberos is failing  although it is very verbose  Microsoft s Kerberos Configuration Manager for SQL Server may help you quickly diagnose and fix this issue  Here is a good story to read  http   houseofbrick com microsoft-made-an-easy-button-for-spn-and-double-hop-issues

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I have tried all the solutions here and none of them have worked yet  A workaround that is working is to Click Connect  enter the server name  select Options  Connection Properties tab  Set the  Network protocol  to  Named Pipes   This allows users to remote connect using their network credentials  I ll post an update when I get a fix

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I had this problem on my sql server   I setspn -D mssqlsvc Hostname domainname Hostname then stoped and started my SQL server service   I am thinking that just stopping and starting my sql service would have done it

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In your SQL Server Firewall  open ports 1433  4022  135  1434 for inbound and outbound  Works like magic for me

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Since I landed here when looking for a solution to my own problem  I ll share my solution here  in case others land here as well   I was connecting fine to SQL Server until my machine was moved to another office on another domain   Then  after the switch  I was getting this error regarding the target principal name   What fixed it was connecting using a fully qualified name such as  server domain com   And actually  once I connected to the first server that way  I could connect to other servers using just the server name  without the full qualification   but your mileage may vary

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Database in the connection string didn t exist  I thought it did but it hadn t been created yet

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Another niche to this issue caused by network connections  I connect via windows VPN client and this issue popped up when I switched from Wifi to a wired connection  The fix for my situation was to manually adjust the adapter metric  In powershell use Get-NetIPInterface to see all of the metric values  The lower numbers are lower cost and so they are preferred by windows  I switched the ethernet and VPN and the credentials got where they needed to be for SSMS to be happy  To configure the Automatic Metric feature  In Control Panel  double-click Network Connections  Right-click a network interface  and then select Properties  Click Internet Protocol  TCP IP   and then select Properties  On the General tab  select Advanced  To specify a metric  on the IP Settings tab  select to clear the Automatic metric check box  and then enter the metric that you want in the Interface Metric field  Source  https   docs microsoft com en-us troubleshoot windows-server networking automatic-metric-for-ipv4-routes

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I ran into a new one for this  SQL 2012 hosted on Server 2012  Was tasked to create a cluster for SQL AlwaysOn  Cluster was created everyone got the SSPI message     To fix the problems ran following command    setspn -D MSSQLSvc SERVER FQNName 1433 DomainNamerunningSQLService     DomainNamerunningSQLService    the domain account I set for SQL I needed a Domain Administrator to run the command  Only one server in the cluster had issues    Then restarted SQL   To my surprise I was able to connect

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I had this problem and it grabbed my around 4-5 hours to find the root cause of this error message  Only difference is  i was getting this error while connecting DB from Visual Studio only  not direct via SQL Server Management Studio    Reason behind error is  my application was hosted on local IIS and I had changed my system password one day ago  but didn t update it to IIS Application Pool of my hosted application    I went to IIS  clicked on application pools  in pool list right click on appropriate app pool  go to  Advanced Settings   select  Identity  and changed its value  Domain AccountName  amp  New Password  under  Custom Account  and it solved my problem    Thanks

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I had this issue when I changed SQL Server service user  When it happened on a main instance  following point 1 and two below fixed the problem  due to SPN not being updated  I also had this issue when I changed a named instance service user  This new user was a domain account already in use by the main instance  I am not aware of what went wrong  but I fixed it this way   I followed the above advice  see previous threads  to run the Microsoft   Kerberos Configuration Manager for SQL Server   The tool discovered some issues and fixed them for me The tool suggested that dynamic ports enabled on the named instance were not a good idea and I therefore ran my sql server configuration manager and  configured the named instance to use a static port  number is not important as long as it s available   Path to configuration  Protocols for named instance  right click on the TCP IP  properties  IP Addresses  clear all TCP dynamic ports content  set the port number of your choice to all TCP port properties  Created an alias  sql native client configuration - gt  aliases - gt  new alias  The server is your database server name  the port is the one mentioned above  the alias name I chose was the same as the instance name without the server name  eg server1 sqlsrv2017  server   server1  alias   sqlsrv2017  Restarted the instance service  as promped  Needless to say the the port must be cleared using the firewall  if this is enabled

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Had only one user who got this error on only one SQL Server   Turns out he had stored an old password in the Control Panel - Credential Manager under Windows Credentials for the server name   Removed the stored credential and it worked

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I was trying to connect to a VM running SQL Server 2015 from my laptop in a Visual Studio 2015 Console App  I run my app the night before and it is fine  In the morning I try to debug the app and I get this error  I tried ipconfig flush and release   renew and a a bunch of other garbage  but in the end     Restart your VM and restart the client  That fixed it for me  I should have known  restart works every time

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I m running a Mickey Mouse testing system based on SQL COM   I ran setspn -T sql -F -Q   Servername  in this case SQL01  on both the machine I couldn t connect to and a machine I could  I then simply removed the additional entries in the problem machine and it all worked  e g  setspn -D MSSQLSvc SQL01 SQL COM 1433 SQL01

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Login to both your SQL Box and your client and type   ipconfig  flushdns nbtstat -R   If that doesn t work  renew your DHCP on your client machine    This work for 2 PCs in our office

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Just to add another potential solution to this most ambiguous of errors The target principal name is incorrect  Cannot generate SSPI context    Net SqlClient Data Provider     Verify that the IP that is resolved when pinging the SQL Server is the same as the one in the Configuration Manager  To check  open SQL Server Configuration Manager and then go to SQL Server Network Configuration   Protocols for MSSQLServer   TCP IP   Make sure TCP IP is enabled and in the IP Addresses tab  make sure that the IP that the server resolves to when pinging is the same one here  That fixed this error for me

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Not at all an ideal solution  I just wanted to add this for future reference for anyone seeing this page   I was having this issue trying to connect to a remote SQL Server instance using my domain account  trying the same thing on an instance hosted on a different machine worked fine   So if you have the option to just use a different instance it may help  but this doesn t actually address whatever the issue is

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The issue seems to be a windows credentials issue  I was getting the same error on my work laptop with a VPN  I am supposedly logged in as my Domain Username  which is what I use successfully when connecting directly but as soon as I move to a VPN with another connection I receive this error  I thought it was a DNS issue as I could ping the server but it turns out I needed to run SMSS explicitly as my user from Command prompt   e g  runas  netonly  user YourDoman YourUsername  C  Program Files  x86  Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio 18 Common7 IDE Ssms exe

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I was logging into Windows 10 with a PIN instead of a password  I logged out and logged back in with my password instead and was able to get in to SQL Server via Management Studio

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In my case  restarting SQL Server 2014  on my development server  fixed the issue

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Please check the permissions for mentioned login name in SQL server management studio make it sysadmin checkbox tick and then make Integrated Security False in the  config file   Fire 2 commands on the client machine   ipconfig  flushdns klist purge    install kerbarose configuration manager on the client computer   Finally  Restart client machine and main SQL server services  Run the application on the client machine  This Works 100  correctly

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I received this error when connecting via SQL Server Management Studio using Windows Authentication  My password had expired but I had not yet changed it  Once changed  I then had to log out and log back in so that the machine was working using my new credentials

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I had this problem with an ASP NET MVC app I was working on   I realized I had recently changed my password  and I was able to fix it by logging out and logging back in again

[sql-server] The target principal name is incorrect. Cannot generate SSPI context

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