SQL Server Management Studio 2012 hangs
When I click on the "Databases" node in "Object Explorer" it just keeps on "Loading items" until at some point it just hangs.
This happens only when connecting to a remote server, not when accessing a database on my PC.
It also doesn't happen with any other node.
The guys at the web-hosting company didn't have any trouble with it. (But they're running 2008, and so is the SQL server there)
I reinstalled the whole SQL server etc. but to no avail.
What might be the problem?
Answer
I experienced this same problem: when accessing a remote server with the Object Explorer, SSMS would hang indefinitely. The Windows System Event Log would show DCOM error 10009 ("DCOM was unable to communicate with the computer MACHINE_NAME using any of the configured protocols.").
The solution was to clear the MRU history and other settings from my profile. To do that:
- Close any open instances of SSMS 2012
- In Explorer, open "%AppData%\Microsoft\SQL Server Management Studio"
- Rename the "11.0" folder to something else, like "11.0.old"
- Open SSMS 2012
You'll see that your MRU list has been cleared. You should then be able to re-enter your credentials and use SSMS as normal.
If everything works, you can delete the renamed folder. Otherwise, delete the new "11.0" folder that was created and rename the original one back to "11.0".
I have no idea whether it's actually the MRU list that's causing this problem or if it's some other profile data.
We were able to discover that SSMS is trying to make a DCOM connection over port 135 to the SQL Server (perhaps for SSIS, T-SQL Debugging, or something else). Our firewall was configured to block port 135. By opening the port in the firewall we were able to use SSMS (hence the reason it worked against local databases but not remote ones). Unfortunately, an open port 135 is an invitation for a lot of attacks, so that wasn't a practical solution for us.