Windows Sync Manager shows error message "Microsoft SQL Server could not save the security changes" when specifying user/password for publisher/distributor

  • Article

Symptoms

In pull subscriptions, when you use Windows Synchronization Manager to synchronize, it will ask for security information to connect to publisher and distributor. As soon as you click ON on the dialog box, it would show error message

 

Microsoft SQL Server could not save the security changes

 

Cause

Current logged on user does not have adequate permissions over registry entries

 

Resolution

 Collect Process Monitor Logs and you will see ACCESS DENIED for couple of registry keys including the ones belonging to SQL Server. In a specific scenario they were

 Operation  Path  Result  Detail
 RegCreateKey  HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10.MSSQLSERVER\Replication\Subscriptions\<Subscription>  ACCESS DENIED Desired Access: Write 
 RegCreateKey  HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10.MSSQLSERVER\Replication\Subscription\<Subscription> ACCESS DENIED  Desired Access: Write
 RegCreateKey  HKLM\SOFTWARE\Description  ACCESS DENIED  Desired Access: Maximum Allowed
 RegOpenKey  HKLM\Software\Microsoft\MSSQLServer\Client\SNI10.0  ACCESS DENIED Desired Access: Write
 RegOpenKey  HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\WinSock2\Parameters  ACCESS DENIED  Desired Access: All Access
 RegOpenKey HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\WinSock2\Parameters ACCESS DENIED Desired Access: All Access

 

Ensure that the current logged on account has adequate permissions over these registry keys (or whichever they turn out to be in ProcMon Logs.)

Comments

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Hello Orr, First you may want to check if your account has read/write permissions over the registry keys mentioned in above blog post. If that doesn't help then you can leverage the tool Process Monitor [http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896645.aspx] to find out what registry keys are having permission issues. -Thanks, Anurag Sharma

  • Anonymous
    February 14, 2010
    I tried running Sync Center as administrator, but is still cannot save the passwords. What am I doing wrong? Do someone know the exact registry keys to add?

  • Anonymous
    February 14, 2010
    I tried running Sync Center as administrator, but is still cannot save the passwords. What am I doing wrong? Do someone know the exact registry keys to add?

  • Anonymous
    December 29, 2010
    Hi Anurag. Giving the user the permissions solved the error message. Thank you for that. But using the Process Monitor showed me, that mobsync doesn't save the passwords specified for sql authentication of the publisher, distributor, or subscription. When trying to synchronize, it tries to read the fields, doesn't find them and prompts for the passwords every sync. Keys like DistributorEncryptedPassword DistributorEncryptedPasswordBinary same for Subscription and Publisher Do you know a fix for that, I have that issue on xp, vista plus 7. Thanks, Daniel