In an ASM installation that is using SQL server as database it's possible to find the following error:
ODBC> — — [4060][42000] – [Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][SQL Server]
Cannot open "ASM_DB" database. Access denied.
At the same time, checking the SQL logs you will find an error similar to this one:
Login failed for user 'username'. [CLIENT: 12.34.567.89]
Error: 18456, severity: 14, state: 16.
Error 18456 is a generic one and several problems can lead to this one. To troubleshoot these kind of errors you should take note of the state parameter and check amongst the Microsoft KB articles for a solution. The following links are inherent to SQL server 2005:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925744/en-us
http://blogs.msdn.com/sql_protocols/archive/2006/02/21/536201.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms366351.aspx
In the example above, state 16 match with an "unexpected internal processing error", thus the culprit should be SQL Server rather than ASM.
It's suggested to apply all the hotfixes available for SQL Server. If this doesn't solve the issue, please contact Microsoft support.
if this doesn't solve the problem, please look at this article too.
