I think your attempt to open the connection is failing because you have single quotes round the database name ("blah Initial Catalog='DBA'") and you simply swallow the error ("On Error Resume next").
There are many ways to trace messages between client-server (e.g. Profiler or NM34) or you can simply debug the VBA (step by step). Simple !
HTH
Dick
congrats to Jeff Moden for winning X-DBA (but I bogied this one first)