I tracked this error down to a Sharepoint issue. With help from this how-to I gave permissions to the Network Service component and the error seems to have gone.

For what it's worth, Sharepoint has been installed on this server, but there's only two people using it, and I don't think they're doing much with it.

Colin

SQL Server is version 2005 (9.0.1399)

Getting a lot of DCOM errors in the System Event log:

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The application-specific permission settings do not grant Local Activation permission for the COM Server application...

OK, I've managed to run the above two SPs to generate some info, although I'm not sure how to interpret it.

While the DB was taking ages to respond, and I...

Thanks for all that Mark. I'll get into this next time the DB hangs (probably tomorrow!) and get back to you on what happens.

C

Thanks for the tip Mark! I didn't know about SQLCMD, but have checked it out and managed to log into the server using it.

Not sure how to check for...