Please ensure that your database is online and running and that the connection string in your web.config file is correct.
1. Open [Install Location of Forums]\web\web.config
2. Within web.config find the configuration section (highlighted) below:
<configuration> <forums> <forums defaultProvder="SqlForumsProvider" defaultLanguage="en-en" > <providers> <add name="SqlForumsProvider" type="AspNetForums.Data.SqlDataProvider, AspNetForums.SqlDataProvider" connectionString="^SqlConnectionString^" databaseOwner = "dbo" /> </providers> </forums> </forums> </configuration>
3. Modify the connection string value to properly identify your database.
For example, to connect to a database named ‘Forums’ on the current machine with an account ‘sa’ and the password ‘password’:
connectionString = "server=.;database=Forums;uid=sa;pwd=password"
For more information you can also visit http://forums.asp.net the home of the ASP.NET Forums development team.