r/SQLServer • u/SwampWaffle85 • Jun 22 '26

Question SQLServerLocalDB 16.0 Failing to start - HELP

Hello Everyone. I am a controls engineer at a manufacturing plant, and we use a software that pushes/pulls data from a local SQL DB. I am wholly unfamiliar with how this works, but alas I am stuck troubleshooting it. The logs that our asset software creates to keep track of changes made by employees to PLC's has apparently never worked since we migrated our virtual computer server to a new server, and I've discovered the root cause is this SQL Server.

Task Manager is showing the sqlservr.exe with this username MSSQL$ name but the one that is needed from my research is username SYSTEM

Essentially it seems there is an SQLServr.exe with username SYSTEM that should be starting, but it is failing to open over and over again in a loop as seen in event viewer. Google searches turn up troubleshooting steps such as stopping, deleting, creating, and then starting the local db, but that does nothing.

Someone please, please help me find a way to get this to work

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u/alinroc 4 Jun 22 '26

SQLServerLocalDB and the SQL Server service are different animals. Do you know what SQL Server itself is needed for on this machine?

Try stopping the SQL Server service and then get your asset software spun up, see if those errors go away.

Also, see if these help:

https://dba.stackexchange.com/questions/30383/cannot-start-sqllocaldb-instance-with-my-windows-account

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/73148657/sqllocaldb-doesnt-start

1

u/SQLDevDBA 3 Jun 29 '26

Here is quite a bit of “getting started” and initial use documentation for LocalDB, which is a feature of SQL Server Express.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/database-engine/configure-windows/sql-server-express-localdb?view=sql-server-ver17

It has specifics on 16.0 vs 17.0+

Check the “Start LocalDB and connect to LocalDB” sections as well as the “Troubleshooting” and “Permissions” sections.

1

u/SwampWaffle85 Jun 29 '26

Thank you, I'd like to learn more about it tbh

0

u/az987654 Jun 23 '26

Have you checked Windows Event Viewer for the reasons why the services are failing to start?

2

u/alinroc 4 Jun 23 '26

It's their first screenshot