"We do not work and live in FairyLand where elephants drop out of the sky by magic."

I live in South Florida so I'm used to big umbrellas.  But I can't...

One thought although I'll probably get ripped for this suggestion.  I had a similar situation a while back that was giving me fits while trying to upgrade MSDE on a laptop. ...

If it's returning NULL, you will probably have to use the sp_dropserver, and sp_addserver stored procedures to get the name back.  Do this from the Master database.  You're not really...

Another point worth making here is that setting the 'Truncate Log on Checkpoint' optoin effectively puts your database in Simple Recovery mode.  This means that in the event of data...

Windows 2000 Server will support up to 4 gigs and 8 if it's Advanced Server.  Are you sure the 3 gigs are available to SQL Server though, and that it's...

Sorry...having trouble with my posts disappearing today.

As to your question regarding configuration settings, you can try changing the Query Timeout setting to 0 (Unlimited) on the Connections tab from the...

Okay, then here's a few more things to check or try:

1.  If you're not already doing so, run a DBCC_CheckDB on the database in question and check for any problems/corruption. ...

As long as we're ranting...

When I issue you a shiny new $2,500 touchscreen laptop (stylus included) will you please use ANYTHING but a freaking pen when you touch the screen? 

Another thought.  Does firing off the job manually work?  You may want to start Profiler beforehand to capture what's going on at the server and attempt to identify the culprit.

If...

Well, that's true of any database that's in Simple recovery mode but then they would be receiving a different error message than timeout expired.

If you're backing up to a local...

One or two things come to mind right away.  Do you have any third party backup software running on this server?  When we have had these types of problems, that...

I'd be interested in what Noel says as well if he's here today.  But you say the agent did work after explicitly setting lightweight pooling to off in your query. ...

You may want to check this article from Microsoft and see if the suggestions help in your situation:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;303287&sd=tech

Well, it's Friday again and I'm still waiting for all my Sys Admin day goodies from my manager.  Guess it's not going to happen.

And did anyone else notice that 'sushila'...

Well Steve, you've got my vote for one.  If all I have to do is vote for new hardware, I'll be voting like any good South Floridian (that is to...