Intermittent System.ComponentModel.Win32Exception: The network path was not found

Question

Since we moved to Azure, we are seeing a couple of issues with our DB.

System.ComponentModel.Win32Exception: The network path was not found

With this call stack:

System.Data.Entity.Core.EntityException: The underlying provider failed on Open. ---> System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException: A network-related or instance-specific error occurred while establishing a connection to SQL Server. The server was not found or was not accessible. Verify that the instance name is correct and that SQL Server is configured to allow remote connections. (provider: Named Pipes Provider, error: 40 - Could not open a connection to SQL Server) ---> System.ComponentModel.Win32Exception: The network path was not found
   --- End of inner exception stack trace ---
   at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlInternalConnection.OnError(SqlException exception, Boolean breakConnection, Action`1 wrapCloseInAction)
   at System.Data.SqlClient.TdsParser.ThrowExceptionAndWarning(TdsParserStateObject stateObj, Boolean callerHasConnectionLock, Boolean asyncClose)
   at System.Data.SqlClient.TdsParser.Connect(ServerInfo serverInfo, SqlInternalConnectionTds connHandler, Boolean ignoreSniOpenTimeout, Int64 timerExpire, Boolean encrypt, Boolean trustServerCert, Boolean integratedSecurity, Boolean withFailover)
   at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlInternalConnectionTds.AttemptOneLogin(ServerInfo serverInfo, String newPassword, SecureString newSecurePassword, Boolean ignoreSniOpenTimeout, TimeoutTimer timeout, Boolean withFailover)
   at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlInternalConnectionTds.LoginNoFailover(ServerInfo serverInfo, String newPassword, SecureString newSecurePassword, Boolean redirectedUserInstance, SqlConnectionString connectionOptions, SqlCredential credential, TimeoutTimer timeout)
   at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlInternalConnectionTds.OpenLoginEnlist(TimeoutTimer timeout, SqlConnectionString connectionOptions, SqlCredential credential, String newPassword, SecureString newSecurePassword, Boolean redirectedUserInstance)
   at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlInternalConnectionTds..ctor(DbConnectionPoolIdentity identity, SqlConnectionString connectionOptions, SqlCredential credential, Object providerInfo, String newPassword, SecureString newSecurePassword, Boolean redirectedUserInstance, SqlConnectionString userConnectionOptions, SessionData reconnectSessionData)
   at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlConnectionFactory.CreateConnection(DbConnectionOptions options, DbConnectionPoolKey poolKey, Object poolGroupProviderInfo, DbConnectionPool pool, DbConnection owningConnection, DbConnectionOptions userOptions)
   at System.Data.ProviderBase.DbConnectionFactory.CreateNonPooledConnection(DbConnection owningConnection, DbConnectionPoolGroup poolGroup, DbConnectionOptions userOptions)
   at System.Data.ProviderBase.DbConnectionFactory.TryGetConnection(DbConnection owningConnection, TaskCompletionSource`1 retry, DbConnectionOptions userOptions, DbConnectionInternal oldConnection, DbConnectionInternal& connection)
   at System.Data.ProviderBase.DbConnectionInternal.TryOpenConnectionInternal(DbConnection outerConnection, DbConnectionFactory connectionFactory, TaskCompletionSource`1 retry, DbConnectionOptions userOptions)
   at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlConnection.TryOpenInner(TaskCompletionSource`1 retry)
   at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlConnection.TryOpen(TaskCompletionSource`1 retry)
   at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlConnection.Open()
   at System.Data.Entity.Infrastructure.Interception.InternalDispatcher`1.Dispatch[TTarget,TInterceptionContext](TTarget target, Action`2 operation, TInterceptionContext interceptionContext, Action`3 executing, Action`3 executed)
   at System.Data.Entity.Infrastructure.Interception.DbConnectionDispatcher.Open(DbConnection connection, DbInterceptionContext interceptionContext)
   at System.Data.Entity.Infrastructure.DbExecutionStrategy.<>c__DisplayClass1.<Execute>b__0()
   at System.Data.Entity.Infrastructure.DbExecutionStrategy.Execute[TResult](Func`1 operation)
   at System.Data.Entity.Core.EntityClient.EntityConnection.Open()
   --- End of inner exception stack trace ---
   at System.Data.Entity.Core.EntityClient.EntityConnection.Open()
   at System.Data.Entity.Core.Objects.ObjectContext.EnsureConnection(Boolean shouldMonitorTransactions)
   at System.Data.Entity.Core.Objects.ObjectContext.ExecuteInTransaction[T](Func`1 func, IDbExecutionStrategy executionStrategy, Boolean startLocalTransaction, Boolean releaseConnectionOnSuccess)
   at System.Data.Entity.Core.Objects.ObjectQuery`1.<>c__DisplayClass7.<GetResults>b__5()
   at System.Data.Entity.Infrastructure.DbExecutionStrategy.Execute[TResult](Func`1 operation)
   at System.Data.Entity.Core.Objects.ObjectQuery`1.GetResults(Nullable`1 forMergeOption)
   at System.Data.Entity.Core.Objects.ObjectQuery`1.<System.Collections.Generic.IEnumerable<T>.GetEnumerator>b__0()
   at System.Data.Entity.Internal.LazyEnumerator`1.MoveNext()
   at System.Linq.Enumerable.FirstOrDefault[TSource](IEnumerable`1 source)
   at System.Linq.Queryable.FirstOrDefault[TSource](IQueryable`1 source, Expression`1 predicate)

The recommandation was to increase ou tier from S0 to S1, which we did, still didn't help.

The second issue is :

System.ComponentModel.Win32Exception: A connection attempt failed because the connected party did not properly respond after a period of time, or established connection failed because connected host has failed to respond

Third one is:

System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException: Login failed for user 'MyUserName'.

We tried:

public class SqlAzureConfiguration : DbConfiguration
    {
        public SqlAzureConfiguration() {
            SetExecutionStrategy("System.Data.SqlClient", () => new SqlAzureExecutionStrategy()); 
        }
    }

That didn't help. Any ideas what is the problem and how to address it?

Edit 1 : our site keeps failing now. I took screen shot with the number of DTUs. As you can see, we have 20 DTUs, and it keeps failing even at a very low usage level.

EDIT 2

We suspected sessions exceeding limit, we tracked those on AppInsight, still not the issue:

Answer 1

We have increased the Timeout in the connectionString from:

Connection Timeout=30;

to

Connection Timeout=1800;

and that has helped. It has been a week and we haven't seen any issues so far.

Answer 2

Anyone who has this error, especially on Azure, try adding "tcp:" to the db-server-name in your connection string in your application. This forces the sql client to communicate with the db using tcp. I'm assuming the connection is UDP by default and there can be intermittent connection issues. This is a slightly different scenario to what the OP has posted as his connection string has tcp , it is important to try this nevertheless