How do I fix the error 'Named Pipes Provider, error 40 - Could not open a connection to' SQL Server'?

Question

I can\'t seem to connect to my database from a site. I get this error:

Named Pipes Provider, error: 40 - Could not open a connection to SQL Server

Answer 1

I had this issue but none of the suggestions above fixed it.

I was seeing this issue when I deployed my website to IIS. The fix was to go into advanced settings against the default app pool and change the identity property from the default to Administrator.