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Knowledgebase: Databases
SQL Server Management Studio can not list databases
Posted by Paul Woodland (Import) on 30 November 2009 09:31 PM
Sometimes you may see the following error when attempting to list the databases on SQL Server using SQL Server Management Studio:

The server principal "Your Username" is not able to access the database "A Database Name" under the current security context.

This is caused by certain combinations of permissions causing SQL Server to deny access when getting a database's collation. There is a simple fix that can be applied to stop Management Studio attempting to get the collation. Once this is done once, it will not need to be done again on the same PC.

  1. Close the error message (make sure you cause the error to occur and then close it, or you will not be on the right screen for the next steps)
  2. Press F7 to open the Object Explorer Details pane.
  3. Right-click the column headers, and make sure that only the following columns are selected:
    • Name
    • Date Created
    • Policy Health
    • Owner
  4. Right-click the Databases node, and then click Refresh.


The database list should then appear fine.
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