Hello,

I used the Task Toolbox to create a maintenance plan, so all was working until... this happened - please read the following problems people have:

http://www.sqlservercentral.com/blogs/sqldownsouth/2011/10/13/sql-server-2012-ssis-_1320_-why-is-my-toolbox-empty_3F00_/

http://www.jamesserra.com/archive/2013/01/ssis-2012-empty-toolbox/

This exactly describes my problem. However none of the solutions or workarounds work for me. First - yes, I click on the "toolbox" icon at the right top hand corner. Yet still all my tasks are grayed out. I tried resetting the toolbox, nothing.I checked all possible Menu -> Tools, menu->View options and can't find anything leading me to the solution.

I can't submit any pictures here, so my words only. Anyone willing to help? MS documentation doesn't help either. Not a clue.

[EDIT]

Ok, so instead of using the Toolbox I opened the Management -> Maintenance plans from where I created a new Maintenance subplan. Then when I clicked on my maintenance pland and pressed Modify I had the plan window open and from there I can see my Toolbox items are not grayed out. So how do I actually open the Maintenance plan design window? This I believe is where the problem is.

Thanks

Ryszard

• Edited by Richlion Wednesday, February 25, 2015 11:12 AM

Hi Richlion

As I understand it; you cannot modify an existing maintenance plan but you can create a new one is this correct?

Can you create a new Maintenance Plan and then edit the new

Hello,

Could you please try to run the following tool and try to find any errors related to the SSIS toolbox like access denied or file not found errors?

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896645.aspx

Hope this helps.

Regards,

Alberto Morillo
SQLCoffee.com

I can create a new maintenance plan and edit it. I don't have any errors, so there is nothing wrong with any permissions. The only thing is missing is the DESIGN window gone, that is why my Toolbox has all items grayed out. When I "edit" an existing Maintenance Plan then the Toolbox is ok and grayed out items are no longer grayed out. Sorry to be so elaborate.

I can't find any other way to get the DESIGN window back. When I started first using the Toolbox it was there somehow by default. I must have then clicked something and it disappeared, so I am trying to find out how can get it displayed again.

Look at figure 1 on this example:

http://programming4.us/database/16876.aspx

Maintenance plan in the middle, on the right panel you see the design window, that is what I don't have.

Thanks

Ryszard

• Edited by Richlion Thursday, February 26, 2015 10:59 AM

Ok, has the Server been moved to another domain?

If it has then this is the issue; this is a problem I came across quite a few years ago.  If your Services are using domain credentials rather than local Server credentials then this can cause this issue as "sa" can no longer authenticate with the Credentials/domain which were in place when the original Maintenance Plan was created.

You will need to delete the old maintenance plan and recreate your database maintenance.

I recall that I introduced the Maintenance plans to run backups because my team wanted to change the IP address of the server. When I setup the Maintenance plans all was working. The domain, instance and server name remained untouched. So I assume this happened sometime after the IP address change.

I would be surprised if this could cause such a problem. However, I've seen such odd problems people had with this "thing", for example using some very specific type of mouse could disable the Toolbox functions.

• Edited by Richlion Thursday, February 26, 2015 3:58 PM

The problem is due to limits on our licenses I only have one production server. No other servers I can use as a test.

When I run tests I clone this server as a VM and this unfortunately replicates the problem and I don't have any previous full backups of the system in the form of the whole cloned-like server.

On my PC I have Sql-Server Express installed, but that does not have the options the full SQL-Server has, there are no maintenance plans in the Toolbox.

• Edited by Richlion Thursday, February 26, 2015 4:01 PM

You will need to delete the old maintenance plan and recreate your database ma

You can install SSMS on additional machines without the need for additional SQL Server licenses. The licenses are only for the instance, but SSMS is free of charge.

This is most likely a problem with the client tool, not the server. This is why im recommending you to try it out on a fresh installed SSMS.

If that doesn't work we'll look at some other options.

After a couple of days of fiddling with the maintenance plans I came to the conclusion that the Toolbox list will always be disabled unless you do one of the following:

1) Create a new Maintenance plan - the editor opens

2) Edit and existing plan.

In the end I don't think there is anything wrong with the Toolbox.

Thanks to everyone for all the suggestions.

Regards,

Ryszard

• Edited by Richlion Thursday, March 05, 2015 8:13 AM Solution found
• Proposed as answer by Alan Rimer 43 minutes ago

I just had the exact same issue with the Toolbox "Maintenance Plan Tasks" being grayed out and no design window.

I found some one had installed a newer version of SQL Server Management Studio!!!

I was trying to use SQL Management Studio 2008R2. I then used SQL Management Studio 2005 and there was the design window and all the tasks!

Regards

Alan