Can't Connect To DB When SqlServer Exp Has Been Idle For A Couple Hours.

Does SQLServer go to sleep when it's been idle? How can I connect without an error?

I have SQLExpress on a server. Server Name is SqlExpress. I have 2 DBs on that server... Tuna & Guppy. I'm connecting to the DBs from a remote PC which runs my App... an exe created with Visual Studio 2008, Visual Basic.

If I run my App at say 9:30PM, after the server has been idle for several hours, I get a "Can't open connection to Guppy" error, which is my error message when the connection attempt fails. If I quit & relaunch the app, it connects fine, and will continue connecting fine unless you leave the server idle for serveral hours again.

If I'm developing a 2nd app all evening... which connects to a 2nd DB...Tuna, that activity seems to keep the SqlServer awake and then launching the 1st app at 9:30PM connects to Guppy just fine.

I tried adding a "Connection Timeout=30" to my connection string but that did not help.

My connection code is as follows (note the server's name is SQLExpress):

Dim strConnG As String = "Data Source=SQLEXPRESSSQLEXPRESS;Initial Catalog=Guppy;Integrated Security=True;Connection Timeout=30"
Using ConnG As New SqlConnection(strConnG)
'open Guppy connection
Try
ConnG.Open()
Catch ex As Exception
MsgBox("Can't open connection to guppy")
Return False
End Try
'Code that does stuff
End using


Can anyone tell me how to fix this so I can connect without error, even if the server has been idle?

Thank you,

Joe A