# MSSQL Connection to Server Instance fails due to Connection String parsing
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/mssql-connection-to-server-instance-fails-due-to-connection-string-parsing/244738
**Category:** Beats
**Tags:** metricbeat
**Created:** [August 12, 2020, 2:31pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/mssql-connection-to-server-instance-fails-due-to-connection-string-parsing/244738 "2020-08-12T14:31:35Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@phebing](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/phebing)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2020, 2:31pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/mssql-connection-to-server-instance-fails-due-to-connection-string-parsing/244738/1 "2020-08-12T14:31:35Z")
I would like to connect the Metricbeat MSSQL to a specific Instance of the sql server.
Connecting to another server without an instance works fine, but i can't get it to work with an instance.
My yml file looks like this
```auto
#-------------------------------- MS-SQL Module --------------------------------
- module: mssql
metricsets:
- "transaction_log"
- "performance"
hosts: 'sqlserver://127.0.0.1\\Instance_Name'
username: '${sql_user}'
password: '${sql_pwd}'
period: 10s
enabled: true
```
Using double slash results in
```auto
host parsing failed for mssql-transaction_log: error parsing URL: parse sqlserver://127.0.0.1\Instance_Name: invalid character "\\" in host name; host parsing failed for mssql-performance
```
Using a single slash results in
```auto
could not create connection to db: error doing ping to db: lookup 127.0.0.1 nstance_Name: no such host;
```
---
### Author:  [@shaunak](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/shaunak)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2020, 6:43pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/mssql-connection-to-server-instance-fails-due-to-connection-string-parsing/244738/2 "2020-08-12T18:43:38Z")
What version of Metricbeat are you using?
Can you try with replacing the `\\` with `/`?
Shaunak
---
### Author:  [@phebing](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/phebing)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2020, 7:56am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/mssql-connection-to-server-instance-fails-due-to-connection-string-parsing/244738/3 "2020-08-13T07:56:51Z")
Thanks, the `/`worked.
Thought i tried it out before. Still a bit odd, since all other applications seem to use the `\` ([example](https://www.connectionstrings.com/microsoft-data-sqlclient/connection-to-a-sql-server-instance/)).
Version is 7.5 btw.
---
### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [September 10, 2020, 9:56am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/mssql-connection-to-server-instance-fails-due-to-connection-string-parsing/244738/4 "2020-09-10T09:56:56Z")
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