Quest Active Roles Server - Failed to connect to Administration Service

Issue:

When you open the Active Roles Server MMC on the server you encounter the following message: 

Connecting to Administration Service on 'SERVER NAME HERE'...

Loading schema...

Failed to connect to Administration Service on 'SERVER NAME HERE'.

Building startup information is in progress. Wait until the information is built, and then try again.

Value cannot be null.

Chances are you'll also find that the web interface isn't working.

Fixes to Try:

1] The Service. Open up Services on the server and check the Administration Service is definitely running. If it's not then Start it up. If it is, try Restarting the service.

2] The Source. When you open up the MMC, rather than choosing the SERVER NAME as the location of the Administration Service simply choose <any server in the forest..>. This may seem a bit random but it worked for us after the infrasturcture team had moved the ARS Server and SQL Server onto a new part of the network.

3] is the service account which runs the Administration Service still good? Has its password expired or has it become locked for some reason?

Long Shots:

1] Can ARS talk to SQL? If you have the sql backend installed on a remote server then it's worth testing that the server can connect to the database. Go to Admin Tools on the ARS server and set up a System DSN connection to the ARS database on the remote SQL server. Check everything works ok.

2] DNS. Have a check in DNS to make sure nothing has changed and that the server and the remote sql db server still have the right names/ip addresses.

3] Firewalls. Are there any firewalls between the server and the remote SQL server? If so, can you view the logs to determine if any traffic is getting blocked.

Nuclear Option:
1] Remove the ARS Admin service from the server. Rename the ARS database that ARS uses (should be called ARServer67, ActiveRoles69 or something similar) to database_nameOLD. Reinstall the Admin Service from the installation kit. Import the data from the old database_nameOLD database into the new database which will have been created by the fresh install.