I am about to escalate this to MS, but I thought I would try here first and see if anyone has any ideas as to how to prevent this faux error... When connecting to SQL (2016 and 2017 latest builds) with a dedicated administrator connection (DAC) via a PowerShell, I get the following error. The query ***does*** run successfully. Numerous connections string management iterations have been attempted, this one is the most robust so far. A solution exists on stackexchange that involves killing the spid before closing the connection, but that also throws a nuisance message into the SQL errorlog, so no joy there. "Could not connect because the maximum number of '1' dedicated administrator connections already exists. Before a new connection can be made, the existing dedicated administrator connection must be dropped, either by logging off or ending the process" Examining sys.dm_exec_sessions reveals nothing of interest, no connections remain open using this technique. The below PowerShell has a dummy query in it, I can't talk about why we are connecting this way because it is proprietary, but it is 100% necessary, it is a very quick connection, and I need to do it once every 10 minutes. This error is a total nuisance/noise. DAC query runs and works as expected. Error fires *every time* even with a fresh restart on a quiesced system. There are NO other DACs - if there is it would throw a very heinous error at the command prompt. Interestingly, when using sqlcmd for this, it does not throw the error. #begin powershell script $SqlServerName = "server\instance" $DbQuery = " INSERT INTO master.dbo.sometable(value1,value2) values ('test14','testtest14');" function Get-SqlConnection { param ( [String] $SqlServerName ) $sqlConnection = $null try { $sqlConnection = New-Object System.Data.SqlClient.SqlConnection $sqlConnection.ConnectionString = "data source=admin:$SqlServerName;Integrated Security=True; pooling=false" $sqlConnection.Open() } catch { if ($sqlConnection) { [void] $sqlConnection.Dispose() } throw } $sqlConnection } try { $sqlCommand = New-Object System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand $sqlConnection = Get-SqlConnection -SqlServerName $SqlServerName $sqlCommand.Connection = $SqlConnection $sqlCommand.CommandText = $dbQuery [void] $sqlCommand.ExecuteNonQuery() } finally { if ($sqlCommand) { [void] $sqlCommand.Dispose() } if ($sqlConnection) { [void] $sqlConnection.Dispose() } }