This problem occurs because of behavior that occurs when previous connection attempts to the server that is running Microsoft SQL Server fail. The SqlClient connection pool may internally throttle the number of new connection attempts to the server. This process is intended to occur for a short time. During this time, the connection pool automatically reports the last error that occurred instead of making a connection attempt to the server. After the time period has expired, the next connection request from the client application achieves a true connection to the server that is running SQL Server.
Note Sometimes, the time period can grow very large. This problem will depend on how long the database server is unavailable.