An old thread, but is top of the list from a Google search. I have had this problem intermittently for several years. Running an earlier year first usually but not always prevented the error. I tried all of the suggestions here, none worked. Opening a prior year program sometimes would allow the current year to run but it wasn't consistent.
I finally found a workaround. Going into Services and starting all of the ATX servers listed allows the software to reliably start the first time I click on the link.
I don't know the actual cause of the problem but as a WAG it may be that the software needs access to the prior years whenever there is rollover data and this is causing the "cannot connect to server" errors. The software does not automatically start the prior year servers and it is the prior years access that is actually triggering the error. Not access to the current year's server service.
