frequent issues using Autocad to connect to SDE

[LucasMoss]

We have a few users connecting to a geodatabase (SQL) to work with live data in Autocad Civil3D 2011 (and I've also tried Map3D), and they are able to connect to the SDE fine using the ArcSDE provider, but when they load a .layer file in Autocad it frequently either fails to load, or can't refresh and load data. Sometimes the fix is to remove the layer, disconnect the connection created by the layer file, and load it again - something which just worked for me in Map3D. It seems like the one major hurdle to them being able to work with this data productively is trying to load these .layers and refresh them in Cad.
On the server end, I see "Login failed for user 'sde'" in the sql server log, corresponding with the failed layer loading. The .layer files have hard-coded connection information, in xml format, and I'm wondering if there is a better way to do this whole thing to bypass the Autocad layer flakiness.

Any ideas?

[VinceAngelo]

I'm pretty sure the ArcSDE provider is an AutoCAD product, and that Esri didn't have
anything to do with its creation.  An AutoCAD forum would probably be a better place
to look for help with this tool.

I would note that the 'sde' login failures indicate that you're not using best practice on
the ArcSDE side of the equation (the 'sde' login shouldn't ever own spatial data -- instead,
create one or more data management accounts, and reserve the 'sde' user for ArcSDE
administration).

Good luck.

- V