Load balancing read only SQL 2008R2 servers

You probably want to modify the value of the Action on Service Down setting for the Pool. The default is none, if you change it to Reselect LTM will select another Pool Member and ‘rebind’ the client-side connection to a new Pool member.

If authentication is involved however I'd imagine things would still break. If you use persistence for that reason or some other reason, things will break, application wise.

action on service down is already set to reselect

OK. Is persistence used/required?

no it is not used

Interesting. Would this apply? http://support.f5.com/kb/en-us/solutions/public/8000/100/sol8160.html

Any iRules in play?

Any authentication involved?

No irules in place for this VIP and the LTM is version BIG-IP 11.3.0 Build 3022.0 Hotfix HF3

So, how about changing Action on Service Down to Reject; won't that speed up the recovery, even if it's not transparent?

We have tried that too already

Only just noticed you're using nPath. As the LB is only involved once to make the initial load balancing decision surely whatever you set it'll fail as the F5 isn't acting as a proxy here.

So is it possible that the npath is keeping the connection alive then?