When opening Statistica Enterprise Manager, user sees the error  "Authentication failed:invalid pointer" 

Here are few steps to try resolving the communication issue between Enterprise Manager and SDMS:

1. Login with system administrator privileges (SADM) into Enterprise manager.

2. Open Enterprise Manager and expand System Options| SDMS Integration. Verify that the ServerURL is pointing to the correct SDMS Server.. If this section is blank, you may verify the SDMS Server by looking up the registry : HKLM\Software\Wow6432Node\Statsoft\ServerLocations\SDMS\ Default key value. If the server information is wrong in either of these places, correct the servername in Enterprise Manager | System Options| SDMS Integration | Server URL. 

3. If the server information is correct in Step 2, verify the following are up and running:

• The SDMS server itself.
• The Statistica Document Management Service ( Open Control Panel | Administrative Tools| Services to view the status of this service)
• The World Wide Web Publishing Service. ( Open Control Panel | Administrative Tools| Services to view the status of this service)

Note: The above listed two services should have a startup type "Automatic" . If the World Wide Web Publishing Service is disabled or automatically stops after a while, this may be due to a security policy in Group Policy.

Click here to read how "Default Domain Policy" can be corrected to have the service automatically startup and thereby correct the invalid pointer error.