Sorry to see the trouble you are having with this. The error suggests that the database hostname, database name, or authentication credentials are invalid.
With the help of a more experienced colleague, we have found the issue and fixed,
Problem seems to be because, while October is putting together the connection string, it adds an extra comma between the host and the port when there is no dblib library present in the available drivers.
This can be found in the SetupHelper.php file, inside the checkDatabase function, case ‘sqlsrv’.
Should I open a ticket for this, so that it can be fixed? Or just let it be?
also, the connection string is missing the Encrypt and TrustServerCertificate parameters, which are required by odbc 18