Encrypted Database String all of the sudden stopped working

My database string has been encrypted for years.  Last night it stopped working all of the sudden.  The connection string is:
<connectionStrings configProtectionProvider="DataProtectionConfigurationProvider">
        <EncryptedData>
            <CipherData>
                <CipherValue>BigLongEncryptedString</CipherValue>
            </CipherData>
        </EncryptedData>
    </connectionStrings>
 
Here's the error that it was showing: A network-related or instance-specific error occurred while establishing a connection to SQL Server. The server was not found or was not accessible. 
 
As soon as I set t ...