Opening Symmetric Keys I am trying to open a symmetric key I created in a database, but it doesn't seem to be working. I am executing the query as dbo and it even says that it is completed successfully. However, the value for the key being open is still set to false and I cannot move forward. I am not sure how to proceed. 

CREATE MASTER KEY ENCRYPTION BY PASSWORD = 'password'
go

CREATE CERTIFICATE Certificate1
WITH SUBJECT = 'Subject';
go

CREATE SYMMETRIC KEY SymmetricKey1
WITH ALGORITHM = AES_256
ENCRYPTION BY CERTIFICATE Certificate1;
go

OPEN SYMMETRIC KEY SymmetricKey1
DECRYPTION BY CERTIFICATE Certificate1;
go


I can create the master key, certificate, and symmetric key just fine. That OPEN statement just doesn't work. It doesn't return any errors like I said, it just completes successfully without actually doing anything. This is for a class and I am totally lost. I feel like I am doing it correctly and am not sure what to change. I have tried recreating everything and even deleted the database itself.

Any advice would be welcome.
Each Go statement lets SQL Server know that the preceding commands are meant to be a single batch. This works for the create statements, but I suspect that if you try to use the symmetric key in a command after the batch, it will not be open. Remove the Go statements, then try to use the symmetric key after the open statement.