Google search SSH Connection Refused and its the #1 auto-suggestion, tons of posts out there, none with answers.

I am not a Linux person, Please help!

Using Debian on a RaspberryPi connecting from Putty on a Windows machine. I have 2 identical Pi's with identical distros and configuration insofar as I know. I used to be able to SSH into both of them but now can only SSH into 1.

The one I am having problems I had temporarily forgotten how to start the SSH service so I typed "raspi-config" and used the SSH service enable in the advanced features menu.
I think that is what screwed it up. I didn't do that on the other one; I google searched how to start up the service and then I typed "sudo /usr/bin/sshd" and that worked on the other one.

But doing the same thing on the first one doesn't work. In fact not only does it not work it says cannot find that program at all. So I typed "sudo apt-get install ssh" to reinstall it but that doesn't work either. So then I typed "sudo /etc/init.d/ssh start" That got the SSH service running and it is now listening on port 22. But connection still refused.

From the Pi itself I can do "ssh -vvv localhost" and it successfully logs into itself, so the SSH service is obviously on and running.

Why are remote connections refused?

All help greatly appreciated!
Thanks
Josh

Check your /etc/ssh/sshd_config file. Maybe there is an IP address defined there that is no longer being assigned to an interface.

Since you reinstalled the ssh server software, the host keys may have been changed or removed or ....? Check your syslog files for clues.