Blue background when logging in

[danomac]

I've been fighting this for a while now and can't seem to find a solution.

This doesn't happen all the time - it's intermittent and it affects all PCs we have right now (includes workstations with windows PDC, workstations with samba PDC, and standalone workstations.)

When logging on, sometimes after loading settings the PC just sits there with a blue background doing nothing.

I've found out that explorer.exe is failing to load during the logon process. What I can't figure out is why it happens randomly on random workstations.

Using ctrl+shift+escape and running the explorer.exe process manually continues the logon process as if nothing happened.

Has anyone else seen this behaviour?

 

[vacunita]

Have you looked in Event Viewer? Any errors there that pertain to explorer.exe?


A few suggestions can be found here:

http://forums.techarena.in/windows-update/694888.htm

----------------------------------
Phil AKA Vacunita
----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[danomac]

No, the event logs are empty. I turned on extensive logging on the client and it just stops at one point with no indication of what's going on.

 

[danomac]

Ugh! By empty, I mean no errors. There are notifications but nothing that seems relevant.

I've searched TT for a solution, it looks like it comes up every once in a while but no one has a definite resolution for it.

I'll look into this tomorrow.

 

[Sympology]

Do you have mapped drives?
Is it trying to get to a drive that no longer exisits?

Robert Wilensky:
We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true.

 

[BadBigBen]

The problem could be manifold in what the causes are...

from OLD drivers to a Permission problem in the REGistry...

Q: Does this happen with any other USER or just with ONE?

Q: Can you get into SafeMode? if so, update all the drivers possible, e.g. ChipSet, Graphic, NICs, etc.

Q: What changed recently? Software Install, e.g. newfangled AntiViral app or Firewall? in case of AV/FW check it's settings, it could be blocking the loading of a file at boot, that may be necessary...

PS: Keep us posted...

Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[danomac]

It does map drives on logon, but in the logs there's no mention of even attempting to map the drives or run the script in AD to do this.

Q: Does this happen with any other USER or just with ONE?

A: All users. Even me, which is why I'm trying to fix it. ;-)

Q: Can you get into SafeMode? if so, update all the drivers possible, e.g. ChipSet, Graphic, NICs, etc.

I just tried, safe mode is working fine. I logged in and out at least a dozen times, no issues.

Q: What changed recently? Software Install, e.g. newfangled AntiViral app or Firewall? in case of AV/FW check it's settings, it could be blocking the loading of a file at boot, that may be necessary...

Nothing has changed recently. I keep a list of software on each machine and other users on the network are not allowed to install software. This laptop is a fresh build, I don't even have Office on it yet.

I'm going to mess around with it some more this morning. This problem has been going on for over a year, but it seems to be slowly getting worse.

 

[vacunita]

I just tried, safe mode is working fine. I logged in and out at least a dozen times, no issues.

That is a good thing

It narrows it down to something that is being loaded at startup in normal mode, that doesn't load in safe mode.

Try using msconfig or one of the many third party apps out there to disable startup items in normal mode.

This may take a while if there are many things that load, but you should disable them all, and then enable one by one until the behavior is reproduced.

The last item that was enabled is likely the culprit.




----------------------------------
Phil AKA Vacunita
----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[danomac]

Hah, I think I've found it!

Turned on verbose userinit logging and found out that one of the cached GPOs from AD was trying to execute (copies some icons to users' desktops) and stopping. It turns out that the script processing wasn't waiting for the network to be ready and the profile loaded (roaming profiles) before attempting this, thus causing a lock on the profile locally stored on the workstation (hence the reason why explorer.exe can't load.)

Turns out that setting the "Always wait for the network at computer startup and logon" located under Computer Configuration->Administrative Templates->System->Logon and setting "Run logon scripts synchronously" located under Computer Configuration->Administrative Templates->System->Scripts in an agency-wide GPO has fully resolved my issue.

Of course it had to be something so silly.

 

[vacunita]

Glad you found out what to was, and were able to fix it.


----------------------------------
Phil AKA Vacunita
----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[BadBigBen]

Danomac, glad to hear that the problem is resolved, and thank you for posting what fixed it for you...



Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"