Clients keep falling of network

[david817]

For some reason we keep getting computers saying that they cant see our domain controller. I am having the infrastructure checked ( but we cant find anything wrong ) and when we put the client machine onto a workgroup and then back onto the domain away it goes again. Have looked at MaintainServerList in the registry and some have it set at auto and some dont. Any ideas ? David Hutton

 

[PalmTest]

Hi David817,

Have you issued the command "netstat -a" on a client?

You say that you checked the infrastructure.
Did you ask the network support group if a kind of "Broadcast Storm Control" is active?
If so, at which percentage of broadcast storm will the switchport be disabled, and for how long?

Install Ethereal or Packetyzer on a client machine and make a network packet capture while connecting to the domain.
When the connection fails, stop the capture and review the results.

http://www.ethereal.com/distribution/win32/

http://www.packetyzer.com

 

[porkchopexpress]

What clients are you using? If you use XP clients then DNS problems can cause this problem i've seen it a few times before.

 

[david817]

Nope there does not appear to be any undue traffic on the network causing the problems I think it is more likely a DNS type problem. I looked at the registry on the domain comtrollers and isDomainMaster and maintainserverlist was set to False and No respectively. The maintainserverlist in XP machines is set to auto and we have to change it to No. I am wondering if this has something to do with the problem i.e. the computers dont know where to look for network information as elections are being forced. Thanks for you help. David

 

[porkchopexpress]

Your PDC should take the master browser role or you saying that isn't the case?

This still shouldn't cause the PC's to lose the network. Do all of your PC's look to your DNS server for name resolution?

 

[david817]

Its not all the PCs all the time and the DHCP gives out the 2 domain controllers as DNS servers or the ip addresses are put in manually i.e. 10.0.1.1 and 10.0.1.2. I thought this would be enough !!

 

[porkchopexpress]

Yes that should be enough iw was just checking that was how it was set.
XP relies on DNS not the browse list for finding network resources, are you getting any errors in the workstation event logs to see if the connection is being dropped?

 

[david817]

Just got this error when I restored my bosses machine to the network
Windows has detected that Offline Caching is enabled on the Roaming Profile share - to avoid potential profile corruption, Offline Caching must be disabled on shares where roaming user profiles are stored.

Have disabled the Offline Caching on the profiles on the server.It would explain a lot. Hope this cures the problem. Will let you know. David

 

[porkchopexpress]

That can cause probs but i haven't known it cause this prob. Fingers crossed though.

 

[david817]

Hi it appears that in Win 2003 if a computer loses connection for a bit you have to rejoin it to the network. While I was getting a not connected to server message I was getting a good ping to it. The local profile was carrying on doing work but the computer was not really connected to the domain. What I did was put the machine onto a workgroup, not rebooting , and putting it back on the domain then rebooting. I did not have to change the machines name or delete the account on the server as I would have had to do in W2K. Anybody heard of this before?
David