EventId 1054

[mcourtman]

Hi there,

On the network where I work, I have just introduced some machines running WindowsXP (SP2). When I add them to the Domain, they get EventId 1054 in the event log.

The description for this error is:
Windows cannot obtain the domain controller name for your computer network. (The specified domain either does not exist or could not be contacted). Group Policy processing aborted.

...and Group Policy is not applied!

My main domain controller is the DNS server, running Windows Server 2003.

I can ping the DNS server and it translates the machine name to its IP address (i.e. ping server1 ... pings the correct IP address with a response.)

I have no firewalls, and all IP addresses are static and correct.

All my existing Windows2000 machines work fine.

Your help is much appriciated.

Best wishes,

Matt Courtman
Network Manager

 

[PScottC]

I had this error in the last week. We found that packets going across a VPN tunnel from a branch site to our core site were being dropped. Basically, when the data was encapsulated in the VPN packet, the packet was too long and the routers between branch and core started dropping the packet.

I found some KB articles that suggest that the primary DNS that is configured on the system could be wrong.

Which of these applies to you?

PSC

Governments and corporations need people like you and me. We are samurai. The keyboard cowboys. And all those other people out there who have no idea what's going on are the cattle. Mooo! --Mr. The Plague, from the movie "Hackers

 

[etherbadger]

I have seen this problem on my network as well. Error 1054 in the event logs on client XP SP2 machines. It is accompanied by failure of some software applications (avaya IPoffice phone manager and IMS client and outlook 2003 come to mind). The logon process is also usually very slow, it seems to get stuck on "applying personal settings" after logging on for 2 to 5 minutes.

I have found a temporary fix by removing the machine from the domain, deleting its account in active directory and then re-joining it to the domain. Sometimes the errors will come back, sometimes they will not.

This problem seems to affect all of our computers but not at the same time. Even when the pc's show error 1054 they are still able to ping the DC (SBS 2003 R1), as well as access shares/mapped drives on it and other users who do not have cached logons can log on.

 

[PScottC]

Try this ping:

ping -l 1500 <ip>

This changes the size of the ping packet from 32 bytes to 1500 bytes. If you don't get a response back, try changing the MTU size on your workstations to 1400 (requires reboot).

PSC

Governments and corporations need people like you and me. We are samurai. The keyboard cowboys. And all those other people out there who have no idea what's going on are the cattle. Mooo! --Mr. The Plague, from the movie "Hackers

 

[mcourtman]

Hi,

Thanks for your posts.

I have found the solution to my problem:

I didn't think this could be a DNS problem beacuse a few of my XP machines were working fine.

And then I noticed that this error was only occuring on computers that had the SIS 900 Network Card in them. So I disabled the onboard SIS card and tried a PCI Realtek 8219 I had kicking about and this solved the problem.

Now I cannot afford to replace all the SIS cards with new ones (as I have about 150 of these) so I investigated a bit further.... and by adding the following registry key the problem was solved:

---------------------------------------
Create DWord Key

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\DisableDHCPMediaSense

Set value to 1
---------------------------------------

Anyway this has fixed the problem - Group Policy now works a treat and I have no Errors in any of my Event Logs, but i'm not sure how this has fixed the problem. Any ideas?

Thanks again for your help!

Best wishes,

Matt