Losing access to network resources

[rrdavis07]

I have an issue that has recently cropped up and am hoping someone has some insight into it. When I log into the network, all connections are good and I have access to all the network resources. However, after about 30 minutes or so, I lose access to these network resources. For instance, there is a print server and a network attached storage and I lose access to both. I can ping them, but I cannot access the printers or files. If I try to open a folder on the NAS through UNC, it asks me for my login credentials again, but won't accept them, indicating that they were the same credentials used for the login and they have already been tried.

Rebooting the computer restores the connections and all if fine--for 30 minutes or so.

This is happening on nearly all our XP Pro machines, but not our W2K machines. Does anyone have any ideas on this??


Randy Davis, MCP
IT Director
Lubbers Auto Group

 

[porkchopexpress]

I would check your DNS setup.

Are you using Active Directory?

If so you will have a DNS server as well, all of your clients should look to this for their DNS resolution. Is this the case in your setup?

 

[newbie000]

Maybe same problem like him ?!

http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1200671&page=1

 

[rrdavis07]

My first thought when this problem appeared was that it was DNS related. I've checked the DNS settings and everything looks OK, but DNS isn't my strong suit. There may be a setting or two out of place, but it all looks OK to me. And, I didn't make any changed with the DNS server prior to the dropped network resources.

I did, however, recently add a logon script to connect to network resources, instead of configuring them locally. I will look into this more, but I don't know why it would connect, but this lose it's connection and not be able to reconnect.

I'll let you know what I find.


Randy Davis, MCP
IT Director
Lubbers Auto Group

 

[rrdavis07]

OK, I found the answer to this dilemma, but I have no idea what changed to make it this way.

Our DNS servers were listed in the wrong order. Apparently, out own internal DNS server should be listed first, followed by the DNS servers obtained from out ISP.

This is perplexing because of our history: When I can to this job, one of the first things I noticed was that my predecessor did not include our own local DNS server in his DHCP settings. I added it in several months after arriving when I realized that it was not listed. It was added to the bottom of the list. This helped with some DNS issues we were having at the time, so I was happy. For the past year, we have experienced no DNS issues--until a couple weeks ago. There have been no changes to the DNS settings. I do not know what would have caused these DNS problems and that they were fixed by moving our local DNS to the top of the list. (I understand the top of the list thing, I don't understand why it wasn't a problem until now)


Randy Davis, MCP
IT Director
Lubbers Auto Group

 

[porkchopexpress]

The generally accepted correct way to configure your clients is to not have your ISP's dns listed at all, your DNS server should resolve any external addresses for your clients using forwarders.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;300202&sd=tech