UNC paths not working, DNS is ok?

[xedgex]

My network is having some issues over the past week. Typical UNC paths have stopped working. For example when I do \\server I get The network path was not found error. I CAN however do a unc path using the IP address as in \\192.168.1.1 and it works.

Furthermore, if I try RDP using the SAME hostname, I am ABLE to connect, I do NOT have to use an IP address.

Windows 2003 domain network. DNS/DHCP hasn't changed recently. Any feedback is greatly appreciated.

 

[GlenJohnson]

Have you made any changes lately to the network? Also, check and make sure the nic isn't sending out bad packets, showing that it might be going bad. Also, check the log files on the server. Just a start.


Glen A. Johnson
Johnson Computer Consulting

http://www.fred08.com/index.aspx

 

[xedgex]

- There haven't been any network changes recently
- When you say Nic, should I be looking at the Server nic, the server that runs DNS / dhcp? how do i check the server for sending out bad packets?
- This problem occurs from more than 1 workstation on the network, not just 1, leading me to believe the issue is somewhere on the server.
- dns logs / system logs appear OK.

 

[lhuegele]

Double check your WINS server is functioning properly. Also, instead of trying \\server (which uses netbios and not DNS) try using \\server.domain.name

If using the FQDN works, then the problem may be WINS. If you don't have WINS in your environment, then try checking on the network settings of the nic cards to make sure that they have the advanced DNS tab configured properly under TCP/IP.

Good luck,

 

[GlenJohnson]

If you can connect to other servers with no problem, just concentrate on the one that's giving you trouble. Go into control panel, admin tools, computer management, performance logs and alerts, and then click on alerts. This will allow you to create a new alert, and when you do, you just choose network interface. Once you get there, you can add that and check for good packets, bad packets a whole bunch of things. Check it out. Good luck.

Glen A. Johnson
Johnson Computer Consulting

http://www.fred08.com/index.aspx

 

[xedgex]

Thank you for the feedback! I believe this comes down to an issue with WINS, I say that because the server does run WINS. If I were to disable WINS, could I be breaking anything? There are no win98 machines in the environment.

 

[GlenJohnson]

If that's the case, you shouldn't need wins. You should be able just to turn it off, and if anything happens, turn it back on again. Good luck.

Glen A. Johnson
Johnson Computer Consulting

http://www.fred08.com/index.aspx

 

[r8j8t]

You may still need WINS if you are having Exchnage running in your envriornment. Also keeping WINS adds to redundancy as if your internal DNS server fails you will still have name resoultion working.

 

[lhuegele]

The thing is, you mentioned in your original post that you were having trougle with \\server which indicates there is a problem with WINS already, so if you turn WINS off you may not see any change except that more people might start having trouble with \\server.

You should check the event logs on the WINS server for any issues, and/or restart WINS to see if that corrects the problem.

Did you try using the FQDN and if so, did that work and help you track down if the problem was WINS related or not?

 

[Serbtastic]

It sounds like the server is having issues with its WINS registration. You can check this using the command:

nbtstat -A <IP Address>

Note: The -A is case sensitive.

You should see a line that says:
servername <20> UNIQUE Registered

This indicates the server service for machine "servername" has been successfully registered with WINS. I suspect you will not see this line so to re-register it run the following command on the server:

nbtstat -RR

 

[xedgex]

Serbtastic (Vendor)

You're correct with everything you pointed out. The one server that is not responding does not resolve to nbtstat;

C:\>nbtstat -A 192.168.1.25

192.168.1.10:
Node IpAddress: [192.168.1.10] Scope Id: []

Host not found.

However, this server has another private IP address assigned to it which DOES resolve;

C:\>nbtstat -A 192.168.1.21

192.168.1.10:
Node IpAddress: [192.168.1.10] Scope Id: []

NetBIOS Remote Machine Name Table

Name Type Status
---------------------------------------------
V2 <00> UNIQUE Registered
V-DOMAIN <1C> GROUP Registered
V-DOMAIN <00> GROUP Registered
V2 <20> UNIQUE Registered
V-DOMAIN <1B> UNIQUE Registered
V-DOMAIN <1E> GROUP Registered
V-DOMAIN <1D> UNIQUE Registered
__MSBROWSE__.<01> GROUP Registered

MAC Address = 00-0C-F3-9D-AD-21

How come 1 IP address does nbtstat resolve and other one doesn't?

Are UNC path's tied into the WINS protocol? they can work w/o WINS correct. Turning off WINS did not help the issue but it did not make it worse. Thanks to the above feedback I have turned it back on.

THank you all very much so far!