Client's "lose"

[Guest Aveox]

Hello, I have been experiencing an issue with one of my domain controllers.

 

Let me describe my setup first: We have two Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard

servers one holding all of the FSMO roles and the other acting as a file

server. DNS is installed on both machines and I am using DFS to backup the

data between the file server and the FSMO holding server. The FSMO role

holding server also acts as our print server and just for more info, the

hardware on both machines are identical.

 

Now for the problem: I will randomly get a phone call from a user saying

that they can no longer print. When I look at their machine's printers

folder, I see that all of them are "unable to connect". When I then try to

browse over to the printer server (\\servername) explorer will only show me

an empty window, no error messages, just a completely empty browser window.

 

I have no problems connecting to the file server and browsing to the file

server works perfectly fine. I've tried flushing the DNS cache, repairing the

network connection, adding an entry to the host file, using a different

internal DNS server, server NIC drivers, network cables, the list goes on and

on.

 

If I restart the client's machine, everything is fine.

 

Now what I have found is that I cannot properly communicate with the server

by host name. I can ping it, I can browse by FQDN or IP address, but not host

name.

 

I've checked the DNS records on both DNS servers and they are correct.

Replication is working so no problems there.

 

Has anyone ever experienced this? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks

[Guest Anthony]

Re: Client's "lose"

 

Aveox,

Do you have WINS? WINS is a passive service, so putting it on the network

and seeing if it solves the problem is very simple to do. This would clear

up whether it is a client problem, or something to do with browsing on your

LAN,

Regards,

Anthony, http://www.airdesk.com

 

 

"Aveox" <Aveox@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message

news:48BC439C-0F4F-4980-9005-5563B71E1397@microsoft.com...

> Hello, I have been experiencing an issue with one of my domain

> controllers.

>

> Let me describe my setup first: We have two Windows Server 2003 R2

> Standard

> servers one holding all of the FSMO roles and the other acting as a file

> server. DNS is installed on both machines and I am using DFS to backup the

> data between the file server and the FSMO holding server. The FSMO role

> holding server also acts as our print server and just for more info, the

> hardware on both machines are identical.

>

> Now for the problem: I will randomly get a phone call from a user saying

> that they can no longer print. When I look at their machine's printers

> folder, I see that all of them are "unable to connect". When I then try to

> browse over to the printer server (\\servername) explorer will only show

> me

> an empty window, no error messages, just a completely empty browser

> window.

>

> I have no problems connecting to the file server and browsing to the file

> server works perfectly fine. I've tried flushing the DNS cache, repairing

> the

> network connection, adding an entry to the host file, using a different

> internal DNS server, server NIC drivers, network cables, the list goes on

> and

> on.

>

> If I restart the client's machine, everything is fine.

>

> Now what I have found is that I cannot properly communicate with the

> server

> by host name. I can ping it, I can browse by FQDN or IP address, but not

> host

> name.

>

> I've checked the DNS records on both DNS servers and they are correct.

> Replication is working so no problems there.

>

> Has anyone ever experienced this? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

>

> Thanks