Losing network shares across multiple machines on Windows 2003

November 16, 2007

I am running Windows Server 2003 R2 SP1 on a domain with approximately

50 users all with Windows XP SP2. There is a domain controller and a

backup domain controller. Periodically throughout the day random, but

only one at a time, XP machines will lose access to the network shares

while all other machines can continue to happily use the network.

Network shares map to more than just one file server - ie, drive X

will map to computer1 while drive Y will map to computer2. The user

will lose access to ALL network shares. They will still be able to

ping the computers by IP address or computer name, but the shared

drive will say that it cannot connect and using the UNC name in

explorer will fail. Once the share stops working the machine will be

unable to connect to any machines through explorer. No machines will

appear in my network places. Everything is fine once the computer has

been rebooted, but it still might fail later in the day. Nobody likes

this solution. On the servers, absolutely nothing is noted in the

event viewer. On the client, it just notes which activity failed - ie,

failed to write to a file that was open, etc. I think it usually gives

an event id of 1005, but I'm not sure how important that is. It

changes depending on what was open or trying to be performed.

Thanks in advance!

November 16, 2007

Re: Losing network shares across multiple machines on Windows 2003

Are you running a firewall (windows or 3rd party) on either the clients or

the servers? If so, you might want to try disabling it to see if that's the

issue.

You also might want to try going to a command prompt on a client that's

having the problem and run "net use * \\server\share". That should report

an error if it doesn't work.

- Jeff

"Agrippa" <royjones@gmail.com> wrote in message

news:57aaf583-6d50-40ea-8da6-f7f7aceab7ac@d50g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...

>I am running Windows Server 2003 R2 SP1 on a domain with approximately

> 50 users all with Windows XP SP2. There is a domain controller and a

> backup domain controller. Periodically throughout the day random, but

> only one at a time, XP machines will lose access to the network shares

> while all other machines can continue to happily use the network.

> Network shares map to more than just one file server - ie, drive X

> will map to computer1 while drive Y will map to computer2. The user

> will lose access to ALL network shares. They will still be able to

> ping the computers by IP address or computer name, but the shared

> drive will say that it cannot connect and using the UNC name in

> explorer will fail. Once the share stops working the machine will be

> unable to connect to any machines through explorer. No machines will

> appear in my network places. Everything is fine once the computer has

> been rebooted, but it still might fail later in the day. Nobody likes

> this solution. On the servers, absolutely nothing is noted in the

> event viewer. On the client, it just notes which activity failed - ie,

> failed to write to a file that was open, etc. I think it usually gives

> an event id of 1005, but I'm not sure how important that is. It

> changes depending on what was open or trying to be performed.

>

> Thanks in advance!

November 16, 2007

RE: Losing network shares across multiple machines on Windows 2003

We run an identical setup, except our two servers (both are file DSs and

file-servers) are Server 2003 SP2.

We do not suffer from this problem.

FYI:

1) Both servers are WINS servers, DHCP distributes both addresses to

workstations.

2) All servers and workstations have NETBIOS over TCP/IP enabled.

3) All workstations have browser service disabled so that Master Browser

elections are rarely forced.

--

Regards,

Newell White

"Agrippa" wrote:

> I am running Windows Server 2003 R2 SP1 on a domain with approximately