Client can't find the domain upon logging in, please help

it could be name resolution issue. try to logon locally. can you ping the DNS or DC by name?

Robert Lin, MS-MVP, MCSE & CNE
Windows, Network, Internet, VPN, Routing and How to at

I'm having the same problem. I've added the computer to the new domain and Active Directory Computers is populated with the new computer. When I restart, however, the domains appear in domain dropdown box, but the computer cannot find the domains. I had to log on to the local machine as administrator, remove the client from the new domain, add the client to the old domain, and restart. Then, after the restart, it still didn't work. So I added it to the domain again, removed it from the domain, restarted, and then it DID work. It's givving me a headache. I added two servers to the domain without any problems. Is it because the machine is running XP? What do I do to fix it?

Its hard to say exactly what is wrong here; however, I bet there is a very clear error message on the clients EVENT VIEWER log. I would start my troubleshooting here.

Sometimes, it is necessary to remove a client machine from the domain and re-join the PC back to the domain. When removing the computer from the domain, you should also go into Active Directory and verify that the computer account (for the problematic PC) has been removed from the domain. If the computer account still exists, delete it manually (right click delete).

Also, it is imperative that DNS is working. In order for a client to "talk" to active directory DNS must be functioning. However, because other machines in your environment are working properly, I doubt you have a DNS problem.

Just make sure that ALL clients point only to INTERNAL DNS servers in thier local TCP/IP properties. You should NOT have any clients pointing to ISP DNS servers directly...this would cause problems.

-later

Joseph L. Poandl
MCSE 2003

If your company is in need of experts to examine technical problems/solutions, please check out (Sales@njcomputernetworks.com)

I'm pretty sure that the DNS is working just fine because I am able to ping the server by name and get its IP. I will try removing the computers from the domain, removing the names from AD and then readding the computers to the domain and see if that works. Thanks for your help.

FYI: Ping is not the best utility to use to test DNS. I would suggest that you use the NSLOOKUP utility. NSLOOKUP queries DNS directly.

YOU SHOULD PERFORM NSLOOKUP TESTS FROM THE PROMBLEMATIC PC's LOCALLY.

Go to a command prompt and type NSLOOKUP (installed by default) to query DNS.

<-------- Example showing how to get into NSLOOKUP ----->

C:\>nslookup
Default Server: localDNSserver
Address: 10.10.10.1

<---------------- end example --------------------->



<------- Example of querying a server in NSLOOKUP ------->

C:\>nslookup
Default Server: localDNSserver
Address: 10.10.10.1

> ServerDC1 (I am querying for the IP of ServerDC1)
Server: localDNSserver
Address: 10.10.10.1

Name: serverdc1.companyxyz.com (Result = FQDN)
Address: 10.10.10.20 (Result = IP of server)

<------------------- end example2 ------------->




You should also be able to query DNS for your DOMAIN NAME. DNS should return the IP addresses of your domain controllers

<-------------- Query Domain Name ------------->

C:\>nslookup
Default Server: localDNSserver
Address: 10.10.10.1

> Companyxyz.com
Server: localDNSserver
Address: 10.10.10.1

Name: Companyxyz.com
Addresses: 10.10.10.1, 10.10.10.2 (Result = IP addresses of DC's)

<-------------- end example 3 -------------->





Joseph L. Poandl
MCSE 2003

If your company is in need of experts to examine technical problems/solutions, please check out (Sales@njcomputernetworks.com)

When I have seen this problem in the past it has ALWAYS been caused by a DNS mis-configuration on the client. Make sure the TCP\IP configuration on your LAN connection has the correct DNS servers listed.

Regards
jpaf

Thanks everyone....it was definately a DNS issue.