Blank Desktop on Server 2003

[itaviator]

Came in to work this morning, turned the monitor on for one of our servers (windows 2003) and it's a blank desktop. Mouse pointer is visible and can move. But it's just a blank blue background. This happened a few weeks ago too, and all we could do to get it back was a hard shutdown and then restart it.

Anyone have any ideas? Starting to worry me now that it's happened twice in 3 weeks. We have not shut it down yet today. Will have to resort to that after hours tonight.

This has not happened to any of our other servers. Just this one.

Systems Administrator

 

[porkchopexpress]

Can you use remote desktop to login to the server remotly?

Do you receive any errors in the event log?

 

[itaviator]

I cannot connect to it. None of our servers allow remote connections for remote desktop (by order of my boss - don't ask!).

The only error I see in the event logs is under "application" dealing with autoenrollment for certificates. No other errors anywhere.

Systems Administrator

 

[pgaliardo]

Does right clicking the mouse bring up anything or does nothing? Can you CTRL-ALT-DEL and maybe just log off the user and try to log back on and see if you get a desktop?

 

[itaviator]

ctrl-alt-del does nothing. same with right-clicking the mouse.

Systems Administrator

 

[itaviator]

Been researching all over the net - still no answers.

Anyone else?

Systems Administrator

 

[porkchopexpress]

Is the server logged off or is it logged on with the screen locked at the time?

Any programs that are scheduled to run at certain times?

What is the autoenrollment error?

 

[itaviator]

We usually just "lock" the server when it's not being used. The only app that runs on a schedule is our NetVault software for backups.

Eventid = 13

Systems Administrator

 

[rharmeson]

Next time you lock the screen, make sure Task Mgr. is open. Ctlr-Alt-Del after unlocking and see if explorer.exe is running. If not from the Task Mgr. open a cmd prompt and issue prompt>explorer.exe to start. If explorer.exe is not running, no desktop.

 

[ddrafts]

I have the same problem today. It was fine yesterday. I can remote deskstop in the the server with no problems. I tryed to logoff the console and it didn't work. Explorer is running on both logons.

Doug

 

[itaviator]

Doug:

I haven't found an answer yet. In fact, we're rebooting the server today at noon. I've been dumbfounded! I found two other posts on the internet that had the same problem but nobody has an answer.

Systems Administrator

 

[porkchopexpress]

Did you get anywhere with this i've observed something similare with a 2003 server recently.

 

[interlink]

Unfortunately, the same here. No desktop. Ctrl-alt-del does nothing. Same with right-clicking the mouse. And after rebooting, the same. Worst. I tried a full repair and ... no desktop & ctrl-alt-del after logon.

I'm thinking to do a full reinstall but I would like to know what is going wrong.

 

[itaviator]

Haven't found anything on this. We just had to do a hard shutdown and bring it back up. It's been fine. One thing we are doing is instead of "locking" it, we're logging off completely.

So far, it hasn't happened again. Haven't checked today yet though.

Systems Administrator

 

[NickFerrar]

We have this happen occassionally to as as nothing gets logged we haven't been able to diagnose it so basically just do hard shutdowns to recover it.

 

[jaso]

This has just happened to me for the first time on our 2003 server. Everything appears to be working fine (its running Exchange 2003) but i can find no way to log into it.

I can view the task manager (using remote task manager) - nothing wrong there. Event logs don't divulge any useful informantion. Restarted a few services - nothing there either.

I am running VNC on this server and was wondering if that had caused a problem?

 

[itaviator]

We don't run VNC - can't be that. In fact, we don't have anything special running on it. It's a second DC, file server and it has SQL running on it.

Systems Administrator