Cannot find profile

[mpociask]

I am having a wierd problem trying to set up a roaming profile on a Win 2003 server.

I created the user on the AD. I logged on to that user on one of the PCs. I went to system> advanced> user profiles and copied the profile on to a shared folder on the server. I set up the profile path of the user in the Active Directory. Then I logged off the PC and logged back on to the local account of the PC as administrator and deleted the local profile that was created when I logged on to the Domain before the profile was set up on the server.

Now, the PC has NO profile saved on the local drive. I log back onto that PC and it loads the profile off the server. Everything works peachy.

Heres the problem. On a different PC, I try to log on with the user I set up in active directory, and it says it cannot find the profile. The share is setup so all domain users have full access.

What could be the problem?

 

[Teknoratti]

The problematic pc is joined to the domain I assume? dis-join the computer from the domain and rejoin. Try logging in from a different pc. Check any event logs.

 

[mpociask]

The problem PC can join the domain. It works great if I log on as user not on a roaming profile. The system logs say "cant find profile" and doesn't give me any more details.

Once I am into the PC (where I logged on as a local account or I logged on using the default profile), and I go to Run, and type \\SERVER-NAME I get a network path not found error. I can, however, ping by server name (ping SERVER-NAME) sucessfully.

If I go to the other PC and I type \\SERVER-NAME in RUN I get a window with all the shared folders on the server. What could be the problem?

 

[Brentius]

Howdy,

Are all your IP settings in order? No old/incorrect static entries in your lmhosts file?
If you ping by FQDN do you get a reply?

Lastly, it's best to assign ownership of the users roaming profile folder to the user concerned eg. \\fileserver1\home\JSoap\profile --> Assign ownership to JSoap and all subfolders to the user. I have had plenty problems with this in the past.

Hope this helps.
Brent

 

[mpociask]

I can ping by the domain name. I can even get Remote desktop connections by domain name.

I brought the problem PC to another job to test it out. I hooked into their network with valid IP settings. Typed \\PC-NAME at the run prompt of a PC I knew had shared folders, and I got \\PC-NAME network path not found. But if I ping PC-NAME I get a reply. I can also do a remote desktop connection to PC-NAME. It seems only explorer is having the problem.

My LMHOSTS file is empty.

Thanks for the help.

 

[Seaspray0]

It looks like a WINS issue. You are using the NETBIOS name in your path statement in Active Directory. The server is likely on a different subnet than the PC is the most common reason for this type of issue. 1. make sure you are getting a proper IP address from DHCP and DHCP provides the DNS server IP through the scope options. Edit the path to the profile in active directory to include the FQDN of the server and not the NETBIOS name.... i.e. \\server.domain.com\user_profile and NOT \\server\user_profile.

You will now be using DNS to find your server and not the NETBIOS name. If all else fails, put the IP address in the path in active directory.. \\xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx\user_profile and see if you can tap it directly without requiring resolution by anything. If you can't resolve it with the IP address, then you either have a permissions issue or you can't see the server's IP.

A+/MCP/MCSE/MCDBA

 

[mpociask]

Thanks for the ideas! I will try them today. Just FYI, the server is on the same subnet as the clients and the addressing is static.

 

[Brentius]

Try adding an entry in your lmhost file just as a test, but yeah I agree it does sound like your wins is to blame.

 

[flagurugrl]

Well I read the above and it worked perfectly for me as I was too having the same issue. Thank you sooo much Seaspray for your answers

 

[mpociask]

I didn't have time to make it to this client yesterday, so I haven't tried the FQDN solution. However, is it possible to fix/repair WINS? Even in the FQDN solution fixes the problem of loggin on to the domain, I still can't get explorer to find other PCs in Work group networks.