Constant Working Offline errors (we are really online!) 2

[DanMc]

I've deployed about 40 WinXP computers. They are members of a Win2000 AD domain with a single DC, and I used folder redirection to point "My Documents" to a share on the network. Often, (sometimes every 5 minutes) WinXP pops up a bubble in the system tray with this error:

Offline Files - Working Offline
You are no longer connected to 'Server'. You can continue working normally.

(working normally = working offline, and the files will be synched later)

However, the server IS ONLINE AND UP! I know this because G: is mapped to the same share, and if the users open G: they see the files and can access them. Usually, after they open G: and see the files, the offline error disappears. Sometimes, when they open G: the folder appears empty, but if they hit F5 to refresh, the files show up immediately.

So basically, something is causing windows to assume the server is unavailable. Maybe it's sending a watchdog packet, and not getting a response back within a fixed period of time?... Any ideas?

 

[rleestma]

I am having the same problem with two different clients...

It seems there is a link to their service packs, eight w2ksp3 or xpsp1...

ANY input WOULD BE VERY MUCH APPRECIATED!!!!

Ryan
rleestma@infosysintel.com

 

[GlenJohnson]

Can you check and see if the server is sending or receiving bad packets? I had a similar issue because of a bad nic. Wasn't consistent, but kept getting worse until it failed. Glen A. Johnson
Johnson Computer Consulting
MCP W2K
glen@johnsoncomputers.us



"There is only one good: knowledge; and only one evil: ignorance."
Socrates (470- 399 BC); Greek philosopher.

 

[DanMc]

It's a Compaq server with Insight Manager agents. NIC Diags all pass, and there haven't been any errors like failed file copy or login script freezing that would indicate a shotty connection. It may be high latency at times because we have a big network with lots of bandwidth hogs, but we don't generally lose any packets. I still think high traffic might be causing it.

rleestma: I am wondering if having a separate drive mapped to the same share could be significant. Do you also map a drive letter to the same share that "My Documents" points?

My Documents is redirected to \\SERVER1\UserDocs\%USERNAME% with group policy, and G: mapped to \\SERVER1\UserDocs\%USERNAME% in the logon script.

 

[GlenJohnson]

It's a Compaq server with Insight Manager agents
We purchased a compaq server with insight manager and it's been the server from hell. This was the machine that had the bad nic, brand new. We've had nothing but problems with this server just locking up and we have to re-boot it to release. Managed to get it working fairly well, but it hasn't been easy. Try turning off the insight manager and see what happens. Glen A. Johnson
Johnson Computer Consulting
MCP W2K
glen@johnsoncomputers.us



"There is only one good: knowledge; and only one evil: ignorance."
Socrates (470- 399 BC); Greek philosopher.

 

[DanMc]

I'm aware of the problems with Insight Manager Server. It takes a long time to get it stable and the agents can cause lockups. But I highly doubt my Offline Files problem is Insight Manager related. I was just saying that I don't believe the NIC is broken. Insight Manager is good for that kind of thing.

 

[ajpark]

We have the same problem. We have just rolled out XP to 160 clients and i get a numbner of Offline messages. Haven't narrowed it down to anything yet but will keep an eye on this thread. We have IBM servers and no insight manager but we do have IBM director. We redirect My Documents to a mapped home drive.

 

[DanMc]

Thanks for the morale support, ajpark. FYI, I have searched lots of other forums and magazine sites for the problem. I found 4 or 5 other people with the exact same problem, but no solutions.

 

[rleestma]

We don't have any IBM servers or Compaq servers, just a generic white box... It's all Intel components, and we swapped out the NICS...

Also, this disconnection problem happens on ALL clients, not just one or two...

As a last resort, we could throw some money at it and get a support call from Microsoft... My company is a Microsoft Certified Partner, so we have connections...

Ryan

 

[CyberGar]

Go here:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;297684

This should answer everyone's questions...

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

[DanMc]

That looks very promising, CyberGar. I can't wait to try it on Monday!

I think we all agree that this is not related to hardware or software agents.

I don't want too get too excited though... My clients sometimes reconnect, then drop offline again within 3 minutes. If the problem is exactly what the KB describes, I would expect disconnection every 15 minutes on the dot.

 

[DanMc]

I upped the share timeout to 6 hours but the problem is still occuring. Still trying stuff...

 

[DanMc]

I GOT IT!

There is a bug in WinXP SP1 that causes widespread network file errors between WinXP & Win2000. The same bug also poses a security risk as it can be used to falsify group policy settings.

I hate Microsoft's security team! Look at how they obviously under-hyped the scope of the problem.

One of the symptoms of the bug is "The file or the network path no longer exists." This is why our servers are dropping offline.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;331519

At my site, I disabled SMB signing at the servers to solve the network errors. The WinXP client-side patch was recently posted on Windowsupdate as a critical security patch, but I am not going to apply it to the clients till more info is released. Does it solve the network errors, or just the buffer overflow?

 

[bgtek]

Have any of you checked to see if ICS was/is enabled on a client? I have been having the same problem with offline folders but it seems to be directly related to when I try to enable Internet Connection Sharing.

 

[KRB548]

I am also having the same problem. I work for a high school, we also have a Compaq server with Insight manager installed but not being used. We can have over 150 users logged on at any one time and quite a few are getting disconnected from the network.

We are using 2K server and clients. When the users go offine their work gets saved local but because of the policies in place through AD their work does not always get sent back to the server. We have disabled the on-board NIC and installed a Intel Dual NIC to see if that helps, up to know it has not. The server keeps getting errors in event viewer saying could not find ?? free connection in the last ?? minutes.

I have checked the auto disconnect timeout for our network, if was set to 15 mins so I have uped it to 45 mins to see what happens.
I suspect our problem is that all the users in school have their home area stored on the same server and it just cannot cope with the amount of requests made of it.

Can any one help with this?

 

[DanMc]

KRB548, see the later MS article I posted above. If your computers are members of the domain, and are using offline files or group policy, there is almost zero chance that you will go 15 minutes without the client accessing the server.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;331519

If you have WinXP SP1 clients and a Win2000 server, YOU WILL have various network file errors until you patch or disable SMB signing.

Group Policy and Offline Files happen to be two services that constantly poll the server and read files in the background, so you see the bug more frequently with these services. I finally found this bug and solution after a few scattered reports of MS Word files not saving properly. Word tries to write a temp file every minute or two. Every once in a great while the temp file couldn't be saved and would pop up an error box to the user.

 

[KRB548]

Thanks DanMc for the link to microsoft but I'm not using XP clients I'm using Win2k.
I have been watching the performance of the NIC using performance monitor and it tends to spend most of it's time above 80% but more often that not it is flat out and 100% for minutes at a time.