Disappearing network connections

[vidon]

We've been upgrading our workstations to Windows 2000 Pro. The server is Nt 4.0. The upgrade has gone smoothly for the most part. The past week, however, we've been experiencing a problem connecting to shared resources housed on various workstations.

We were connecting well for several days after the upgrade. Now, those connections seem to be broken on several machines -- when you try to navigate across the network to a specific shared resource, you receive a "network path not found" error.

This error is random -- sometimes, you can connect to shared resources with no difficulty. Other times, you can connect to some workstations, but not others. Which workstations you can connect to varies -- more workstations seem to be accessible after hours and when network traffic is low; more are inaccessible during peak usage.

The problem is not reciprocal -- at times, I can make log onto workstation A, and connect to a shared resource on workstation B, but I cannot connect from B to A.

This is *not* a security/ access privilege issue -- I have security properly set on all machines. The error happens prior to when Windows 2000 would ask for a password to make a network connection.

The error also affects Windows 98 workstations -- sometimes, Windows 2000 can see specific Windows 98 workstations on the network, but not others.

The error never impedes workstations' ability to access shared resources on the server.

I'm a bit at wits end, because at times we're having no problem at all, and then a few hours later several machines are unable to access resources stored on other workstations. Any and all help would be greatly appreciated!!!

 

[cichlid]

Unfortunately this sounds like a common problem with Win2K. (I myself have posted it here)
I have experienced this on several domains (and my own machine) and sometimes makes using Access databases on a shared drive impossible to use.
It looks as though Win2K downgrades the connection - when I click on the mapped drive it waits a couple of seconds and then reconnects it.
I have been told Mr Gates' people are aware of this but no one can tell me if they are planning a fix.
If I discover I work around I will post it as it is causing us some grief with our clients and we are constantly searching.

Cheers.
Seán.
cichlid000@hotmail.com

 

[vidon]

I've seen the problem you're describing -- where Windows times out a network connection after a brief period, and then reawakens it when you click on the drive. I have a memory in the back of my mind that you can toggle a registry setting to change the time Windows waits before doing this -- I'll try to find a specific reference and post it here.

I *think* that what I'm experiencing is a little different -- although perhaps it's related in some way.

What is happening is that Windows 2000 workstations that could originally browse to any workstation on my network, now do not seem to be able to browse to some machines. So, for example, when I go into network neighborhood and click on a particular machine, I often get a "network path not found" error message. This message persists even if I retry after a few seconds (whereas, with the problem you described above, you can usually "reawaken" mapped drives by clicking on them).

Sometimes, I can try again a few hours later and get through to particular machines, but not to others. Also, where a particular workstation might have difficulties connecting, say, to workstations A and B, another workstation might be able to connect to A and B just fine, but have problems with C and D, to which my original workstation had no problems connecting...

The problem never interferes with someone's ability to log in, and it never interferes with mapped drives pointing to directories on the server. It affects only workstation to workstation connections.

The reason it came to my attention is that several of our workstations have special-purpose printers attached, which they share across the network. For several days after we upgraded to Windows 2000, every workstation on the network could access those shared printers with no problem. Then one day, one workstation lost the ability to connect to one -- and has never regained it. The next day, the same thing happened to a couple of other workstations, one of which has subsequently been able to reconnect without any problems, the other of which has never been able to reconnect, etc.

If you look in the printer settings, and highlight the shared printer, it will give a message that the printer is not connected to the server. If you go into network neighborhood and try to navigate to the workstation that serves the printer, you will receive a "network path not found" error. If I go to the printer server and try to navigate to the workstation that has been disconnected, I receive a "device does not exist on network" error message...

What puzzles me most is that none of these problems were occurring for several days -- then the problems developed, and seem to be spreading. Occasionally, the problem will disappear for a particular workstation... It's the randomness that's making it difficult for me to figure out where the problem lies...

 

[cichlid]

This does sound like a different issue.
Don't worry about the registry setting - tried it - makes no difference - also tried tweaking hardware settings on the NIC and using /PERSISTENT etc...
Your problem sounds a bit more 'in yer face' - at first I would have the network checked - we have had problems in the past where things become unavailable for a while because the network is busy and some machines lose connection to WINS, therefore they can't find any machines.

I think Win2K is suffering the same symptoms as Win95 did when it first came out - it'll be alright when they've finished it

 

[ejsully]

Have you solved this problem? I am having the same problem and it is driving me absolutely nuts. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[N0ktar]

Try changing the time value for win2k droppi9ng the connection.
NET CONFIG SERVER /AUTODISCONNECT:-1

-1 equals infinity, you can set the minute value I think up to around 65,500

 

[PLAU1]

Recently, I had this problem on a small network of 8 computers (1-95, 1-98, 6-2k, no active directory, no WINS). The 2k machines were experiencing intermittent connections that would come and go for no rational reason. After trying everything in the book (over a course of weeks), the stability did not improve. I noticed that sometimes I could ping the machines and sometimes I couldn't. Sometimes I couldn't even ping the local machine. There was no pattern at all to what worked and when. I took a closer look at 3rd party software on the 2k machines, specifically Norton System Works. The problem computers had Norton Works installed with Internet Security enabled. The office has a network firewall, so I disabled Norton Internet Security from auto startup (antivirus was still enabled), rebooted each machine and immediately everything became reachable and continues to be so. I went back and looked at the rules present in Norton, but there was nothing obvious that would point to the intermittent problem. I know a lot of offices have Norton System works installed, so it's possible that based on my experience, an enabled Internet Security feature could contribute to the problem.

Other parameters I set to stabilize the solution:
- only enabled TCP/IP with NETBIOS over TCP/IP (removed other protocols and unnecessary bindings)
- Manually selected adapter speed
- Placed lmhosts file on all machines
- Disabled Browse-master capability on the 95 and 98 machine and all 2k portables.

A side benefit of all this is that the browse speed increased as well.

 

[catawba]

Nobody thinks it's a browser service issue? I would think so..