Intermittent remote desktop failures

[complex1216]

I'm having a very strange issue trying to connect to my web server. The server itself is on the external side of my firewall, and all the necessary rules are in place (and have been for quite some time) on the firewall to allow remote desktop from a few hosts on the internal network to the web server. Lately, it takes multiple attempts to initiate an rdp session though. I attempt to connect and it hangs, ultimately failing. However, if I just escape and try again (or 4 - 5 times in some cases) it will eventually work.

Does not seem to matter whether I attempt to connect using the hostname or the ip address, the issue occurs in either situation.

The web server is a Windows 2003 Standard system.
The desktops attempting to connect are Vista Business.


Does anyone have ANY ideas?

Many thanks!!

 

[Lemon13]

do a tracert or pathping and see where it hangs. whats the error message when failing?

M. Knorr

MCSE, MCTS, MCSA, CCNA

 

[complex1216]

That's just it though....it does not fail.

Both tracert and pathping resolve successfully. Every time, without exception. The RDP itself DOES work, it just takes several attempts to connect.

 

[itsp1965]

I have had this issue in my own lab environment (connecting from Windows Vista Home Premium to Win2K3). I found better results in running TS from the command line and connecting directly to console. Still haven't figured out why, but it might be an issue with the RDP client on Vista. Have you tried using the Remote Desktops MMC from the Windows 2003 admin tools (or reskit -- can't remember)

 

[complex1216]

The remote desktop mmc seems to work without any issues. however, it still bothers me that this was happening in the first place after working for so long. Any thoughts as to what could be causing the problem?