missing pc on the LAN

[maxvincent]

I have a stupid, stupid recurring problem. Frequently the clients on my LAN will open up their network places to find that most of the pc's on the LAN are missing from the "neighborhood."

I have my PDC as Browse master and the clients have "IsDomainMaster"="FALSE" and "MaintainServerList"="No"

Can someone tell me if that is a way to tell where a given pc is getting it's browse list from?

In this case it's not coming from the PDC because it always maintains the complete list.

 

[arboundy]

Im sure smarter people will answer this better than me, but as a side note we had machines missing from Network Neighbourhood and found that you need to have File and Printer sharing installed/enable before they would appear.

Just thought Id mention it.

 

[maxvincent]

Thanks for that, Anikan. I was trying not to be wordy in my original post, because I know long posts do not get read.

But Yes, sharing is on. Normally, all 55 pc's on the LAN will see all 55 pc's.

Then, every few weeks, several pc's, without any changes being made, will only see 4 or 5 pc's. Then the problem spreads across the network like the flu, cropping up over many machines for several days. Then it goes away.

It's a major headache.

I think one or more pc is malunctioning and broadcasting a small list, and others are picking it up.

I just dont know how to find that one (or more) hence my question;

How to I tell where a pc is getting it's browse list from, when it is told not to maintain one?

 

[Serbtastic]

Check the event logs of your machines. You should have an entry indicating a browser election being forced because machine <A> believes it is the browse master.

 

[ReddLefty]

You have more than one master browser.

See Master Browser issues faq96-3728



&quot;In space, nobody can hear you click...&quot;

 

[maxvincent]

Thanks for the tips. I can't find evidence in the event viewer on any elections. I checked several boxes.

As for the FAQ, I went through that several months ago. The symptoms and scenarios don't match my problem, and I've already set the appropriate registry settings on all the pc's I can find.

Shouldn't the PDC (set as Preferred Master Borwser) mention an election it it's event viewer if an election takes place?

It doesn't.

I'm still trying to find a Windows 2000 Resource kit. I thought it can with Windows 2000 Server software, but I can't it.

 

[ReddLefty]

Is your server multi-homed? (More than one network card). If so, you must remove the Netbios over TCP/IP on the network card TCP/IP stack not associated with your internal network.

Also, run that little software to check for Master Browsers. You must make sure you have only one master browser. Master browser may also come from older Linux/Unix Samba servers too.

You just need to restart the computer browser service on your PDC (the one with the TRUE in the registry) and check your logs. It should say it's forcing an election to be master browser.

It still sounds like you have another machine fighting for the master browser rights and everytime that machine is restarted, it takes the master browser role away from the PDC. Simply restarting the computer browser service on your PDC will regain control, but everytime it can take up to a few hours before all the PC's show up on the list and your network resources may get hard to connect to.



&quot;In space, nobody can hear you click...&quot;

 

[maxvincent]

Thanks for the tips! I found the "Browser Monitor" program.

There is one Master Browser and one Backup Browser on my LAN. Niether of them are multi-homed.

(When I double-click on my Master Browser, the details show it as a master AND a backup browser. The backup browser is only a backup. I dont know if this is normal or not.)

With this Browser monitor, I can see that SOME of the time both Browsers can see 42 "server" on my network.

As I watched closely yesterday, I learned that the Backup Browser periodically changes and sees only 5 servers. This corresponds to my computer only seeing 5 pcs in Network Places.

This change, from 42 to 5, back to 42, etc, happened several times yesterday, even though neither machine was rebooted or tampered with in any way.

The event log on both machines have no mention of an election, other than the one time that I manually restarted the browser service on the Master. (Which did not make the problem go away)

The event viewer on the backup browser does show this error:
---------------------------------
Event Type: Warning
Event Source: BROWSER
Event Category: None
Event ID: 8021

Description:
The browser was unable to retrieve a list of servers from the browser master \\JDMAX on the network \Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{BCBFEBC0-E69B-4464-AE53-B3D5A70FFA88}. The data is the error code.
--------------------------------

But, this message occured 12 minutes ago, yet it can still see all 42 server and my pc can see all the network.
The message repeats many times, but doesn't seem to sync with periods of poor connectivity. I can't find any errors that do sync with the problem.

So does anyone have a clue as to what I can look for next?



Sincerely, Max Vincent
Maxatronic Systems

http://www.maxatronic.com

http://www.knightsoptical.com

http://www.pcm-international.com

 

[ReddLefty]

It's telling you that it's trying to get a master brower list from computer JDMAX. If that is not your master browser, make sure you add the NO in the registry key for that computer, in fact, place the NO in ALL servers (especially DCs) and restart the Computer Browser services for the changes in the registry to take affect on the computers you modified the registry.

That should eventually get rid of the warning... and it is only a warning also..



&quot;In space, nobody can hear you click...&quot;

 

[maxvincent]

Thanks for that info. But JDMAX is my master browser.

I dont know why it would fail sometimes, and other times not. Both of these machines are always on and no one touches them.

And yes, It is just a warning. But it appears to be a symptom related to the problem for which I started this thread.

I was hoping someone might see a connection between the warning and the problem. Because I dont.

Even if the backup browser can't update it's list, it still should not effect the other PC's on the LAN because the Master browser is always up and fully functional.




Sincerely, Max Vincent
Maxatronic Systems

http://www.maxatronic.com

http://www.knightsoptical.com

http://www.pcm-international.com