The local device name is already in use message

[levers]

I am running Windows 2000 Pro SP 4 and 2000 Server SP4, in Workgroup network and about 2 or 3 time a day all of our users are disconnected from their mapped drives. The following message appears:

An error occurred while reconnecting Drive Letter: to \\File-server\File-share.
Microsoft Windows Network: The local device name is already in use.
This connection has not been restored.

All mapped drives have a red cross next to them.

These drives are down for approx 5 mins and are then restored without any action from the network administrators.

Has anyone got an idea what is going on?
Please help.....!

Cheers
Steve



If at first you don't succeed....go down the pub and have a beer

 

[kippy13]

It looks like the PCs are conrinuously trying to map the drives.
Are you using a login script?

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[levers]

No login scripts are being use, the users network drives are re-connected at login, however most PCs are not switched off logged off.

Any thoughts?

If at first you don't succeed....go down the pub and have a beer

 

[CompuFred]

I've had the same problem there is server autologout parameter. Try these Microsoft Knowledge Base Articles:

810401, 138365, 297864

 

[mucous]

Hi,

I'm having the same trouble, however it seems it's limited only to the laptop users in our office connecting through their port replicators. All the desktop users are fine. The laptops don't have this issue when plugged directly in via built in NICS, only when going through the port replicators. I've tried all the net config goodies like turning off autodisconnect and am not really interested in running logon scripts for our small office. I suppose I will if I have to, but if there's any other option, I would love to try it.

By the way...the laptops are all Dell C640's aside from one Dell C600, running their respective port replicators.

Sure do hope there'sa solution out there.

 

[jlunny]

I have the same problem with a Dell Latitude C600 while attached to the port replicator!

I got wind of one idea to disable power mgmt - which I'm trying out now. I suppose I'll find out if that's the issue if I'm good for a couple of days.

 

[mucous]

Hi Jlunny,

Was just wondering if turning off power management did the trick or not. We don't use logon scripts to reconnect our mapped drives. I did disable the auto disconnect feature, but we still have trouble with drives disconnecting. Would like to solve this without using logon scripts if at all possible.

 

[jlunny]

All I can say is that setting all of the sleep times in power mgmt to "Never" made things better. So instead of the problem happening every hour, it seems to happen every other day or so.

Clearly, I don't know why it would still happen at all - most likely the drivers for the port replicator are not quite as good as they could be. (Another example of a bad driver for the port replicator is that when I shutdown while docked, I get a harmless POWER_FAILURE blue screen (or something like that) since one of the drivers isn't catching that condition properly.)