Too Many Netbios Errors

[AkamaiAloha]

I know there is an AKB that refers to this, but recently a customer of ours starting seeing this message on the same terminal.

Their Configuration is as follows:

1) The have the old vnetbiox.vxd installed, and the NUMBHCBS=100 set in the system.ini (per AKB which states systems with greater than 5 terms should have this).

2) Only two terminals are master capable/server capable. Over the years, we've found that for whatever reason, this site will begin to have problems with much more than 2 or 3 of these computers have this ability. This has something to do with computers that are master capable always scanning the network to potentially become master, or something like that--all I know is that it increases traffic and cause problems at this site.


The error message (Too Many Netbios errors) is an Aloha error message, not a Windows error message. it always appears on the same terminal (where it's master or not, and it reboots, then comes back up just fine, until it happens later). This client has 11 terminals--it seems as though turning one of them off will aleviate the problem.

Wondering if this could a virus, too, but any suggestions are appreciated.

thanks

 

[posrescue]

Are you sure it is the correct vnetbios.vxd? Should be dated July 12 I believe. There have been a few that used to go around but only 1 "Brian Cook" version.
NUMHCBS=100 should be fine but you can up it. I believe the formula is (numterms x 4) + 40. Maybe bump it to 140 for good measure.
Is it possible you have exceeded ditance limits in your network?
If Win 95/98 terminals are running on older hardware... Is your hub a 10 only or 10/100? Have seen older terms that didn't play well with auto-detecting hubs. If you are on a switch change to a hub pronto.

 

[posrescue]

Akamai,
By the way, what is the hardware platform for terms, FS and FS OS? Are the terms 95 or 98?

 

[RosemarysBaby]

I was once plagued with this message while upgrading Aloha terminals to W2k. I did everything you've mentioned to no avail. The fix was simply Windows update to SP4 (was SP2 at the time. If there are Win2K terms in the mix make sure they're SP4.

 

[AkamaiAloha2]

Thanks for the replies.

No matter how may times you think you checked something, you can never check too many times. This may lead to Obessive complusive disorder, but you'll be a hell of a computer tech.

Posrescure was on the right track. I forgot that someone had moved computers around at this sight recently. So, even though I checked the vnetbios files just days before, and assumed everything was still good-- when you change Windows networking information, it overwrites the vnetbios with the system installation files.

In short, the vnetbios was off on 2 computers. 2 out of 11--you wouldn't think that would be enough to cause a problem, but it was.

Thanks again.

 

[Aloha1]

on a side note,

NetBiosErrorThreshold=

can be inserted as a "band-aid" in certain situations. The default is 30 errors per minute on the network. Which activates the netbios error message you get on the FOH.

When testing a site that is not 100% fully installed and I get these errors, i up the threshold to like 99999999999, so that i can test without seeing these messages. Of course, i fix the issue, like i said this is a band-aid.

Thanks.