Too many network connections !? 4

[J741]

I have a Windows XP Professional based computer in a small business with a total of 8 computers on a network. There is a data folder on the computer which is shared across the network. Each other computer on the network connects to this data folder via a mapped drive letter.

This has been fine for months, however now each other computer on the network will randomly not be able to connect to the mapped drive at startup, reporting 'too many network connections - limit exceded'.

On the Windows XP Professional based computer, if I use the computer management to examin current network shares, I see that the data folder has 7 connections to it, and the IPC$ share has 5 connections to it. This is definately not good, as there should be no connections to the IPC$ share.

How can I disable the IPC$ share without disabling the ability for other computers on the network to browse network shares or connect to the other shared folders?

How can I trace what computer(s) and/or user(s) are connected to the IPC$ share?

How can I change the IPC$ share so that it will automatically disconnect any connections immediately?


Any help on this issue would be greatly appreciated.
- James.

My memory is not as good as it should be, and neither is my memory.

I have forgotten more than I can remember

 

[bcastner]

The IPC$ share should be left alone. It is not what is causing a connection limit exceeded message, it is pure RPC traffic.

Even if I told you how to delete it, XP would recreate this on next reboot. So this is a dead end as to the issue.

What is important is not the number of users reported using a Share, but the number of sessions. Using Net Sessions on the "file" server should show these. generally speaking, I could map to three file shares, two printers, and IPC$ as well to your "file" server, but for accounting purposes I only have one session:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=314882

What you do have to watch for is services that create sessions. Some AV software that is centrally managed, for examle, will do this. As the MS KB article notes: "The only way system A will have multiple sessions to another system, system Z, is if system A is running services that create logical connections to system Z. For example, if a user is logged on to system A as guest and a service is running on system A under the user1 account, and both the user and the service (as user1) establish connections to system Z, two sessions are established. Each logon session that uses the Server service counts against the connection limit."

Watch to for use and abuse of Fast User Switching.

 

[J741]

Good info Bill. Thanks.

I will use this inof to try and isolate the problem further and let you know how it goes.

- James.


P.S.

How is it that when I search the Microsoft Knowledgebase I rarely find the exact information I'm looking for, but you always reply very quickly to my posts on Tek-Tips and always include a very appropriate link to a Microsoft Knowledgebase article. Do you have a specific search technique that helps you get better search results, or do you simply have a really good memory?



My memory is not as good as it should be, and neither is my memory.

I have forgotten more than I can remember

 

[bcastner]

J741,

I rarely start with an MS KB article search. What I do:

. I read this and other forums, and follow links to what seem interesting and on-point articles. If I like the article, I bookmark it. I use a program called LinkStash, by XRayz Software as it lets me add searchable descriptions for the bookmark contents.

. I receive an RSS feed from Microsoft, which is free, and read all new KB articles and bookmark them.

. I Google, both Web and most often Groups.

. and I suppose memory and experience play a role. For example, I know that the IPC$ share is in your situation harmless, and if deleted will be rebuilt. And remember the discussion on Snakefoot's excellent site on IPC$ as an administrative share as a lookup to check my recollection:

http://snakefoot.fateback.com/tweak/winnt/sharing.html

There is so much information out there that you have to focus, or use search engines with narrow search terms, to find what you want. Fortunately, for all of us, it is rare that someone else has not had the same or similar issue, and has taken the time to puzzle out a reasonable solution. There is nobody doing PC support that is not standing on the shoulders of giants who took the time to puzzle these things out, report bugs to MSFT, and Beta test planned products.

I agree with you the problem is finding it, and spending a little time looking through the documentation on your search engine of choice can be a huge help. Then there is the problem of weeding the wheat from the chaff or the simply erronous. Here experience and tech depth make the difference.

 

[J741]

O.K. I tried a few more things, but have not met with success.

The knowledgebase article lnked above indicates that the connection limit is for the number of active sessions per user, and not the number of open files or mapped drives, however when I open the MMC and view the active sessions on the Windows XP Pro based computer, there are only 7 active sessions (with about 18 open files). Despite this, a Windows 2000 computer with a mapped drive letter to a share on this computer displays a message indicating that the drive mapping could not be reconnected because of too many connections.

I'm really confused by this one.

- James.


My memory is not as good as it should be, and neither is my memory.

I have forgotten more than I can remember

 

[bcastner]

The reporting is done from the sharing host. In other words, you should go to the server in question and:
Start, Run, cmd
Net session

To get a reporting of what are viewed as the active sessions.

(You can also type net sessions, a rare nicety by Microsoft for the syntax disabled like me)

 

[J741]

Thanks Bill, but would that not report the same information as reported by the sessions report in the MMC?

- James.


My memory is not as good as it should be, and neither is my memory.

I have forgotten more than I can remember

 

[timroop]

J741-

Not in all cases. I just tried it on my machine and the MMC shows no current sessions but the Net session reports that I have one user connected but idle for 15 minutes.

Just my $0.02

Tim



Tim Roop
"If you can do something about it, why waste time getting upset? If you can't do anything about it, why bother getting upset on top of it? -Shantideva

 

[BadFrog]

Fortunately, for all of us, it is rare that someone else has not had the same or similar issue, and has taken the time to puzzle out a reasonable solution. There is nobody doing PC support that is not standing on the shoulders of giants who took the time to puzzle these things out, report bugs to MSFT, and Beta test planned products.

That is so true Bill!

..and thanks for sharing your search tips with us, great info!

"Once you can accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy"
Albert Einstein

 

[J741]

O.K. More information:

I have now tried many different things, and in my case the 'NET SESSION' command returned exactly the same list as is displayed in the MMC. I have confirmed that the Windows XP Professional based computer has only 7 active sessions when the issue occurs.

I have isolated the problem further:

The only 2 computers on the network which display this 'too many connections' error message are the only computers on the network running the Windows 2000 Professional operating system.

Additionally, the issue always occurs at startup, with drives which had been previously mapped. I have since disconnected all the previously mapped drives in Windows 2000, and created a batch file in the startup folder to manually re-map these drives. This now works about 90% of the time. The other 10% of the time I can have the user log-off and log back on to re-run the batch file and re-connect the mapped drives.

I sure would like to know why I need to do it this way.

- James.


My memory is not as good as it should be, and neither is my memory.

I have forgotten more than I can remember

 

[bcastner]

Could you check again the exact text of the error message? As the message for session limits should be: "No more connections can be made to this remote computer at this time because there are already as many connections as the computer can accept."

It bothers me that your exact message text cannot be found for either Win2k or XP as an error text.

 

[J741]

Yes Bill, "No more connections can be made to this remote computer at this time because there are already as many connections as the computer can accept." is the full text of the error message.

- James.



My memory is not as good as it should be, and neither is my memory.

I have forgotten more than I can remember

 

[J741]

*** PROBLEM SOLVED ***

It seems that the users were loggin in to the two Windows 2000 workstations as 'administrator' but the 'administrator' accound on the Windows XP Professional "server" had a different password than the 'administrator' account on the two Windows 2000 workstaitons. Normally I would expect this to result in a 'not authorised' error instead of a 'too many connections' error (not the exact error message text). However, we had reduced the security settings on this network so that the guest account could be used for file sharing. This resulted in the Windows 2000 computers connecting the mapped drives by using the 'guest' account, but only sometimes !?.

Now I know what to check first next time.

- James.

My memory is not as good as it should be, and neither is my memory.

I have forgotten more than I can remember

 

[bcastner]

I really appreciate your feedback here.

I spent over an hour on this issue, as someone else had earlier posted a result where the Session count was, in their opinion, flat out wrong.

To add to the frustration, I could not duplicate the error.

You obviously can use secpol.msc to change the authentication type to "Classic" rather than the Guest account. (On the "server").

I keep returning to this, posted as part of my orignal response: "The only way system A will have multiple sessions to another system, system Z, is if system A is running services that create logical connections to system Z. For example, if a user is logged on to system A as guest and a service is running on system A under the user1 account, and both the user and the service (as user1) establish connections to system Z, two sessions are established. Each logon session that uses the Server service counts against the connection limit."

This obviously needs ammendment in the case of a caching credential client such as XP.

Star for you sir.

 

[neilcorbett]

Great thread thanks a lot for your comments, helped solve my problems

 

[bcastner]

Consider as well:

http://support.microsoft.com/Default.aspx?id=824923