XP Pro roaming profile logoff issues 2

[CPTjdc]

Hello All,

I *HATE* roaming profiles!

Now that I have that out in the open...

I have a Windows 2000 server domain with numerous WinNT, Win2K, and a few WinXP clients. Roaming profiles work well (but slow) for NT and 2K, but are giving problems with XP Pro. When logging off, the profile is not written to the server and errors pop up on the client.

The following errors are logged on the XP clients:
------------------------------------------------------
Event Type: Error
Event Source: Userenv
Event Category: None
Event ID: 1509
Date: 04/03/2003
Time: 9:54:40 AM
User: my.domain\username
Computer: DEFAULT
Description:
Windows cannot copy file C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Windows\UsrClass.dat to location \\servername\profiles\username\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Windows\UsrClass.dat. Possible causes of this error include network problems or insufficient security rights. If this problem persists, contact your network administrator.

DETAIL - The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process.
------------------------------

Event Type: Error
Event Source: Userenv
Event Category: None
Event ID: 1504
Date: 04/03/2003
Time: 9:54:46 AM
User: my.domain\username
Computer: DEFAULT
Description:
Windows cannot update your roaming profile. Possible causes of this error include network problems or insufficient security rights. If this problem persists, contact your network administrator.

DETAIL - The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process.

------------------------------

Event Type: Warning
Event Source: Userenv
Event Category: None
Event ID: 1517
Date: 04/03/2003
Time: 9:54:00 AM
User: NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM
Computer: DEFAULT
Description:
Windows saved user servername\username registry while an application or service was still using the registry during log off. The memory used by the user's registry has not been freed. The registry will be unloaded when it is no longer in use.

This is often caused by services running as a user account, try configuring the services to run in either the LocalService or NetworkService account.
---------------------------------------------------------

File and share permissions are currently wide open on the profile folders for testing purposes. I have found the following, but I'm not exactly sure what it means:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;816880

These are a couple more articles that I found, but haven't had much success:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;811275

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;307401

Any ideas?

Thanks!

 

[arlems]

Well,I love roaming profiles because my users can go anywhere around the organization, or even from remote sites, and logon as if they were at their own desk. It is transparent if properly setup. Mine are not slow (half a second), only the first time (60 seconds) a user logon on a workstation.

How do you create your roaming profiles? Do you copy them from one folder on the server to another folder? Did you check the folder and file permission on the server?

 

[jamor1999]

When all else fails, or troubleshooting is not worth the headache, I like to start from scratch.

Go to the share server where the profiles are stored
Rename the user's profile to name.bak
Then, go to the user's pc or pcs, and log in as an administrator and rename the user's profile in the c:\documents and settings\ in the same manner to name.bak

If you receive any errors during this, try taking ownership of the folder AND adding full permission for yourself to the directory.

Now, log back in as that user on the pc and see what happens.

If this works *hopeful* , and the user wants his/her desktop shortcuts, etc, from the old profile, just post here and we'll walk you through this.

 

[dholbrook]

You should be using the System application in the Control Panel to create and move (copy) these profiles to the profile server, otherwise they may not work fully or correctly. You need to log on as the user, and create the profile, then log on as the Administrator to move the profile to the central server. It sounds like yours are not set up correctly, or the permissions are incorrest on the profile server, or there are multiple simultaneous log ons happening.

I get a funny feeling that your users may be logged into multiple systems at the same time, and this is holding open the profile files, locked as being in use, and therefore will not allow the writes (or else your acces permissions prevent writing by the user). When he logs off, any changes will then be written back to the profile server automatically.

Romaing profiles can really be useful if they are set up correctly, as they will prevent a large amount of network data transfer each time a user moves to a different location, as the primary referrence data stays on the central server, and only changes are transmitted to the profile on the end system. FUll configuration (desktop, configuration, mapped drives, etc., are automaticcally established for the user when he logs in, saving the need to configure umpteen individual configurations on multiple systems.

You need to check the permissions on the Roming User Profile directory on the server, and be sure the user has permission to write and read and change to the directory, otherwise you will generate the errors you are seeing also. Also check the user configuration in the AD to see if it is properly set up. If only one or a few of the users have problems, start with their user accounts in the AD, maybe their path is wrong. Microsoft also recommends to share the folder with the roaming profiles, then use a specific new group for the roaming users so the access to the roaming directories is controlled by the group policy, not individual permissions. Give the roaming group the full control access and remove the everyone full control on the roaming directory on the server. Much better way if you have a lot of roaming users, and restricts access only to the roamers.

Also a good idea to centrally locate the users home folder on a central server, and set the location in the users Profile tab under the user's account, so all his documents do not get sent across the network everytime he logs on (different from the profile, and can massively reduce net traffic!). Gives him access to his documents from anywhere, but doesn't load down the network.

HTH

David

 

[arlems]

10-4 David. That's the way I have my servers setup. Not to mention that files located on a central server or NAS can be backed up easily every single day. And make sure you disabled the caching of the shared folders -- very important with the folder sharing the roaming profiles.

 

[bookouri]

I keep avoiding the roaming profiles because of the performance problems I experienced the only time I tried to use them. But that was on NT with 95, 98, and NT clients. The users first logon on a workstation would take several minutes to "sync up" the roaming profile. Im having so much trouble with desktops now though, that we're trying to figure out the best way to give everyone the same default desktop. What problems could I run into since I now have some XP pro clients and some Win2k clients? The domain is still all win2k servers/AD. What is the best/easiest way to implement a default desktop for selected users?

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[CPTjdc]

Thanks for all of your responses.

I guess I should mention that all of the affected users had profiles that worked well on both WinNT and Win2K machines... so I think the permissions on the server are fine. In fact, I can still login on an NT or 2K machine with the affected profile and it works great.

It seems to be something specifically related to the logoff process in XP that is different than NT and 2K.

I guess I can try building the XP users' profiles from scratch, but I'm not too hopeful.

 

[jamor1999]

Give it a try. I'd like to know the outcome. Also, sometimes the usrclass.dat file becomes corrupt (no clue how or why) and when we didn't want to rebuild the profile, which is the easiest way to solve this, we just replaced the file from backup.

Roaming profiles in a mixed mode environment can be very troublesome - especially if you're using security policies on the nt boxes - true hell. I didn't have the same error as you (I don't think) but I had errors stating that the profile copy failed at files such and such.... and lots more problems.

 

[guyster]

Hi there

Finally I have found someone with exactly the same problems I am experiencing.

Basically I have an NT4 Server (latest SP) serving XP machines and get exactly the same issue when loggin off.

All advice offered in this thread is fine but I can guarantee it is not the server end. The profiles all worked perfectly under Windows NT4 Workstation but since upgrading to XP I get the usrclass.dat and usrclass.dat.log errors when logging off (althought he profile does appear to copy over any changes that have been made to desktops etc). Note that I have also resinatlled XP from scratch and recreated all profiles but no success.

On investigation when I actually go into the users profile folder locally and attempt to simply make a copy in the same directory or elsewhere of the usrclass files it tells me they are locked (this is how I know that writing back the profiles to the server is not an issue with permissions etc (I can copy any files I like manually to the server area holding the said usrclass files)

I thought it may have been the antivirus software initialy tying the files up but on complete removal of this (as a test) it still does exactly the same.

I am at a loss at present so any help from anyone out there would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Guy

 

[jamor1999]

I have found that this problem is so bad, that I stopped using roaming profiles while in a mixed environment. That was the easiest way to handle it. That way, anyone logging into the servers will have their profiles stored locally on the server under c:\docs and settings (win2k and XP) or c:\winnt\profiles (NT 4.0). For as long as XP doesn't try to load an NT 4.0 profile, I did not have this problem.

Also, when I removed the roaming terminal services profile path in user manager for domains or ad, I also went to the file server that hosted the profile and deleted the profile directory for that user. Also, I checked all the servers in case copies of the profile were being cached - again this will be under c:\docs and settings and c:\winnt\profiles.

There was a KB article on this, but I cannot find it any longer. I will see if I can find it and post the link here.

I figured I might as well describe how I got through this temporarily until we replaced our NT boxes with win2k.

 

[neutec]

David,
You said "You should be using the System application in the Control Panel to create and move (copy) these profiles to the profile server, otherwise they may not work fully or correctly" Where do I find System Application in control panel. Im a little lost there on copying the profile

 

[dholbrook]

neurec,

The system application is the "system" icon in the control panel window (Start, settings, control panel). When you open the icon, there is a user profile tab to click on to get to the user profile you want to copy.

HTH

David

 

[deik313]

Hi, I am having the exact same issue as you. I have Windows 2000 server with SP4 and all XP Pro clients with SP2. Clients log in, and at log off (whether they have roaming profiles or not) they get the errors in the event viewer that you listed. Next time they log in, their profile is corrupt, or locked, or gone! Did you ever find a solution to this problem? I have tried so many different fixes and solutions, nothing works. I am going to uninstall SP2 tomorrow to see if that helps. Please let me know if you found anything.