I did post this some time ago, but the problem is still occuring.

We're seeing a strange problem .... SBS 2003 r2 approx 10 XP Pro clients.
They have applications that look at Netbios names to run... eg. sage etc.
they look for \\sbs .

They work fine for hours and then all of a sudden they stop, and if you do
\\sbs to see the shares all it shows is the offline redirected my documents.
If you do \\sbs.domain.local then they sometimes appear, but often it fails.

It takes a reboot of the server AND the workstations to get everything
working again.

Have run dcdiag and netdiag and it passes all tests except that Messenger
service isnt running.

I've tried an entry for the server in the hosts file but that doesn't help.

Clients are all dhcp node type 0x8 which I believe is hybrid. WINS/NBNS and
DNS Server ip's are handed out over dhcp too.

This is causing major pain for my customer so any help is greatly appreciated.

Follow up on this...

Last week we fitted a new NIC and it was ok until this morning... about 6
days.... then the problem reappeared....

What we're also seeing now is that even trying \\sbs.domain.local , ie. dns
name is not finding the shares either. However if you ping with \\sbs or
\\sbs.domain.local it finds the ip and responds even after an ipconfig
/flushdns.

It does sound very similar to

http://blogs.technet.com/sbs/archive/2008/01/30/sbs-clients-lose-access-to-shares-and-or-cannot-get-dhcp-addresses.aspx

but the Symantec s/w is DEFINATELY NOT installed, so its not that, though
the problem seems very similar.

The NBTSTAT -A is the same from a client when it's all fine AND when they
have the problem.

Theres nothing in the event logs that would indicate the source of the
problem.

Thanks once again for all your help.

Dave

Re: SBS 2003 xp pro clients losing network shares by Merv

Merv
Thu May 15 04:44:32 PDT 2008

Hi Dave,

A couple of thoughts...

Make sure that the power Management on the SBS NICs is turn off. (Stuff
like Hibernation, standby and "allow the computer to turn off this device to
save power"). Alos, install the latest NIC drivers, especially if this is
Windows 2003 SP2 (and in particular if the SBS NIC is Broadcom). I presume
these are wired XP clients and not wireless. I alos presume you've checked
out the cables and the switch.

You may want to install and run a scan with the SBS 2003 BPA.

Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003 Best Practices Analyzer
http://207.46.19.190/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=3874527A-DE19-49...

Small Business Server 2003 Best Practices Analyzer Updated
http://207.46.19.190/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=3874527A-DE19-49...

How to Use the Windows SBS 2003 BPA
http://blogs.technet.com/sbs/archive/2007/10/22/how-to-use-the-window...


--
Merv Porter [SBS-MVP]
============================

"Dave Austin" <DaveAustin@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:3C6527F0-2B01-4B30-910D-CE2DE8067EE7@microsoft.com...
>I did post this some time ago, but the problem is still occuring.
>
> We're seeing a strange problem .... SBS 2003 r2 approx 10 XP Pro clients.
> They have applications that look at Netbios names to run... eg. sage etc.
> they look for \\sbs .
>
> They work fine for hours and then all of a sudden they stop, and if you do
> \\sbs to see the shares all it shows is the offline redirected my
> documents.
> If you do \\sbs.domain.local then they sometimes appear, but often it
> fails.
>
> It takes a reboot of the server AND the workstations to get everything
> working again.
>
> Have run dcdiag and netdiag and it passes all tests except that Messenger
> service isnt running.
>
> I've tried an entry for the server in the hosts file but that doesn't
> help.
>
> Clients are all dhcp node type 0x8 which I believe is hybrid. WINS/NBNS
> and
> DNS Server ip's are handed out over dhcp too.
>
> This is causing major pain for my customer so any help is greatly
> appreciated.
>
> Follow up on this...
>
> Last week we fitted a new NIC and it was ok until this morning... about 6
> days.... then the problem reappeared....
>
> What we're also seeing now is that even trying \\sbs.domain.local , ie.
> dns
> name is not finding the shares either. However if you ping with \\sbs or
> \\sbs.domain.local it finds the ip and responds even after an ipconfig
> /flushdns.
>
> It does sound very similar to
>
> http://blogs.technet.com/sbs/archive/2008/01/30/sbs-clients-lose-access-to-shares-and-or-cannot-get-dhcp-addresses.aspx
>
> but the Symantec s/w is DEFINATELY NOT installed, so its not that, though
> the problem seems very similar.
>
> The NBTSTAT -A is the same from a client when it's all fine AND when they
> have the problem.
>
> Theres nothing in the event logs that would indicate the source of the
> problem.
>
> Thanks once again for all your help.
>
> Dave
>



Re: SBS 2003 xp pro clients losing network shares by Jim

Jim
Thu May 15 06:24:56 PDT 2008

Grabbing at straws. Have you set ismasterbrowser on the SBS, turned
off every workstation and then rebooted the server? Short discussion
of this in the link.

http://forums.techarena.in/showthread.php?t=573643

On Thu, 15 May 2008 00:28:01 -0700, Dave Austin
<DaveAustin@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

>I did post this some time ago, but the problem is still occuring.
>
>We're seeing a strange problem .... SBS 2003 r2 approx 10 XP Pro clients.
>They have applications that look at Netbios names to run... eg. sage etc.
>they look for \\sbs .
>
>They work fine for hours and then all of a sudden they stop, and if you do
>\\sbs to see the shares all it shows is the offline redirected my documents.
>If you do \\sbs.domain.local then they sometimes appear, but often it fails.
>
>It takes a reboot of the server AND the workstations to get everything
>working again.
>
>Have run dcdiag and netdiag and it passes all tests except that Messenger
>service isnt running.
>
>I've tried an entry for the server in the hosts file but that doesn't help.
>
>Clients are all dhcp node type 0x8 which I believe is hybrid. WINS/NBNS and
>DNS Server ip's are handed out over dhcp too.
>
>This is causing major pain for my customer so any help is greatly appreciated.
>
>Follow up on this...
>
>Last week we fitted a new NIC and it was ok until this morning... about 6
>days.... then the problem reappeared....
>
>What we're also seeing now is that even trying \\sbs.domain.local , ie. dns
>name is not finding the shares either. However if you ping with \\sbs or
>\\sbs.domain.local it finds the ip and responds even after an ipconfig
>/flushdns.
>
>It does sound very similar to
>
>http://blogs.technet.com/sbs/archive/2008/01/30/sbs-clients-lose-access-to-shares-and-or-cannot-get-dhcp-addresses.aspx
>
>but the Symantec s/w is DEFINATELY NOT installed, so its not that, though
>the problem seems very similar.
>
>The NBTSTAT -A is the same from a client when it's all fine AND when they
>have the problem.
>
>Theres nothing in the event logs that would indicate the source of the
>problem.
>
>Thanks once again for all your help.
>
>Dave
See what SBS support is working on
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