RESOLVED: Weird DFS Issue
Well, it's resolved in that we made the symptoms go away. Not sure of the cause. The solution was to delete the DFS link to school1 and then recreate it. Voila--all worked again. Why? Well, as best Microsoft can figure, there was a problem with the blob for that link (look at me, talking as if I know just what a blob is). However, the nature of that problem caused it to not be an issue until recent OS patches (e.g., XP SP3). Prior to those patches, the blob error didn't create any problems for client computers. MS got a bunch of trace data, server system states, etc. from me to try to recreate the issue on their end and figure out exactly what the blob problem was, and why it only affects client machines with newer patch levels. But in the mean time, at least I'm back up and running. John -Original Message- From: John Hornbuckle Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2008 3:03 PM To: 'NT System Admin Issues' Subject: Weird DFS Issue Quick background... At each school, I have a server with a shared directory. I use DFS to make these accessible to everyone under an F: drive, and every user has F: mapped to \\mydomain\dfs. That way users at school1 find their stuff under f:\school1, users at school2 find it under f:\school2, and so on. Some time back--I don't recall exactly when--I stopped being able to access one of my school's stuff from my Vista machine via the F: drive. Whenever I go to f:\school1 I get this dialog box: f:\school1 is not accessible. Element not found. I have no problem directly accessing the share (i.e., going to \\school1server\shareddirectory), but I can't get to it via DFS. Neither through the F: drive nor through \\mydomain\dfs\school1. On this Vista machine I'm running an XP virtual machine. Interestingly, from that virtual machine I've had no problems accessing f:\school1. Until now. Now from the XP virtual machine when I go to f:\school1, I get: f:\school1 is not accessible. Configuration information could not be read from the domain controller, either because the machine is unavailable, or access has been denied. And now I'm starting to see computers at that school have the same problem accessing their stuff via DFS. Not all of the computers, but some. We're working on determining a pattern. From within the DFS utility, all looks good. School1's share shows up as being online in the DFS management utility. I have no clue where to go from here. Any suggestions? John Hornbuckle MIS Department Taylor County School District 318 North Clark Street Perry, FL 32347 www.taylor.k12.fl.us ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja!~ ~ http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm ~
RE: Weird DFS Issue
Any chance your server or share name has been modified somehow, like using a cname now due to a migration, or a netbios alias? If you haven't already tried, DFS is usually pretty easy to tear down and rebuild (I've had to do this many times in early Win2k DFS). Could you just try removing this one link and add it back? If that's too destructive to start with, maybe create a test share that you can add to the root to prove if another (new) link on the same server will work? -Bonnie -Original Message- From: John Hornbuckle [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, June 16, 2008 8:22 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Weird DFS Issue No, dcdiag comes up clean. Event logs show nothing out of the ordinary. I've checked the logs both on the server that hosts the share, and the DC here at the site I'm testing from. The DFS snap-in, when run from my XP test machine, look okay at the highest level: http://www.taylor.k12.fl.us/ss1.gif But then when I look at the specific site/server that's having a problem (TCHS), I get this: http://www.taylor.k12.fl.us/ss2.gif Note the red X next to TCHS (even though the status window says Online). According to the TechNet article you sent, that means there's a link or transport problem. I don't know what to look for to solve that, though. And I don't see these same results from my Server 2003 machines; when I run the DFS snap-in on them, everything shows up fine (and I have no problems accessing f:\tchs or \\taylor.k12.fl.us\dfs\tchs). Here's a screen shot from the Server 2003 DC at the site I'm at (the same site where the XP screen shots were taken): http://www.taylor.k12.fl.us/ss3.gif This just doesn't make sense. -Original Message- From: Miller Bonnie L. [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2008 4:02 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Weird DFS Issue If you mean the dfs root share, then I would agree that permissions are probably fine. How about the next route, which is the report that it is unable to read the configuration container in AD. Anything in AD event logs that things are awry? Does dcdiag turn up any problems? Maybe something in here will help as well http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windows2000serv/reskit/dist rib/dsdb_dfs_vxjw.mspx?mfr=true -Bonnie -Original Message- From: John Hornbuckle [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2008 12:48 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Weird DFS Issue But the crazy thing is that nothing has changed on that share in terms of permissions (or anything else I'm aware of). If I can access the share directly (via \\servername\sharename), then permissions must be okay, right? In doing some testing today, it's looking as though the problem appears on XP machines after SP3 is installed. And on Vista, too, the issue appears to be tied to some specific update (although we've not yet figured out which one). But since 99% of the machines at that school are XP, that's what we're focusing on for the moment. One thing I did find was that the share was configured to allow offline files, which I recall reading should be avoided with DFS. So I turned that off a couple of hours ago, but it doesn't seem to have made a difference. I also found a second server at a second school that had offline files enabled for its shared folder, but I've had no problems accessing that one. John -Original Message- From: Miller Bonnie L. [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2008 3:39 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Weird DFS Issue Sounds like maybe a dfs root share problem. Check ntfs and share permissions on all the servers sharing the root one at a time and see if any are down, not configured correctly, or otherwise inaccessible. DFSutil might be handy as well. -Bonnie -Original Message- From: John Hornbuckle [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2008 12:03 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Weird DFS Issue Quick background... At each school, I have a server with a shared directory. I use DFS to make these accessible to everyone under an F: drive, and every user has F: mapped to \\mydomain\dfs. That way users at school1 find their stuff under f:\school1, users at school2 find it under f:\school2, and so on. Some time back--I don't recall exactly when--I stopped being able to access one of my school's stuff from my Vista machine via the F: drive. Whenever I go to f:\school1 I get this dialog box: f:\school1 is not accessible. Element not found. I have no problem directly accessing the share (i.e., going to \\school1server\shareddirectory), but I can't get to it via DFS. Neither through the F: drive nor through \\mydomain\dfs\school1. On this Vista machine I'm running an XP virtual machine. Interestingly, from that virtual machine I've had no problems accessing f:\school1. Until now. Now from the XP virtual machine when I go to f:\school1, I get: f:\school1 is not accessible
RE: Weird DFS Issue
Nope--nothing has changed to my knowledge. I'm leery of pursuing this as an issue on the server side; it appears to be a client-side issue. Remember that XP workstations have no problems accessing it until SP3 is installed. There seems to be an update that's breaking it. John -Original Message- From: Miller Bonnie L. [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, June 17, 2008 9:23 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Weird DFS Issue Any chance your server or share name has been modified somehow, like using a cname now due to a migration, or a netbios alias? If you haven't already tried, DFS is usually pretty easy to tear down and rebuild (I've had to do this many times in early Win2k DFS). Could you just try removing this one link and add it back? If that's too destructive to start with, maybe create a test share that you can add to the root to prove if another (new) link on the same server will work? -Bonnie -Original Message- From: John Hornbuckle [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, June 16, 2008 8:22 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Weird DFS Issue No, dcdiag comes up clean. Event logs show nothing out of the ordinary. I've checked the logs both on the server that hosts the share, and the DC here at the site I'm testing from. The DFS snap-in, when run from my XP test machine, look okay at the highest level: http://www.taylor.k12.fl.us/ss1.gif But then when I look at the specific site/server that's having a problem (TCHS), I get this: http://www.taylor.k12.fl.us/ss2.gif Note the red X next to TCHS (even though the status window says Online). According to the TechNet article you sent, that means there's a link or transport problem. I don't know what to look for to solve that, though. And I don't see these same results from my Server 2003 machines; when I run the DFS snap-in on them, everything shows up fine (and I have no problems accessing f:\tchs or \\taylor.k12.fl.us\dfs\tchs). Here's a screen shot from the Server 2003 DC at the site I'm at (the same site where the XP screen shots were taken): http://www.taylor.k12.fl.us/ss3.gif This just doesn't make sense. -Original Message- From: Miller Bonnie L. [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2008 4:02 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Weird DFS Issue If you mean the dfs root share, then I would agree that permissions are probably fine. How about the next route, which is the report that it is unable to read the configuration container in AD. Anything in AD event logs that things are awry? Does dcdiag turn up any problems? Maybe something in here will help as well http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windows2000serv/reskit/dist rib/dsdb_dfs_vxjw.mspx?mfr=true -Bonnie -Original Message- From: John Hornbuckle [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2008 12:48 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Weird DFS Issue But the crazy thing is that nothing has changed on that share in terms of permissions (or anything else I'm aware of). If I can access the share directly (via \\servername\sharename), then permissions must be okay, right? In doing some testing today, it's looking as though the problem appears on XP machines after SP3 is installed. And on Vista, too, the issue appears to be tied to some specific update (although we've not yet figured out which one). But since 99% of the machines at that school are XP, that's what we're focusing on for the moment. One thing I did find was that the share was configured to allow offline files, which I recall reading should be avoided with DFS. So I turned that off a couple of hours ago, but it doesn't seem to have made a difference. I also found a second server at a second school that had offline files enabled for its shared folder, but I've had no problems accessing that one. John -Original Message- From: Miller Bonnie L. [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2008 3:39 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Weird DFS Issue Sounds like maybe a dfs root share problem. Check ntfs and share permissions on all the servers sharing the root one at a time and see if any are down, not configured correctly, or otherwise inaccessible. DFSutil might be handy as well. -Bonnie -Original Message- From: John Hornbuckle [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2008 12:03 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Weird DFS Issue Quick background... At each school, I have a server with a shared directory. I use DFS to make these accessible to everyone under an F: drive, and every user has F: mapped to \\mydomain\dfs. That way users at school1 find their stuff under f:\school1, users at school2 find it under f:\school2, and so on. Some time back--I don't recall exactly when--I stopped being able to access one of my school's stuff from my Vista machine via the F: drive. Whenever I go to f:\school1 I get this dialog box: f:\school1 is not accessible. Element
RE: Weird DFS Issue
Hey, Stan. Thanks for the suggestion. I gave this a shot, but it didn't work. Interestingly, from a Server 2003 machine (a DC) here at the same site as my machine, I have no problem accessing the DFS share that I can't get to from my Vista or XP machines. I think I'm going to hit up the Patch Management mailing list, since this seems to be related to a patch... -Original Message- From: Wood, Stan [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2008 4:02 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Weird DFS Issue I've just been seeing this very problem only recently and have found that if you add \\servername to your Trusted Sites in IE it will fix the problem. In fact it was from a XP SP2 machine trying to connect to a XP SP3 share. And from Server 2003 R2 machine to a Server 2003 fileserver. - Stan Wood - Systems Administrator for CARES, 573-884-3706 (work) http://www.cares.missouri.edu (work) http://www.eswood.com (personal) http://www.amlethmoor.org (SCA) Sarah Connor: No one is ever safe! Half an hour, plus the guns... I'll make pancakes. -Original Message- From: John Hornbuckle [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2008 2:48 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Weird DFS Issue But the crazy thing is that nothing has changed on that share in terms of permissions (or anything else I'm aware of). If I can access the share directly (via \\servername\sharename), then permissions must be okay, right? In doing some testing today, it's looking as though the problem appears on XP machines after SP3 is installed. And on Vista, too, the issue appears to be tied to some specific update (although we've not yet figured out which one). But since 99% of the machines at that school are XP, that's what we're focusing on for the moment. One thing I did find was that the share was configured to allow offline files, which I recall reading should be avoided with DFS. So I turned that off a couple of hours ago, but it doesn't seem to have made a difference. I also found a second server at a second school that had offline files enabled for its shared folder, but I've had no problems accessing that one. John -Original Message- From: Miller Bonnie L. [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2008 3:39 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Weird DFS Issue Sounds like maybe a dfs root share problem. Check ntfs and share permissions on all the servers sharing the root one at a time and see if any are down, not configured correctly, or otherwise inaccessible. DFSutil might be handy as well. -Bonnie -Original Message- From: John Hornbuckle [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2008 12:03 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Weird DFS Issue Quick background... At each school, I have a server with a shared directory. I use DFS to make these accessible to everyone under an F: drive, and every user has F: mapped to \\mydomain\dfs. That way users at school1 find their stuff under f:\school1, users at school2 find it under f:\school2, and so on. Some time back--I don't recall exactly when--I stopped being able to access one of my school's stuff from my Vista machine via the F: drive. Whenever I go to f:\school1 I get this dialog box: f:\school1 is not accessible. Element not found. I have no problem directly accessing the share (i.e., going to \\school1server\shareddirectory), but I can't get to it via DFS. Neither through the F: drive nor through \\mydomain\dfs\school1. On this Vista machine I'm running an XP virtual machine. Interestingly, from that virtual machine I've had no problems accessing f:\school1. Until now. Now from the XP virtual machine when I go to f:\school1, I get: f:\school1 is not accessible. Configuration information could not be read from the domain controller, either because the machine is unavailable, or access has been denied. And now I'm starting to see computers at that school have the same problem accessing their stuff via DFS. Not all of the computers, but some. We're working on determining a pattern. From within the DFS utility, all looks good. School1's share shows up as being online in the DFS management utility. I have no clue where to go from here. Any suggestions? John Hornbuckle MIS Department Taylor County School District 318 North Clark Street Perry, FL 32347 www.taylor.k12.fl.us ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja!~ ~ http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm ~ ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja!~ ~ http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm ~ ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja!~ ~ http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm ~ ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja!~ ~ http
RE: Weird DFS Issue
No, dcdiag comes up clean. Event logs show nothing out of the ordinary. I've checked the logs both on the server that hosts the share, and the DC here at the site I'm testing from. The DFS snap-in, when run from my XP test machine, look okay at the highest level: http://www.taylor.k12.fl.us/ss1.gif But then when I look at the specific site/server that's having a problem (TCHS), I get this: http://www.taylor.k12.fl.us/ss2.gif Note the red X next to TCHS (even though the status window says Online). According to the TechNet article you sent, that means there's a link or transport problem. I don't know what to look for to solve that, though. And I don't see these same results from my Server 2003 machines; when I run the DFS snap-in on them, everything shows up fine (and I have no problems accessing f:\tchs or \\taylor.k12.fl.us\dfs\tchs). Here's a screen shot from the Server 2003 DC at the site I'm at (the same site where the XP screen shots were taken): http://www.taylor.k12.fl.us/ss3.gif This just doesn't make sense. -Original Message- From: Miller Bonnie L. [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2008 4:02 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Weird DFS Issue If you mean the dfs root share, then I would agree that permissions are probably fine. How about the next route, which is the report that it is unable to read the configuration container in AD. Anything in AD event logs that things are awry? Does dcdiag turn up any problems? Maybe something in here will help as well http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windows2000serv/reskit/dist rib/dsdb_dfs_vxjw.mspx?mfr=true -Bonnie -Original Message- From: John Hornbuckle [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2008 12:48 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Weird DFS Issue But the crazy thing is that nothing has changed on that share in terms of permissions (or anything else I'm aware of). If I can access the share directly (via \\servername\sharename), then permissions must be okay, right? In doing some testing today, it's looking as though the problem appears on XP machines after SP3 is installed. And on Vista, too, the issue appears to be tied to some specific update (although we've not yet figured out which one). But since 99% of the machines at that school are XP, that's what we're focusing on for the moment. One thing I did find was that the share was configured to allow offline files, which I recall reading should be avoided with DFS. So I turned that off a couple of hours ago, but it doesn't seem to have made a difference. I also found a second server at a second school that had offline files enabled for its shared folder, but I've had no problems accessing that one. John -Original Message- From: Miller Bonnie L. [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2008 3:39 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Weird DFS Issue Sounds like maybe a dfs root share problem. Check ntfs and share permissions on all the servers sharing the root one at a time and see if any are down, not configured correctly, or otherwise inaccessible. DFSutil might be handy as well. -Bonnie -Original Message- From: John Hornbuckle [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2008 12:03 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Weird DFS Issue Quick background... At each school, I have a server with a shared directory. I use DFS to make these accessible to everyone under an F: drive, and every user has F: mapped to \\mydomain\dfs. That way users at school1 find their stuff under f:\school1, users at school2 find it under f:\school2, and so on. Some time back--I don't recall exactly when--I stopped being able to access one of my school's stuff from my Vista machine via the F: drive. Whenever I go to f:\school1 I get this dialog box: f:\school1 is not accessible. Element not found. I have no problem directly accessing the share (i.e., going to \\school1server\shareddirectory), but I can't get to it via DFS. Neither through the F: drive nor through \\mydomain\dfs\school1. On this Vista machine I'm running an XP virtual machine. Interestingly, from that virtual machine I've had no problems accessing f:\school1. Until now. Now from the XP virtual machine when I go to f:\school1, I get: f:\school1 is not accessible. Configuration information could not be read from the domain controller, either because the machine is unavailable, or access has been denied. And now I'm starting to see computers at that school have the same problem accessing their stuff via DFS. Not all of the computers, but some. We're working on determining a pattern. From within the DFS utility, all looks good. School1's share shows up as being online in the DFS management utility. I have no clue where to go from here. Any suggestions? John Hornbuckle MIS Department Taylor County School District 318 North Clark Street Perry, FL 32347 www.taylor.k12.fl.us ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam
Weird DFS Issue
Quick background... At each school, I have a server with a shared directory. I use DFS to make these accessible to everyone under an F: drive, and every user has F: mapped to \\mydomain\dfs. That way users at school1 find their stuff under f:\school1, users at school2 find it under f:\school2, and so on. Some time back--I don't recall exactly when--I stopped being able to access one of my school's stuff from my Vista machine via the F: drive. Whenever I go to f:\school1 I get this dialog box: f:\school1 is not accessible. Element not found. I have no problem directly accessing the share (i.e., going to \\school1server\shareddirectory), but I can't get to it via DFS. Neither through the F: drive nor through \\mydomain\dfs\school1. On this Vista machine I'm running an XP virtual machine. Interestingly, from that virtual machine I've had no problems accessing f:\school1. Until now. Now from the XP virtual machine when I go to f:\school1, I get: f:\school1 is not accessible. Configuration information could not be read from the domain controller, either because the machine is unavailable, or access has been denied. And now I'm starting to see computers at that school have the same problem accessing their stuff via DFS. Not all of the computers, but some. We're working on determining a pattern. From within the DFS utility, all looks good. School1's share shows up as being online in the DFS management utility. I have no clue where to go from here. Any suggestions? John Hornbuckle MIS Department Taylor County School District 318 North Clark Street Perry, FL 32347 www.taylor.k12.fl.us ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja!~ ~ http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm ~
RE: Weird DFS Issue
Sounds like maybe a dfs root share problem. Check ntfs and share permissions on all the servers sharing the root one at a time and see if any are down, not configured correctly, or otherwise inaccessible. DFSutil might be handy as well. -Bonnie -Original Message- From: John Hornbuckle [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2008 12:03 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Weird DFS Issue Quick background... At each school, I have a server with a shared directory. I use DFS to make these accessible to everyone under an F: drive, and every user has F: mapped to \\mydomain\dfs. That way users at school1 find their stuff under f:\school1, users at school2 find it under f:\school2, and so on. Some time back--I don't recall exactly when--I stopped being able to access one of my school's stuff from my Vista machine via the F: drive. Whenever I go to f:\school1 I get this dialog box: f:\school1 is not accessible. Element not found. I have no problem directly accessing the share (i.e., going to \\school1server\shareddirectory), but I can't get to it via DFS. Neither through the F: drive nor through \\mydomain\dfs\school1. On this Vista machine I'm running an XP virtual machine. Interestingly, from that virtual machine I've had no problems accessing f:\school1. Until now. Now from the XP virtual machine when I go to f:\school1, I get: f:\school1 is not accessible. Configuration information could not be read from the domain controller, either because the machine is unavailable, or access has been denied. And now I'm starting to see computers at that school have the same problem accessing their stuff via DFS. Not all of the computers, but some. We're working on determining a pattern. From within the DFS utility, all looks good. School1's share shows up as being online in the DFS management utility. I have no clue where to go from here. Any suggestions? John Hornbuckle MIS Department Taylor County School District 318 North Clark Street Perry, FL 32347 www.taylor.k12.fl.us ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja!~ ~ http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm ~ ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja!~ ~ http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm ~
RE: Weird DFS Issue
But the crazy thing is that nothing has changed on that share in terms of permissions (or anything else I'm aware of). If I can access the share directly (via \\servername\sharename), then permissions must be okay, right? In doing some testing today, it's looking as though the problem appears on XP machines after SP3 is installed. And on Vista, too, the issue appears to be tied to some specific update (although we've not yet figured out which one). But since 99% of the machines at that school are XP, that's what we're focusing on for the moment. One thing I did find was that the share was configured to allow offline files, which I recall reading should be avoided with DFS. So I turned that off a couple of hours ago, but it doesn't seem to have made a difference. I also found a second server at a second school that had offline files enabled for its shared folder, but I've had no problems accessing that one. John -Original Message- From: Miller Bonnie L. [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2008 3:39 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Weird DFS Issue Sounds like maybe a dfs root share problem. Check ntfs and share permissions on all the servers sharing the root one at a time and see if any are down, not configured correctly, or otherwise inaccessible. DFSutil might be handy as well. -Bonnie -Original Message- From: John Hornbuckle [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2008 12:03 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Weird DFS Issue Quick background... At each school, I have a server with a shared directory. I use DFS to make these accessible to everyone under an F: drive, and every user has F: mapped to \\mydomain\dfs. That way users at school1 find their stuff under f:\school1, users at school2 find it under f:\school2, and so on. Some time back--I don't recall exactly when--I stopped being able to access one of my school's stuff from my Vista machine via the F: drive. Whenever I go to f:\school1 I get this dialog box: f:\school1 is not accessible. Element not found. I have no problem directly accessing the share (i.e., going to \\school1server\shareddirectory), but I can't get to it via DFS. Neither through the F: drive nor through \\mydomain\dfs\school1. On this Vista machine I'm running an XP virtual machine. Interestingly, from that virtual machine I've had no problems accessing f:\school1. Until now. Now from the XP virtual machine when I go to f:\school1, I get: f:\school1 is not accessible. Configuration information could not be read from the domain controller, either because the machine is unavailable, or access has been denied. And now I'm starting to see computers at that school have the same problem accessing their stuff via DFS. Not all of the computers, but some. We're working on determining a pattern. From within the DFS utility, all looks good. School1's share shows up as being online in the DFS management utility. I have no clue where to go from here. Any suggestions? John Hornbuckle MIS Department Taylor County School District 318 North Clark Street Perry, FL 32347 www.taylor.k12.fl.us ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja!~ ~ http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm ~ ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja!~ ~ http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm ~ ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja!~ ~ http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm ~
RE: Weird DFS Issue
I've just been seeing this very problem only recently and have found that if you add \\servername to your Trusted Sites in IE it will fix the problem. In fact it was from a XP SP2 machine trying to connect to a XP SP3 share. And from Server 2003 R2 machine to a Server 2003 fileserver. - Stan Wood - Systems Administrator for CARES, 573-884-3706 (work) http://www.cares.missouri.edu (work) http://www.eswood.com (personal) http://www.amlethmoor.org (SCA) Sarah Connor: No one is ever safe! Half an hour, plus the guns... I'll make pancakes. -Original Message- From: John Hornbuckle [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2008 2:48 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Weird DFS Issue But the crazy thing is that nothing has changed on that share in terms of permissions (or anything else I'm aware of). If I can access the share directly (via \\servername\sharename), then permissions must be okay, right? In doing some testing today, it's looking as though the problem appears on XP machines after SP3 is installed. And on Vista, too, the issue appears to be tied to some specific update (although we've not yet figured out which one). But since 99% of the machines at that school are XP, that's what we're focusing on for the moment. One thing I did find was that the share was configured to allow offline files, which I recall reading should be avoided with DFS. So I turned that off a couple of hours ago, but it doesn't seem to have made a difference. I also found a second server at a second school that had offline files enabled for its shared folder, but I've had no problems accessing that one. John -Original Message- From: Miller Bonnie L. [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2008 3:39 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Weird DFS Issue Sounds like maybe a dfs root share problem. Check ntfs and share permissions on all the servers sharing the root one at a time and see if any are down, not configured correctly, or otherwise inaccessible. DFSutil might be handy as well. -Bonnie -Original Message- From: John Hornbuckle [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2008 12:03 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Weird DFS Issue Quick background... At each school, I have a server with a shared directory. I use DFS to make these accessible to everyone under an F: drive, and every user has F: mapped to \\mydomain\dfs. That way users at school1 find their stuff under f:\school1, users at school2 find it under f:\school2, and so on. Some time back--I don't recall exactly when--I stopped being able to access one of my school's stuff from my Vista machine via the F: drive. Whenever I go to f:\school1 I get this dialog box: f:\school1 is not accessible. Element not found. I have no problem directly accessing the share (i.e., going to \\school1server\shareddirectory), but I can't get to it via DFS. Neither through the F: drive nor through \\mydomain\dfs\school1. On this Vista machine I'm running an XP virtual machine. Interestingly, from that virtual machine I've had no problems accessing f:\school1. Until now. Now from the XP virtual machine when I go to f:\school1, I get: f:\school1 is not accessible. Configuration information could not be read from the domain controller, either because the machine is unavailable, or access has been denied. And now I'm starting to see computers at that school have the same problem accessing their stuff via DFS. Not all of the computers, but some. We're working on determining a pattern. From within the DFS utility, all looks good. School1's share shows up as being online in the DFS management utility. I have no clue where to go from here. Any suggestions? John Hornbuckle MIS Department Taylor County School District 318 North Clark Street Perry, FL 32347 www.taylor.k12.fl.us ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja!~ ~ http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm ~ ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja!~ ~ http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm ~ ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja!~ ~ http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm ~ ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja!~ ~ http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm ~
RE: Weird DFS Issue
If you mean the dfs root share, then I would agree that permissions are probably fine. How about the next route, which is the report that it is unable to read the configuration container in AD. Anything in AD event logs that things are awry? Does dcdiag turn up any problems? Maybe something in here will help as well http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windows2000serv/reskit/distrib/dsdb_dfs_vxjw.mspx?mfr=true -Bonnie -Original Message- From: John Hornbuckle [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2008 12:48 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Weird DFS Issue But the crazy thing is that nothing has changed on that share in terms of permissions (or anything else I'm aware of). If I can access the share directly (via \\servername\sharename), then permissions must be okay, right? In doing some testing today, it's looking as though the problem appears on XP machines after SP3 is installed. And on Vista, too, the issue appears to be tied to some specific update (although we've not yet figured out which one). But since 99% of the machines at that school are XP, that's what we're focusing on for the moment. One thing I did find was that the share was configured to allow offline files, which I recall reading should be avoided with DFS. So I turned that off a couple of hours ago, but it doesn't seem to have made a difference. I also found a second server at a second school that had offline files enabled for its shared folder, but I've had no problems accessing that one. John -Original Message- From: Miller Bonnie L. [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2008 3:39 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Weird DFS Issue Sounds like maybe a dfs root share problem. Check ntfs and share permissions on all the servers sharing the root one at a time and see if any are down, not configured correctly, or otherwise inaccessible. DFSutil might be handy as well. -Bonnie -Original Message- From: John Hornbuckle [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2008 12:03 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Weird DFS Issue Quick background... At each school, I have a server with a shared directory. I use DFS to make these accessible to everyone under an F: drive, and every user has F: mapped to \\mydomain\dfs. That way users at school1 find their stuff under f:\school1, users at school2 find it under f:\school2, and so on. Some time back--I don't recall exactly when--I stopped being able to access one of my school's stuff from my Vista machine via the F: drive. Whenever I go to f:\school1 I get this dialog box: f:\school1 is not accessible. Element not found. I have no problem directly accessing the share (i.e., going to \\school1server\shareddirectory), but I can't get to it via DFS. Neither through the F: drive nor through \\mydomain\dfs\school1. On this Vista machine I'm running an XP virtual machine. Interestingly, from that virtual machine I've had no problems accessing f:\school1. Until now. Now from the XP virtual machine when I go to f:\school1, I get: f:\school1 is not accessible. Configuration information could not be read from the domain controller, either because the machine is unavailable, or access has been denied. And now I'm starting to see computers at that school have the same problem accessing their stuff via DFS. Not all of the computers, but some. We're working on determining a pattern. From within the DFS utility, all looks good. School1's share shows up as being online in the DFS management utility. I have no clue where to go from here. Any suggestions? John Hornbuckle MIS Department Taylor County School District 318 North Clark Street Perry, FL 32347 www.taylor.k12.fl.us ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja!~ ~ http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm ~ ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja!~ ~ http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm ~ ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja!~ ~ http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm ~ ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja!~ ~ http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm ~
