Blank Desktop after logging on to Server 2003

[detjo]

I came across a blank desktop on one of our servers yesterday and figured the display drivers had just fallen over. I scheduled it to reboot last night and this morning it was waiting with Ctrl-Alt-Del
So i logged in and i have the same issue again. I can move the mouse and it responds ... but thats it!
The desktop is just blank [blue], no start menu, no icons, no response to Ctrl-Alt-Del .. nothing!

Any ideas?

[cookie_monster]

Can you remote desktop into it?

[detjo]

mstsc works fine and i can see the desktop as normal, tho mstsc /console gives me the same blank screen.

[ZeroHour]

How long are you leaving it for to allow it to log in?

[detjo]

I logged on to it at 8.30 this morn and its still blank ... gonna try power off and see if that fixes it.

I would be happy to leave it til next week [half term] since it does seem to be usable but SIMS desk say they need to get data from it and it was spose to be in yesterday .. "the higher people need the data"

[geekwannab]

I assume you try to connect into the server by administrative status. If you remote in and create a new admin user say "administrator2" and try to log on see will that work because It happened to me once and that worked. if it works then you can kepp the important people happy first.

[detjo]

Well .. would be nice to know the answer to the cause but its up and running again - for now.
Power off for couple mins worked and login successful.

Thanks all for suggestions etc.

[john]

I have one that does something similar but only seems to do it when it runs out of ram? Hows the ram utilisation on your box?

[FN-GM]

We have this happen on our Windows Server 2000 CD server from time to time. A reboot normally fixes it.

"I scheduled it to reboot"
How did you do that please?

Z

[detjo]

RAM was suggested as an issue here ... it doesnt surprise me that it was this particular server that gave us this problem.
The server is old, and pants, is a DC and only has 1024 RAM. I look fwd to the summer when we becoma an academy with a truck load of cash ... and they can buy me a few goodies!

A simple restart didnt cure the problem, but power off and on did the trick, again suggesting RAM is an issue.

As for the scheduled reboot ... i used a vbs script:

' This script will restart the target computer, even if the local screen has been locked
' Create a Scheduled Task to run one time only, and ensure that the reboot time will not affect backups or any other timed services.


strComputer = "."
Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:" _
& "{impersonationLevel=impersonate,(Shutdown)}!\\" & strComputer & "\root\cimv2")
Set colOperatingSystems = objWMIService.ExecQuery _
("Select * from Win32_OperatingSystem")
For Each objOperatingSystem in colOperatingSystems
ObjOperatingSystem.Win32shutdown 6
Next

[cookie_monster]

It's worth checking if you have any processes that run in the console session e.g in the system tray that might be in a non responsive state.