Networking on my server has died

[GuyJD]

I need help, I'm pulling my hair out here.

 

My HP DL360 Gen 9 on 2012R2 is saying it has no network connection, the 4 network cables are connected to 4 separate switches all of which are working fine, device manager says all four ports are working, but I'm getting nothing.

 

If I go into network sharing center and into adapter settings, it's not showing any adapters.

 

Everything was working fine until I told it to install updates yesterday and every one of them failed to install other than the latest Windows Malicious software removal tool.

 

I'm also getting almost everything coming up as unknown in Server manager and if I go to add or remove roles and features I get a popup saying "Server Manger is collecting inventory data, the wizard will be available after data collection finishes" but it never does.

 

The 4 adapters were part of a NIC team but that seems to have vanished too.

 

Has anyone got any ideas because I'm all out, I've tried resetting the IP stack, rebuilding the WMI Repository and I've updated drivers and firmware for the NICs.

 

Someone suggested running the NDISCleanup tool but I can't find it anywhere.

[AJWhite1970]

This document may help, it walks you through how to rebuild server stacks after Windows Update has done it's magic...

 

JJClements.co.uk » Windows Server 2012 reset networking TCP/IP when NIC team is “Host Unmanageable”

[GuyJD]

Thanks for the quick reply, I'll give that a try now.

[GuyJD]

No joy I'm afraid, I ran through it twice in case I missed anything the first time but still no network adapters anywhere other than in device manager.

[3s-gtech]

Have you tried uninstalling the adaptors then doing a scan for hardware? This should act as a reset - you will have to recreate the team etc but at this stage that shouldn't be as much of a problem.

[GuyJD]

Yep done that pretty much before every reboot so far, they are there in device manager but I just get a red x over the network status in the notification area and no adapters to configure

[cpjitservices]

Try this:

 

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/netadapter-repair-all-in-one/

 

Run through the fix options IE tick reset adapters and reset settings reset winsock etc.

[bossman]

@GuyJD

 

I had a similar problem with Dell and it seems to be quite a familiar course with Broadcom NICs, my solution was to install the latest drivers from another company which had bought the rights to the hardware NICs, this is going back a while but it cured my problem.

 

Anyway found this item which maybe of interest to you:

https://community.hpe.com/t5/ProLiant-Servers-ML-DL-SL/ProLiant-DL380-Gen9-NIC-Teaming/td-p/6677222

 

Also remember it was QLogic who provided the drivers:

 

HPE Support document - HPE Support Center

 

http://h20564.www2.hpe.com/hpsc/swd/public/readIndex?sp4ts.oid=7252838&swLangOid=8&swEnvOid=4168

 

Hope this helps

Edited January 4, 2017 by bossman

[Geoff]

You can get the OEM drivers straight off broadcom too.

 

https://www.broadcom.com/support/ethernet-nic

 

Also try a linux live CD, just to check the hardware is actually ok and they haven't died somehow.

[GuyJD]

Thanks guys, Still had no luck with any of the above, I've noticed a lot of services are failing to start with dependency error 1068 even services that have no dependencies.

 

I have also tried plugging in a usb wireless NIC to see if I can connect to the network with that but again the same problem, it installs the drivers and says it's working in device manager but it does not see any network adapters in the network sharing center. I had a fellow NM come look at it last night, He's as baffled by it as I am.

 

This is my primary DC and Operations master hosting the majority of network services so I'm really not looking forward to having to bin it and start fresh as my cloud backup is data only, but it's looking more and more likely by the day.

 

On a lighter note my 9 year old HP ML370 G5 is coping well with being the sole remaining DC and as I'm shifting services over to it, it seems to be taking it in it's stride.

[3s-gtech]

Unlucky. This is where it pays to look at splitting roles as much as possible. We used to have everything handled by four servers (for two domains) when I started, it's now spun off to 30 or so with the benefits of virtualisation and Datacentre licensing. While that's a little extreme for a school our size, it does make replacing/fixing each server easier.

[NB9457]

Unlucky. This is where it pays to look at splitting roles as much as possible. We used to have everything handled by four servers (for two domains) when I started, it's now spun off to 30 or so with the benefits of virtualisation and Datacentre licensing. While that's a little extreme for a school our size, it does make replacing/fixing each server easier.

Have to agree, I'm on the VM bandwagon, be it primary or High School. Splitting up roles and having multiple VMs and the ability to snapshot really makes sure you don't have all year eggs in one basket, should something happen, you can either just flatten a VM, revert to a previous snapshot or even move hosts!

[bossman]

@GuyJD

 

Which services are failing?

 

Have you looked at the event viewer and does this give you any clues?

[sted]

do the cards work if you boot to safe mode with networking?

[GuyJD]

Funnily enough I had most of the roles split between the 2 servers up until just before xmas when I started getting Drive failure imminent warning on the old server so I moved most of the roles over to the newer server then and took the old server out of the DFS list to try and prolong the life of the failing HDD until a new one could be ordered after xmas, it's just sods law tat the other server packed up the day before the new HDD arrived and everything could go back to normal.

 

@GuyJD

 

Which services are failing?

 

Have you looked at the event viewer and does this give you any clues?

event viewer is one of the failed services so I can't check it, but it's mainly networking services and WMI services.

 

do the cards work if you boot to safe mode with networking?

nope still the same problem in Safe mode with network support

[bossman]

@GuyJD

 

Can you try to restart these services?

 

What are their dependencies?

 

Find out and try to start those as well if you haven't already,

 

It does seem like a major service has failed to start due to other dependencies which require starting, start at the network services and take it from there.

 

If all this fails then have you tried a re-install of Windows 2012R2 in recovery mode, it could be that your Windows platform has become somewhat corrupted and thus the services will not start.

Edited January 5, 2017 by bossman

[GuyJD]

@GuyJD

 

Can you try to restart these services?

 

What are their dependencies?

 

Find out and try to start those as well if you haven't already,

 

It does seem like a major service has failed to start due to other dependencies which require starting, start at the network services and take it from there.

 

If all this fails then have you tried a re-install of Windows 2012R2 in recovery mode, it could be that your Windows platform has become somewhat corrupted and thus the services will not start.

 

A lot of them say they have no dependencies and the ones that do drill down to services that also have none but can't start.

 

I'm going through uninstalling windows updates at the moment hoping it might have been something in there that's caused the issues