Stuck server

[TechMonkey]

Ok, we come in this morning adn find we can't remote login or directly login to the server. All that happens is it sits on the blue background with the mouse cursor and nothign else. The server seems to be OK, no problem with users logging in and had no complaints about anything not working. It just seems to be a problem managing the server. Disk space is OK, CPU load is ok, memory is ok. There looks like there was something funny on Friday evening as there are DHCP errors but these have stopped for teh past half hour after I stopped Indexing on the DHCP folder (something suggested else where)

Anyone nay ideas apart from Reboot? Of course the server is the forest root with all the staff user areas on so not going to be easy to restart during the day.

 

Ta

[Michael]

Realistically I think you'll need to reboot either way, but I can't say I've had the problem you've described before. Try rebooting at lunchtime when the network should be less busy?

[ricki]

I would suspect the net log on service has stopped.

 

Have a look at this The Net Logon service does not validate users on Windows Server 2003-based domain controllers after a power failure.

 

You can start a service remotely have a look at How to Create and Start a Service on a Remote Computer By Using the Command-Line or a Script

 

Just am idea.

 

Richard

[EduTech]

Is it just that the explorer.exe process has not loaded.

 

Ctrl+Alt+Del - Task Manager - New Task - explorer.exe

 

Might help

 

James

[tech_guy]

Must admit it sounds to me like explorer.exe has taken a nose-dive. I'd reboot and scour the logs.

[TechMonkey]

We have a split lunch so there is no quiet time But yes, it is def a reboot job but was hoping there was someway to get functionality just during the day before a reboot after school.

 

Will try that ta.

 

Nope, no input is working at all. Not even going to the screensaver. Just sitting there

[EduTech]

If it's not even allowing you to do anything using the keyboard/mice then its crashed and onlty way is to reboot this.

 

James

[Joanne]

hammer time!!

 

Our server sometimes does what you are explaining but doesn't allow any logons. It grumbles about virtual memory usually too... maybe try expanding that when it gets up and running?

[TechMonkey]

The wierdest thing is that everything else seems fine. As I said, there appears to be no logon problems, all services seem to be up and fine and we have had no complaints through the day. It is just us unable to log on locally or remotely to the server and our remote console that is a bit flaky.

 

Tres bizzare. Ohh well kick out of hours it will be

[mactech03]

Ive had this happen when there was a problem with an external device like a usb rev drive or something of that nature. I would say its a hung service but those are supposed to time out at 120 seconds or so. Do you have any external scsi/firewire/usb devices attatched?

[srochford]

What do you need to do on the server console? Surely you do most management remotely?

 

As someone else has said, it could be that explorer has crashed - try running pslist (sysinternals program) against the server from your workstation and look at the user time/kernel time columns. Does anything seem high? (most things will be close to zero other than system; idle is likely to be by far the biggest!)

 

If you see anything that's taken a lot of time then you could either try stopping/starting the service using services.msc for a GUI or sc if you prefer command line.

 

If explorer has lots of time showing then you could kill it with pskill (but if there's a virus scanner on the server it may block pskill - temporarily stop the scanner)

[srochford]

Try rebooting at lunchtime when the network should be less busy?

 

Have you been in a school? I don't think I've ever seen one where things get less busy at lunchtime :-)

[Michael]

Have you been in a school? I don't think I've ever seen one where things get less busy at lunchtime

 

I work in them most days. It does depend on the school I admit, but the point I was trying to make is that it shouldn't affect lessons. The alternative is doing it when everyone has gone home, in your own time. I know what I'd prefer

[bizzel]

Can you connect to it from Computer Management on a client machine? I mean by running compmgmt.msc, right clicking the current computer and connecting to a remote machine. That way you can check out the services and logs and get an idea if anything important has stopped.

[TechMonkey]

Cheers guys. Ended up kicking it late.

 

But just for future reference, no external drives attached. We could connect with Computer Management, check services, restart various ones with no effect. Having looked with remote task manager everything looked fine. Didn't get to look at teh kernel time so that could be something to look at next time but I had a look through the processes and nothing sprung out as unusual.

 

Ohh well, we'll see if it happens again.