Every device unable to contact Domain Controller

[grumpydwarf]

Sorry in advance at the poor description of what is going on!

For whatever reason, our one onsite server that hosts our VM rebooted last night at 8pm. Since then none of the devices will see the domain controller. Consequently nobody has a desktop or access to shared drives etc. Internet is fine and I can attach iPads and other devices to the network.

 

Only recent change was the ISP 2 weeks ago, only change for that was the DNS address, all other details stayed the same.

No Windows updates to roll back and no other recent server changes.

 

When trying to add a device to the domain controller, I get the error message:

 

"A domain controller for the domain could not be contacted""DNS name does not exist", "error code 0x0000232B RCODE_NAME_ERROR"

"The DNS SRV records required to locate a domain controller for the domain are not registered in DNS"

 

I've obviously Google'd this error and ran a number of the recommended fixes, but to no avail.

I'm now at a dead end , so was wondering if anyone has had or seen this issue before?

 

Thanks.

[ctstone]

This may be a stupid question, but have your DCs got a network/internet connection

 

Are all the relevant services running?

Have you tried rebooting the main DC again.

Have you tried running an IPConfig /all from your DC & Clients?

[Jawloms]

When you say the DNS was changed, I assume you mean the forwarders in DNS rather than the actual server's own DNS?

 

Don't forget the haiku;

 

It’s not DNS

 

There is a no way it’s DNS

 

It was DNS

[chaplic]

Im reading between the lines but has someone change client DNS settings to point at the ISPs DNS and not your local DNS servers? would explain both phenomena. Clients talk to your local DNS servers (presumably hosting AD domains) which then forward to ISP DNS servers.

[psydii]

Where is the DHCP server for your network? Is it one of your windows servers, or is it the ISP router? Either way, that is probably where the solution lies. Set the DHCP server to hand out the IP address of the DC(s) that have the DNS Server service installed.

 

Then make sure that your DNS Servers are configured to forward DNS to the ip address of your ISP's DNS servers (using DNS mmc ->Server->properties->dns forwarders).

 

To be clear, the DNS entry on the TCP/IP settings of your servers and clients network interfaces must be pointing to your internal DNS Servers (almost certainly one or more of your DCs).

 

Only the DNS Server service should be configured to forward requests on to your ISP's DNS servers.