Mandatory profiles "network name not found"

[gshaw]

This summer we've changed our setup from HDGuard (Deepfreeze style prog) and manually set up local machines to network-stored mandatory profiles.

 

Makes life a lot easier and the machines more consistent but every now and again on startup the odd machine will get the "Windows cannot find your roaming profile blah blah blah" with the end of the message being "NETWORK NAME NOT FOUND"

 

If I reboot it's then OK. At the moment there's a big bottleneck in the network (a single Gigabit link to 2 x 3 stacks of 48 port switches!) that's all being recabled to 1 x Gb link per 24 (or at most 48) ports with a much faster core switch (5400zl). Could that be the issue? Also going to team the NICs on the DC to try improve bandwidth.

 

Any other suggestions to what that problem might be as I want it to be rock solid for when it goes live:cool:

 

Thanks in advance as always

[FN-GM]

Is this on one machine or all of them?

 

Double check your permissions and check you have specified the right path for the user.

 

 

Z

[gshaw]

Just odd ones here and there but it's intermittent, which is what I'm finding odd

 

If I reboot the machine with the error it'll load up no problem.. equally a machine that was fine could then come up with the error as well

[Michael]

It does sound like a permission/network connectivity issue. I would recommend giving Everyone - Full Control to their profile. This ensures they have full write access, even though it's a mandatory profile, it's still written back to the server.

 

Does this problem happen with other profiles/users? How large is this profile in question? Ideally it shouldn't be more than 10MB.

 

I did see it happen once where the server itself was low of disk space, so there wasn't enough space to write the profile. Have you checked this too?

[gshaw]

Profile is small, 1732KB (just the .man file) and is a shared profile for all teaching PCs. It's currently located in a folder under sysvol if that makes any difference (put it there so it could get replicated to other DCs).

 

Currently it's just read access, loadsa disk space on the server so no worries there...

[azrael78]

It does sound like a permission/network connectivity issue. I would recommend giving Everyone - Full Control to their profile. This ensures they have full write access, even though it's a mandatory profile, it's still written back to the server.

 

I find this a little odd - not that I'm saying you are wrong at all Michael.

 

On our system, we have a single global profile - all students share this - permissions are as follows:

 

Share - Everyone:READ, Admins:FULL, SYSTEM:FULL

NTFS - Everyone:READ, Admins:FULL, SYSTEM:FULL

 

The profile is tiny and it never seems to complain about lack of rights or anything when trying to write back the mandatory profile - I was under the impression that a mandatory got downloaded to the workstation, used and then simply discarded - no write-back to server as it's mandatory and therefore, shouldn't be changed.

 

I could be wrong though

 

Az

[gshaw]

That's how I understood as well... the thing is the error comes when it's loading up i.e. reading rather than logging out (when it would write back)?

[Michael]

I was under the impression that a mandatory got downloaded to the workstation, used and then simply discarded - no write-back to server as it's mandatory and therefore, shouldn't be changed.

 

Thinking about it logically you may have a point there. Say 20 users logging on with the same mandatory profile (always works), as 20 copies are being downloaded to different machines, but when the class finishes, they all logoff at the same time. The profile probably is discarded or left cached on the workstation. I guess it depends on what GPOs are set for that particular OU.

 

If you've ever tried logging on as yourself (as admin) on two machines (using a standard profile), then logging off at exactly the same time, one of the two machines will error. You can't write back to the roaming profile on the server at the same time.

 

I give Everyone Full Control because I create a single Profiles$ share and place all profiles - all staff and a single pupil profile within this share.

 

That's how I understood as well... the thing is the error comes when it's loading up i.e. reading rather than logging out (when it would write back)?

 

What is the error that comes up? I suspect it will be permissions related, then Windows logs on either with a locally cached profile, or uses the default profile for its settings.

[gshaw]

It's a box that pops up with a countdown timer for 30 seconds and says something along the lines of...

 

"Windows cannot load the server copy of your roaming network profile. This can be caused by network problems or permissions. You are currently being logged on with your local user profile, changes made will not be copied to the server when you log off. DETAIL: THE NETWORK NAME CANNOT BE FOUND"

 

If I then reboot it'll work fine

 

With storing the profiles on their own share how do you protect against the server with the profiles going down, is there any fault tolerance there? Only other thing that bugs me is that being in Sysvol Offline Folders are enabled on that share (default settings) which leads to the warnings in Event Viewer. Maybe that's something to do with it? Even in Netlogon Offline Folders are still enabled so even moving there wouldn't make much difference I guess?

Edited July 31, 2008 by gshaw

[Michael]

With storing the profiles on their own share how do you protect against the server with the profiles going down, is there any fault tolerance there? Only other thing that bugs me is that being in Sysvol Offline Folders are enabled on that share (default settings) which leads to the warnings in Event Viewer. Maybe that's something to do with it? Even in Netlogon Offline Folders are still enabled so even moving there wouldn't make much difference I guess?

 

There isn't any fault tolerance, but either hardware or software RAID is what you'd be looking at. Do your profiles live within Sysvol? I wouldn't recommend this at all. Profiles can become large (depending on your setup and number of profiles) and the overhead of replication might be causing these errors.

 

In a worse case scenario, users could still logon either using a cached profile or using the default profile stored locally on the machine.

[gshaw]

They are at the moment but can easily be changed

 

What about netlogon, isn't that what it's for... storing profiles and logon scripts etc? Also got the redirected Start Menus etc to store...

[Michael]

Sysvol for redirect Start Menus and Netlogon for reg files and scripts. You can place an initial default profile within Sysvol (I think), but users profiles should be stored within a profiles$ share afterwards.

 

On the networks I managed, all pupils use the same mandatory profile (so there's no work here), and I just copy a template profile I've created (within the profiles$) share for new members of staff.

[gshaw]

Gonna have to try em in a different location as this is driving me nuts now... same PC jus built worked first go no problems; rebooted then it gave the error

 

Could be the sysvol location but I know someone with 700 odd PCs coming off the sysvol and has no problems so I dunno...

[Michael]

Well create a folder called profiles and share as profiles$, apply permissions then place some profiles to test. Remember to update accounts to reflect the new location:

 

\\servername\profiles$\profilename

[gshaw]

Do you put your profiles$ share on a different server on on the DC? I'm guessing just on a main file server is prob the best place?

[Michael]

Normally the DC (to simplify things), but using any server should be ok. Just change \\servername\ to reflect where your profiles are stored.