global catalog promotion problems.

[The_Traveller]

We are in the middle of moving over to a new PDC, but are having some GC issues.

 

I have moved all the roles over, and everything seamed to be replicating fine, all that was left to do was to promote it to a global catalogue. I ticked the check box and left it over the weekend, but it’s still waiting to be promoted.

 

I have checked event viewer and got the following error

 

Promotion of this domain controller to a global catalogue will be delayed for the following interval.

 

30 mins

 

I have done repadmin /showrepl with the error 1815 kcc could not add this replica link due to error.

 

I have never done this before and am really confused any help would be appreciated

[The_Traveller]

any advice on dc promotion and replication would help, drawing a blank with how too's and microsoft help and support.

[maniac]

has the other server still got the Global Catalogue role? If so, I'd be tempted to hand the other roles back to the old DC, and de-promote the new server then try from scratch again; but obviously only if your domain is still functioning correctly with the origenal DC.

 

Just an idea, although I will add I've not had a lot of dealing with promoting and de-promoting servers so I've no idea if it would actually help.

 

Mike.

[FN-GM]

What server OS is it?

[The_Traveller]

Tried that maniac. still nothing.

 

Its 2003

[FN-GM]

hmm... it might be worth checking the DNS records on the server and see if there is anything unusual.

 

Also is this server a DNS server?

[The_Traveller]

Yeah both servers are dns servers. i ran netdiag which returned the error:

 

warning cannot find a primary authoritative dns server for the name admin08.administration etc. [error timeout]

 

what should i look for in the dns records?

 

yesterday i got:

 

The DNS server has encountered a critical error from the Active Directory. Check that the Active Directory is functioning properly. The extended error debug information (which may be empty) is "". The event data contains the error.

[Slartibartfast]

Can you post the results of dcdiag and netdiag?

[FN-GM]

Just to add Microsoft recommend you don’t make the server that has the Infrastructure master role a Global Catalogue.

[bio]

Just to add Microsoft recommend you don’t make the server that has the Infrastructure master role a Global Catalogue.

 

True indeed ,

 

The Infrastructure Master is not allowed to run on a Global Catalog Server if either:

• there are multiple Domains in the Forest
  
• there are Domain Controllers in the same Domain which are not Global Catalog Servers
  

 

The Infrastructure Master is allowed to run on a Global Catalog Server in a Domain if either:

• there's only one Domain in the Forest
  
• every Domain Controller in the Domain in question is Global Catalog Server
  

 

so if the last solution matches your requirements then i would make every DC a GC

 

bio..

[Diello]

Both these have been useful to me in the past for similar issues:

 

Redmond Channel Partner Online | Feature: 10 DNS Errors That Will Kill Your Network

Troubleshooting Active Directory replication failures that occur because of DNS lookup failures, event ID 2087, or event ID 2088