DFS goes offline as soon as connection attempted

[contink]

Not sure what is going on here but here's the scenario and hopefully someone has some ideas of how to proceed to resolve this...

 

I have a Win2k3R2 + Win2k8R2 domain setup with a DFS namespace for 3 shared folders...

 

Until last night everything was working perfectly but for whatever reason last night things started getting hinky...

 

The sypmtoms were that every few minutes my PC would suddenly go offline from the domain and all offline folders (those hooked up to the DFS) would start building up files waiting for it all to come online again.

 

After a few minutes the server would re-appear and request a resync which I dutifully did only to have the same thing happen again, and again and again...

 

 

About the only thing I can think of that happened prior to this was that I went on to my system using a laptop that logs into a local account (local to the laptop, ie: not a domain account) but uses mapped drives with domain auth, to access the DFS system.

 

That seems to be working just fine... The problem PC however just doesn't want to know...

 

 

I've checked cables and plugged in a completely different NIC, no change... I'm now in the process of replicating the DFS system across as it was original having issues even recognising there was a DFS on the Win2k3r2 server which is the PDC.

 

In a nutshell, some 8 hours wasted a real need to punch something/one and I'm no closer to understanding what's going on or how to resolve it..

 

 

Anyone, save a poor guys sanity?

[contink]

Got a bit more intel that may or may not help..

 

If I attempt to connect to the DFS using the FQDN\share rather than the domain\share it will work... as soon as I try to use Domain\share it goes offline.

 

So starting to think this is a DNS issue... Flushed the DNS cache...

 

Checked the DNS server and I'm now seeing a heap of EventID 4013's...

[contink]

Hmm... think I may be getting close...

 

If I do an NSLookup on a machine that works, it is finding the IP's for all the DC's in the domain..

 

On the one with the problem, it comes back saying it can't find "foo" : Non-existent domain

 

All the DNS settings, DHCP renewals, etc... are all the same... Ruddy mystery!

[contink]

Oh FFS!... seriously?

 

Not 100% sure if this is the final solution but found that my NIC advanced DNS settings did not have:

- append primary and connection specific DNS suffixes

- Append parent suffixes of the primary DNS suffix

 

...ticked..

 

Do that and bingo connecting to a DFS share doesn't bork out straight away anymore.

 

 

Now to test the main account with the problems.

[contink]

For anyone who has their popcorn out and a Coke in a big tub with a straw, thanks for watching...

 

It seems the lack of those two settings in my NIC setup was the final nail in the problems coffin, but I'm pretty sure there was something lingering from a tombstoned DC that I'd forgotten all about.

 

Either way, disappointed that my usual White Knight was asleep at the wheel.. I may never view Synack in the same immortal light again

 

What a ruddy horrible day...