IT_Man_Dan

Thanks Cybernerd, I shall have a read

Ok, I haven't really made progress with this issue but have noticed a potential error in my DNS that I'd like clarified please. my dns is hosted on server 1 (the one that hosts my redirection shares and drives etc and the one I'm having issues with) and replicated to server 2. When I look at the forwarders in server 1 the forwarder that is setup to my isp can't ressolve... Then when I look at server 2 the forwarder is set to point to server 1's IP address. I'm no DNS expert (as you can tell...) but I believe this is incorrect. Surely both servers forwarders should be set to either my ISP or a public server? Could the fact that this seems incorrect be contributing to the issues I've found myself experiencing with server 1? I haven't changed the forwarders since they were setup last year, way before I started having the issues (last week) but I don't know how long the forwarder to my isp hasn't been able to ressolve. This would make sense because server 1 is then so busy trying to ressolve external dns requests that it is overloaded (just my thoughts, correct me if I'm wrong). I'm considering changing both servers (server 1 and server 2) forwarders to 8.8.8.8 Can anyone advise me please?

Argghhh 10 srv errors within the last hour and all icons etc keep disappearing intermittently..

The server is a physical one. My NIC advanced settings are listed below, please can you advise any changes to them that I should make? Broadcom BCM5716C NetXtreme 2 GigE (NDIS VBD Client) Ethernet@wirespeed = Enabled Flow Control = Disable Interrupt moderation = Enable IPV4 Checksum Offload = TX/RX Enable IPV4 Large send offload = Enable IpV6 Checksum = TX/RX Enable IPV6 Large Send Offload = Enable Jumbo MTU = 1500 Locally Administered Address = Not Present Number of RSS queues = 8 Priority and VLAN = Priority and VLAN Enabled Receive Buffers = 750 Receive Side Scaling = Enable Speed & Duplex = Auto Transmit Buffers = 1500 VLAN ID = 0 Thanks for your help.

I just wanted to update this thread with the current situation. I haven't resolved the issue but I have got a lot less srv errors on the server. From looking at the logs the srv errors only occur during the day when the network is in use suggesting it's switch/bandwidth issues or a certain piece of hardware. The last srv error we had was at 12:53 yesterday afternoon and we appear to be getting less and less *touch wood*. Unfortunately I'm still experiencing users loosing their redirected desktops, start menus, or temporary access to mapped drives and it's driving me crazy. All these are redirected from the main server which was having the srv errors and dropping remote sessions intermittently. What did seem to slightly relieve the issue was to plug the server into a different port on our 4108gl switch which is our main switch in our server room, since then the srv errors have decreased but the icons still go missing etc. I suspect that it might be this switch causing the issues. One thing I forgot to mention is that we had a long power cut Wednesday night and all our servers, etc shut down. I haven't as yet upgraded the firmware on the switch as I'm very nervous about doing so as it is our main switch and I don't currently have a spare. Another thing I'm considering doing is teaming the broadcom NIC's in the server to spread the bandwidth (now that I'm getting less srv errors). Could it be bandwidth related that users intermittently loose their icons, etc? It does suggest so as the busier the network gets the more the problem shows itself, all was fine until last week though?!? Another thing I've done is upgraded Sophos on all of our clients to 10.2 from 10.0 yesterday morning (not that I think this will effect anything but thought I should let you know). Further feedback and advice is much appreciated. Thanks

Thanks for all your replies so far. I will look into upgrading the firmware on the HP 4108GL tomorrow. After reading other threads and doing other research I'm wondering if I should really consider teaming the NIC's (something I have previously considered)?! The box is a Dell T410 with onboard twin Broadcom NIC's and an extra twin NIC (intel I believe). Currently it is only using 1 Broadcom NIC out of 4 into the HP 4108GL so I'm wondering if getting the other Broadcom NIC teamed with it would help? What are your thoughts on this? Thanks

The HP switches are: mainly procurve 2650's with a procurve 4108GL (server room, one server is connected to), a couple of 2626's and a couple of 2610's. I can ping the server itself from a workstation and it won't drop a ping, even when I loose my icons and mapped drives or get kicked off a remote connection to the server it can ping it?!?

Ok, I'm back looking at the server event viewer to try and figure out the issue. One thing I have noticed is that I'm getting a lot of SRV warnings Event ID:2012 this does sometimes coincide with my remote session dropping to the server... Could this be it?

Ok I have now gone into all of my switches (All HP procurves) and checked them. They all seem ok apart from four that didn't have spanning tree enabled, I have now enabled it on those four switches. I've also found one with excessive CRC/Allignment errors on a port, I plan to go into that room in a few minutes to check cabling and take that switch offline to see if it has any effect, It was one of the switches without spanning tree enabled. I'm still struggling to come to terms with the fact that it's cable/switch based. It only seems to be effecting connections to one server and I have tried a different NIC and cable to it. I have restarted that server this morning and still have the problems. Thanks for your ongoing support.

Thanks for your replies so far guys, I'm going to start checking the switches now. The problems do seem to be network wide but the reason I believe the fault lies with the server is that when you remote onto any other server the connection doesn't drop. It's only when you remote on to the pdc (where the drives, start menus, and desktops are hosted) that the connection randomly drops out?! Drives etc on other services are unaffected. I've tried different cable and NIC on the pdc. Thanks for all your support so far.

Good Morning all, I've got an issue with my network that is driving me crazy... The symptoms are: Remote desktop to our main server keeps dropping connection (every minute or so!). Mapped drives temporarily loose connection. Shared start menus and icons randomly drop out (pressing F% sometimes brings them back). This has only been happening over the last week, before then all was fine. Nothing to my knowledge settings wise has been changed. I did/do suspect it to be DNS related but have had another IT specialist from county look at all the settings on Friday and he says they are ok?! I have tried swapping to a different NIC to rule that out but the problem persists. Does anyone have any ideas of what else it could be please? Thanks in anticipation.

Done Happy to help.

Ok thanks GhostGame. I was beginning to think dns.

I've just tried looking for the config file for the doc server that @Ghostgame mentioned but can't locate it, I'm looking for it to change the settings and then send that config file to all workstations to save me having to go in and change the doc server manually workstation by workstation. where should it be again please?

Ok, it was a bit of a weird one but have solved it, and it was actually very simple. I also was thinking comms issue like firewall etc but nothing had changed. Where as we had got the full name of the server eg 'server.mydomain.local' (which had been working previous to Thursday with no issues) under setups > Doc management server in sims, we changed it to just the short name eg 'server' and it flippin worked... where's the logic in that? it doesn't like the server ip address or the full name... No settings had been changed from Weds to Thurs to anything (firewall,proxy, etc). Although I'm pleased it's solved I'm also frustrated at what on earth caused it?!? Thanks for all your assistance.

Thanks for the reply, I've tried that but unfortunately it hasn't helped. Any other ideas?

Good Morning all, Since Thursday afternoon we have been unable to access the SIMS document server from any of our workstations. When I try to access it from the server it works. No settings have been changed on the workstations (firewall etc) since it was working. I've tried temporarily disabling the firewall on both server and client but am still getting the same error... I've also tried adding a proxy exception for either the server name or IP address of the server but without success! I have logged a call Friday morning with Capita but as yet haven't reached the top of the queue. Does anyone have any ideas what could be causing this to fail? thanks

Thanks guys, have now configured and deployed to 3 test suites and will then deploy site wide

Afternoon, I'm just about to deploy Chrome via GPO. I've downloaded the msi and setup a new GPO etc. I've also downloaded the templates to enable me to configure it. I'm just going through and have got to the bit where you can specify that they can only login to certain Google accounts 'Restrict which users are allowed to sign in to use Chrome'. I plan to set this and only allow users to sign in to their Google Apps account they have here at the school. So assuming my domain was mydomain.co.uk would I just enable the gpo setting and put %username%@mydomain.co.uk or do I just put mydomain.co.uk? or do I put something else? Is there any other settings that I should definitely set that I might have missed? Thanks

Ignore me I've sorted it thanks. I thought it was weird when I got told it wouldn't run as 32bit.. When I took 5 mins to look at the problem I was able to see that the error was with the installer so I just installed it on a 32bit machine and copied the program files across. Thanks for your time.

Can anyone point me in the direction of a download for the 64bit version of Network viewer to enable to view our CCTV system on 64bit machines? I've spoken to our CCTV company but they point me to the download of the 32bit version that doesn't work. Or if anyone could let me know of a good alternative that would be great please.

Cheers guys, now sorted. I'd missed a set of " :-)

Morning all, Ahh the first day back and the list of things teachers 'forgot' to tell you before the hols that they needed for first week back, don't you just love em!! Ok, I've got a video file that auto opens up in VLC player but won't play correctly. It does however play fine in Windows media player. The file is stored on a network share and accessed via a shortcut on a redirected start menu. I've set it to always open in Windows media player from my computer but when a user logs into another pc it tries to open in VLC player and due to our security restrictions we don't allow users into the properties to change the program themselves. We do want most things to open in VLC, just not this. Is there a quick way to create a shortcut to open the file in the correct program? Thanks

Please find attached basic info about this post.ict technician_apr13_info.docx

Good Afternoon, We are starting to use Google Apps within our organisation. I was wondering what if any backup solution people are using to backup their Google Apps Data? Are Google able to retrieve data that has been accidentally deleted? I see there are various solutions available. Thanks