Windows clients randomly go offline?

I have a very strange situation. My company recently migrated to Windows
Small Business Server 2003 back in October. Recently, we have been having
issues where a user is working normally, and for some reason appears to lose
their connection to the server and begins working in offline mode. They are
unable to access documents and applications on the server until they reboot.

I know it's not a physical connection loss, since internet and other
intranet applications are unaffected, but since they are unable to access
shared data or applications on the server, not to mention losing the ability
to print, they are forced to reboot the PC. Simply logging off and back on
does not seem to work, it must be an actual restart.

Has anyone else experienced this behavior, have an idea of what could be
causing this, or better yet have a solution or potential solution? Thanks
in advance!

--
Hurricane Andrew

I have found that most of the time the "clients loose connection" complaint
is because of an improper entry on the client DNS for the secondary. Usually
they have their ISP's DNS server listed as secondary.

AD clients must point to DNS servers set up for the AD domain only.

Where do your clients point for secondary DNS?


hth
DDS W 2k MVP MCSE

"Hurricane Andrew" <hurricane_andrew@nospam_verizon.net> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>I have a very strange situation. My company recently migrated to Windows
>Small Business Server 2003 back in October. Recently, we have been having
>issues where a user is working normally, and for some reason appears to
>lose their connection to the server and begins working in offline mode.
>They are unable to access documents and applications on the server until
>they reboot.
>
> I know it's not a physical connection loss, since internet and other
> intranet applications are unaffected, but since they are unable to access
> shared data or applications on the server, not to mention losing the
> ability to print, they are forced to reboot the PC. Simply logging off
> and back on does not seem to work, it must be an actual restart.
>
> Has anyone else experienced this behavior, have an idea of what could be
> causing this, or better yet have a solution or potential solution? Thanks
> in advance!
>
> --
> Hurricane Andrew
>

"Danny Sanders" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:eZ23$(E-Mail Removed)...
>I have found that most of the time the "clients loose connection" complaint
>is because of an improper entry on the client DNS for the secondary.
>Usually they have their ISP's DNS server listed as secondary.
>
> AD clients must point to DNS servers set up for the AD domain only.
>
> Where do your clients point for secondary DNS?
>

Recently we were having a strange DNS issue with the server. Local network
was fine, but no one could connect to the internet for some reason, except
for those who had a different secondary DNS server---the ISP's---set up. At
that point, I changed most folks setups so that the secondary DNS pointed to
the ISP. That very well could be the issue! Thanks!

--
"Hurricane" Andrew

Danny is correct. In an AD scenario, your Network clients should only be
pointing to the local DNS Server for name resolution. Your internal DNS
Server should also be responsible for forwarding DNS lookups to your ISP's
DNS Servers on behalf of your clients. If your Network clients were
previously unable to access sites on the Internet it is most likely due to
your DNS Server being misconfigured.

"Hurricane Andrew" <hurricane_andrew@verizon_nospam.net> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> "Danny Sanders" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:eZ23$(E-Mail Removed)...
>>I have found that most of the time the "clients loose connection"
>>complaint is because of an improper entry on the client DNS for the
>>secondary. Usually they have their ISP's DNS server listed as secondary.
>>
>> AD clients must point to DNS servers set up for the AD domain only.
>>
>> Where do your clients point for secondary DNS?
>>
>
> Recently we were having a strange DNS issue with the server. Local
> network was fine, but no one could connect to the internet for some
> reason, except for those who had a different secondary DNS server---the
> ISP's---set up. At that point, I changed most folks setups so that the
> secondary DNS pointed to the ISP. That very well could be the issue!
> Thanks!
>
> --
> "Hurricane" Andrew
>