Windows Server 2003 Roaming Profiles...

Affliction · 4 Sep 2009 at 17:33

Recently at work, several memebers of staff are unable to log on correctly, as they get the error message ''Windows is unable to locate the server copy of your roaming profile''.

No matter what we do, we can't seem to sort the problem. We've gotten to points where it seems to work, only for it to be unable to locate the profile again the next day.

Anyone got any idea's for fixing this? Thanks in advance

brainchylde · 4 Sep 2009 at 18:05

All on the LAN?

Affliction · 4 Sep 2009 at 18:06

Yes, all on the LAN

brainchylde · 4 Sep 2009 at 18:09

Normally with this error message there is an additional detail button. Can you tell us what it says there?

Affliction · 4 Sep 2009 at 18:17

I **Think** it was something like 'network name not found', but I could be wrong, and unfortunatly I won't be able to check again until monday.

brainchylde · 4 Sep 2009 at 18:21

Couple of things to try

Do you have NetBIOS over TCP/IP enabled? If so, this may cause a problem. Consider disabling.

Make sure the computer is picking up ip settings AND DNS settings ok. Sometimes, if you have STP enabled on switches this can cause a delay for DHCP addresses. If this is the case, the user will need to wait for the machine to have picked up it's settings before logging on.

Make sure the times on your client machines and servers are synchronized. Sometimes this can cause an issue.

Turn off Internet Connection Firewall on the profile server.

It could also be permissions, but given that your problem is intermittent, I think that is unlikely.

Affliction · 4 Sep 2009 at 18:29

Thanks brainchylde, I'll give those a try on monday.

I don't think it's anything to do with the individual machines though, as other users are able to log on with no problems on the same machine, which leads me to believe it's a problem with the effected users account settings, rather than individual workstations?

Permissions I checked, the users are granted all the correct access.

brainchylde · 4 Sep 2009 at 18:35

May be worth keeping a log of when the problems happen.If it's a morning thing, the spanning tree protocol may be a likely cause.

As far as individual workstations go, don't rule out problems with the workstations.I've had some strange problems which turn out to be workstation related.

If you are running AD, check which group policies are applying to each users. There is a gp testing tool in the group policy management console.

Euphoria · 4 Sep 2009 at 22:55

How do you have the profile path setup within the account in the AD. Do you have it like \\servername\folder1\folder2

are you using dns names or ip addresses?

when you are on the machine and it fails to connect to the profile it will still login and cache it locally. Once logged in see if you can lookup the server/ address it is trying to connect to. most of the time it is some sort of routing/ network issue other times it maybe a permission issue.

If you are not able to locate the profile when it errored logging in and the lookup are failing you know what it is.

Check permissions/ refresh permissions on the profile store on the server.

do you have the roaming profile to cache locally or not?

obviously if it is networking you can either add entries to the host file, change your dns ttl, manually assign ip (maybe the machine is in power saving or loses network settings).

GhostlyPea · 5 Sep 2009 at 15:03

Profiles are possibly over the 30mb limit and will not transfer, or the profile is corrupted or a dodgy NIC. The companies I support use roaming profiles and this is a reasonably regular occurrence

- Pea0n

Euphoria · 5 Sep 2009 at 19:09

I do not suppose that many users 16,000 but i have users with GBs of profiles (soem with over 1gb) and they transfer fine, we have never had any instance of a faulty nic causing bad or corrupt transfers of profiles. i still stand on my original post network or permissions.

I do not limit anyones profile size at all

GhostlyPea · 5 Sep 2009 at 20:01

If you have seen users with PROFILES over a GB then there is something wrong with them or your set up. The hard code limit is 30MB unless you manually change it, which I do not know why you would want to seeing as for a profile, 15MB is fine, let alone 30MB.

Permissions either work or they don't. If they work one day and not the next with no changes then it won't be permissions unless there some other kind of corruption going on there.

I hardly think this would be a network issue if there have been no changes and it is temperamental. If your are assuming it is a share issue then the finger would be pointed toward DNS, which quite frankly is unlikely if there are no other symptoms or changes made.

I stand by my comments and would look at a dodgy NIC somewhere or the size issue, at least until we have some more information.

- Pea0n

Spooter · 6 Sep 2009 at 22:29

I do not limit anyones profile size at all

Not great practice then. Using File Server Resource Manager for that and group policy.

If you have seen users with PROFILES over a GB then there is something wrong with them or your set up. The hard code limit is 30MB unless you manually change it, which I do not know why you would want to seeing as for a profile, 15MB is fine, let alone 30MB.

Totally agree with this.