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User Disconnection

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11 replies

by sankofa

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This has frustrated me for the longest time..ok two weeks. I have a user who walks away from his/her (win98 se/ novell client 3.3) workstation for 10+ minutes and return to find that have been logged off. On the server, the watchdog packets are set to 10 packets sent every 1 minute and the first is sent only after 5 minutes of no activity. I have increased to maximum time possible but still occures. Why is this happening? And why is this happening to only one user out of one hundred users? Can anyone help. Thanks

11 replies

by ebob

Either this is something unique to this user, or to the PC. So the first step is try to isolate these environments.

Log onto the PC with a different ID (one that does not get logged off after 10 minutes on another PC). And log onto another PC with the ID of the user who is having problems. Does the problem move with the user or stay with the PC?

If the problem moves with the user, then you now know you'll have to dig around in every screen of User Manager (or whatever, depending on the environment) to see what funky little detail is unique to this user.

If the problem stays with the PC, then you will need to dig around in the PC's config. I would start with the NIC and Network settings, and work out from there.

And if the problem stays with the PC, then I would swap ports at the switch/hub and see if the problem stays with the port, since it is (remotely) possible that the port settings on the switch/hub might dictate a timeout.

Good Luck.

by kevin anderson

I'd point at Power saving before anything else.

Try shutting off ALL powersaving features and see what happens. If that resolves the problem, then work them back in one at a time until the problem reappears.

I'd suggest shutting off the Screensaver too, while you're at it.

Kev.

by wcraigmiles

Besides the power saving issues already mentioned, check that the client is set to not to connection watch dogging.

by jimbb

Just wanted to add that watchdog has nothing to do with this. Normally your workstation replies to a watchdog, even if the user is doing nothing. Only when it doesn't reply a certain number of times, it is presumed the workstation is switched off/disconnected/dead/whatever, and the connection on the server is killed. So don't bother looking in this direction.

Jim

by another butthead

I would check the Power settings and if there was nothing that would do this, check the BIOS settings for a power-saving related shut-down. We have Dells that do this and we had to set the BIOS settings to not power down. Also check if the system has a sleep mode or suspend mode. This may cut off the NIC. If it is a laptop, it may be powering back because of a bad power supply. Try these.

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