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Network Browsing Trouble

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by hawk77 1 view

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Here's a good one. A little backround, we are running a single domain, single segment TCP/IP LAN between two buildings using two switches linked via fiber optic modules (300 yards between the switches). We are using DHCP located in building "A" which provides the clients with IP, DNS, and WINNS server info. We have a Windows 2000 DC on both ends of the LAN with approx 50 Win98 workstations in each building. Building "A" houses the DC running as the Domain Master Browser along with a second W2K file server as a Backup Browser, in building two, the second DC is also running as a Backup Browser. I confirmed this utilizing the "Browstat" utility. Heres the problem, only the workstations in building "A" are showing up in the domains browse list. No workstations in building "B" are showing up in the list (BTW, all servers in both buildings are listed in the browse list). I have gone as far as moving a workstation from one building to the other without making any configuration changes, if its in building "A" it shows in the browse list, if it's in building "b" it doesn't. All workstations are listed in both the DNS and WINNS data bases and have no trouble accessing resources in either building. Any Ideas?

4 replies

by radiic

Are your switches assigned ip addresses>? and do they forward broadcast requests>? It sounds like the master browser is unable to make broadcast request to building b. Which doesnt really make sense to me because your puters in building b are using dhcp to get their addresses from A.

Im stumped too.
Rad

by stnkmstr

This article will help you out with your browser problem. Do a search on Microsoft's website for knowledge base article Q102878. You also may want to check the Event logs on both machines in question in building A and B, particularly the logs in building B. This would be my first place in troubleshooting this problem. Hope this helps

by bootstrap

... and strictly a BROWSING issue.

That reduces to issues of identifying browsemasters and communications between them. Browsing issues usually reduce with PDC issues - or in the case of Win2K, the PDC emulator.

I had a similar issue with oneworkstation unable to see or access the browse list - yet had full access to all resources. Once I put another server on the network, all was well. (microsoft gave up after two weeks of troubleshooting - and so did I.)

What is STRANGE about your situation is why the browsemaster should differentiate between servers and workstations !!

Try some things:

Down the controller in Bldg (ON A SUNDAY) and see what happens. You may/may not discover that another machine is elected browsemasterin bldg b - and that hosts in bldg B "suddenly" appear on the browse list. (REMEMBER TO WAIT at least 57 minutes for the browse list to build.)

Try using an LMHOST file with some clients with different PRE and DOM labels. There must be some combination that works. The solution could be as simple as puting an LMHOST file in the DC in bldg B with a PRE DOM label to the PDC.

For reference, I am including the relavent part of the help file that is organic to lmhost.smp found on every MS OS. Just do a search for lmhost for the local file and all instruction.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

# This file is compatible with Microsoft LAN Manager 2.x TCP/IP lmhosts
# files and offers the following extensions:
#
# #PRE
# #DOM:
# #INCLUDE
# #BEGIN_ALTERNATE
# #END_ALTERNATE
# \0xnn (non-printing character support)
#
# Following any entry in the file with the characters "#PRE" will cause
# the entry to be preloaded into the name cache. By default, entries are
# not preloaded, but are parsed only after dynamic name resolution fails.
#
# Following an entry with the "#DOM:" tag

by hawk77

I think I resolved the problem. It seems that the workstations in building "B" do not have file and printer sharing enabled. Which I believe means that the server service is not running on those machines, so they will not be included in the browse list.

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