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Novell lockup

Locked

I have a Novell server running v. 5.1. For the past few months, it has been locking up intermittently where all I can do is reboot by pushing the power button. I cannot toggle through the screens or move the mouse. This has been happening at all times of the day and night. Sometimes it will stay up for a month or so then all of a sudden lock up again. Sometimes, it no more gets back up and running and immediatly locks up (uptime – 3 minutes). Even cold booting does not work. It will take me 3 or 4 hours sometimes to get it to stay up which does a good job of frustrating users and corrupting files.

I went to evey workstation in the building and switched the NIC’s from one to the other (each workstation has two) thinking maybe a card on the network was sending out bogus packets and confusing the server causing it to lock up. It still did it. I turned off the Norton Antivirus program and it did it.

I have replaced the heat sync/processor fans, NIC, and memory on the server to no avail. Utilization is always low in the single digits.

No changes have been made to the server for a year – no new programs or software installs.

This is really driving me crazy. It doesn’t happen at any certain time of the day or when a certain application is running. It seems to be just whenever it feels like it.

It has dual hard drives – could one of them be causing it? No switches involved – the server is connected to a hub box/patch panel that I am not seeing any “hits” on out of the ordinary.

Any ideas would be appreciated. Thank you.

Signed,
Pulling my hair out.

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In reply to Novell lockup

What Netware Service Pack is installed on the server? Are the latest drivers from the server manufacturer on the server? Is there anything in the sys:\system\sys$log.err file? What about the abend.log file? When the console locks up on the server, what is the % utilization? When it’s locked up, can you remotely access it from a client?

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Sp 6 is installed (I know there is a 7 available), I’m not sure about the drivers but nothing has been added to it in the 3 years it’s been up and running, nothing is being logged in any of the log files, the utilization is at 1% or 2%, and no one can access it from any workstation. We get messages stating that we cannot open or save files because we have lost connectivity to the network. Connectivity is regained after it reboots.

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In reply to Novell lockup

You might want to start by putting the latest TCP/IP update on for Netware 5.1 and maybe even the service pack (can’t be worse than your current situation). Also, the latest driver for the network adapter (and the rest of the hardware if possible). I have seen issues with certain NIC drivers on HP servers. For no apparent reason, after a few months, the server will lose network connectivity.

Do you have any way of monitoring the hardware on the server? It is very likely that this is a hardware issue and not necessarily an OS problem.

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Poster rated this answer.

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Sounds as though you are having hardware issues. Check your memory as it can be a culprit with Netware especially.

Please also state your service pack, patch level and hardware vendor. It can be difficult to fix intermittent issues such as this. Read up on entering the debugger and obtaining a core dump. Novell can analyze the core dump and pinpoint the problem. But it would be cheaper and possibly better to just purchase a new server if it happens to be over 3+ years old.

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I had previously replaced the memory. SP7 is installed. I put in another server box, copied all the data and programs to it, started connecting users back to it and this one did the same thing. So I was back to square one. I’m thinking a corrupted file w/o an EOF marker?

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If i read correctly, you have moved to a new server/box and still having same problems. I would check your central point of connection (i.e. hub, switch or whatever you are using). With moving to a new server it would seem that you have eliminated that as the problem. If you used the same drives it could be a bad drive failing.

I suppose it could be a file corruption issue but would be most likely a system file and not data. Data is the only thing you would want to copy over. I assume(which i know can be dangerous) that you have reinstalled the apps and OS from scratch to correct corruption with the system.

just my quick thoughts on the matter,

Jason

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Netware 5.x is obsolete. You should consider upgrading to 6.5. Anyhow, for 5.1, make sure you are running the latest service pack and TCP/IP stack and other post patches. If you still have a problem, you may need to get a coredump and send it to Novell for analysis, but I doubt they will even talk to you because they no longer support Netware 5.1 unless you are an MLA customer with your own PSE.

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