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w32tm error synchronizing

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by tfraz

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We just recently (1 month ago) upgraded our domain to Windows 2000. It's a simple single-master domain, nothing fancy. None of my workstations or member servers (all Win2k) can synchronize their time. Some get errors in the event log, some don't. When I run a w32tm -source -v, I get the following error:

W32Time: BEGIN:GetNT5DCAddress
W32Time: Member of an NT4 domain. Cannot synchronize.
W32Time: DC lookup failed. 15 min until lookup is allowed again.

I still have one NT4 DC, which used to be the PDC before our domain migration. I have configured my PDC emulator with an external time source. My secondary DC synchronizes fine with the main DC, thankfully (it recognizes that it's in a 2000 domain). I have run a "w32tm -s" on a few workstations to no avail.

Any ideas?

9 replies

by tfraz

First, we're a Win2k Domain, and secondly, I've already done all these things. What I'm really looking for is any information on that specific w32tm error - "Member of an NT4 Domain. Cannot synchronize". Thanks anyway.

by cdue

You are telling something here i thought was impossible: You still have your old Nt4 PDC running in this domain? You are using the word migration so I take it you are talking about an upgrade? This is not supported I believe: when you upgrade to AD you must do this on the PDC, or promote the available BDC to PDC before continuing. If this is whats been done you must shut down the nt4 PDC. in this environment you should have a lot of Master browser elections going on?
I believe this is where you messages are coming from, the old PDC are trying to answer to the requests

cd..

by tfraz

The old NT4 PDC was demoted to a BDC prior to migrating the domain to Windows2K. (You're right, it's impossible any other way!) I guess I didn't make that clear in the question I posted. So, that's not the issue. One of my member servers (Win2k) thinks it's in a Win2k domain which is great, but the rest of my member servers and workstations (which are ALL Win2k) think they're in an NT4 domain. I'll restate that both my Win2k DCs are synchronizing fine.

by cdue

OK, I had too look further into this (getting curious)
Are your DNS working as expected, reverse lookup zone configured? Are you using WINS? from the old (NT4) machines?

Do you have the latest version of this ?
W32Time.exe: 5.0.2092.1 is the latest:
ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/reskit/y2kfix/

This article (W32Time Network Time Service For Windows NT 4.0) also states "if you are using W2k you should use the utility included with W2k reskit. I cannot find any information saying you cannot use this one on NT 4.0

by tfraz

I've seen no DNS errors anywhere on our network. We do have a reverse lookup zone configured, as well as WINS (on Win2K only). The version of W32Time.dll that is installed is 5.0.2195.4436, w32tm.exe is the same version. I'm not sure the article you mention applies to our situation since none of the machines in question are NT 4.0. Thankfully my two DCs are synchronizing fine, so there won't be any AD corruption because of time issues. Thanks anyway.

by tfraz

Note: The one member server that is synchronizing properly has SP1 installed. All the rest have SP2. I tried replacing the new w32time.dll with the older SP1 dll (and W32tm.exe)(dated 12/99), but still got the same error.

by tfraz

Finally figured it out. During troubleshooting, I got numerous Kerberos and LDAP errors when running NETDIAG. Turns out that because my sole remaining NT4 BDC was still authenticating 99% of the users/machines, the machine still thought it was in anNT4 domain. I ran a NETDOM RESET to point it to one of the Win2K DCs, and everything's fixed.

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