Windows Forum

Ask something
Discussion Locked

Roaming Profile Quit From 1 PC Only

0 helpful
9 replies

by bjohnson2

Closed to new repliesThis discussion is closed. It stays readable, but it takes no new replies.
This is driving me mad! We use roaming profiles with XP Pro clients and 2003 domain controller. We have a second server that stores our roaming profiles. Suddenly I noticed that a particular icon on my start menu kept re-appearing. As I diagnosed the problem, I found that even though the computer was properly copying the profile from the server it will not copy it to the server. I checked permissions and ownership, emptied the server folder, and checked all group policies on both the domain and individually on the PC. Everything seems alright. All of our other PC's and users (40 or so) seem to be alright at this point. I logged on to another pc and it copied the newly created profile it generated to the server perfectly. This is absolutely bezerk. Has anyone experienced this before?

9 replies

by 1stladytech

Do you have a nVidia chipset on your video card? It sounds crazy, but we have had this problem resolved by updating the video and/or motherboard drivers to the latest from nVidia.com

Hope it helps,

Vickie

by gigas

Yup, I concur.

We have had exactly the same issue.
What happens is that certain versions of Nvidia video drivers cause a users profile to be loaded into memory twice.
When the user logs off only one copy of the profile is unloaded, the other stays resident.
This has the effect of preventing the profile from updating on the server because the workstation sees the profile as still active.

Bizzare, but true......

by swisstonihasher

I would also try removing the local user profile, editing the server-side profile and login as if you were a new user to that pc. We've used roaming profiles for a long time and found that removing the local or the server or (worse case) both will cure all problems.

by bjohnson2

Well, I tried the Nvidia update - no luck! To the guy that mentioned a new profile...YUCK. I deleted the one on the server hoping that would work - but no luck. Any other suggestions?

by aakash shah

Hi! If you are experiencing problems where the roaming profile does not get updated correctly, check your event log. In the applications tab, if you have an entry for "Userenv" saying that Windows was unable to unload your registry or something along those lines, then run the Microsoft User Hive Profile Cleanup wizard available at:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=1b286e6d-8912-4e18-b570-42470e2f3582&displaylang=en
This should help (I would run the tool anyways and check whether the problem still occurs). Good luck!

by bjohnson2

Well, had another great suggestion and one more stinking failure! Keep up the great suggestions folks. I had not found the Nvidia problem or the Microsoft service in my searches so you are doing better than I did.

by techrepublic

You probably have an open file, or open registry key in HKCU (or both). You can download UPHclean from Microsoft to help unload open registry keys. It?s a service that checks the registry every 60 seconds for any open registry keys that are holding the profile transfer open, and forces the key closed.

I had software that kept a file open within the user's profile that prevented the entire profile from being copied back to the server. You might have a scanner or some software or device, or driver doing the same thing. You can check for this by logging the user off and log in as a local admin and run openfiles.exe to see what files are (still) open and from who.

You have to enable openfiles.exe with this: OPENFILES /Local ON and reboot, then you can combine it with the FIND command to filter out everything that isn't part of the profile in question. If your user's ID is Jim, his profile will contain the letters "jim", so past this into a command prompt, just substitute the word jim (quotes are required) for your user?s ID like this: OPENFILES | FIND /I ?jim?

UPH Clean:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=1b286e6d-8912-4e18-b570-42470e2f3582&displaylang=en

I maintain a Citrix farm with 4000 users, all with roaming profiles. I learned by experience how to tackle any profile problem. If this doesn?t solve it, you can call Microsoft and get a checked version of fdeploy.dll and registry settings which will enable the creation of detailed logs of every little thing that is happening with the log on/off process.

Hope this helps.
-Jim Hopf

by bjohnson2

Wonderful! I appreciate this - I'll give it a try later when I have time. I'm busy with some projects now and don't have time to wrestle with this problem right now.

This discussion is closed to new replies.