Drive unavailable?

[Broomjockey]

I really couldn't think of a better place to put this, since it involves technology, but not involving customers, or co-workers. Anyway, here we go.

Our reservation system has this nifty mail merge ability to print out individualized forms using information off accounts. Now, what could possibly be the problem with this? The forms are all kept on a network drive. Still no issue, right? For some reason, that drive is randomly unavailble. Well, not completely randomly. Only when there's no full-time staff here. Without that drive, we can't print off any basic forms. Or complex forms. Or really anything beyond a recipt. No one knows what's causing it, and there's no back-up location for the forms. So we can be rendered helpless at any time, with no recourse. I've finally gotten fed up with this, and wrote a note telling bossman that we either need a local copy on each machine so we can have blanks at least, or we need IT to get off their duffs and figure out the problem.

And the reason why each machine needs a copy? Sometimes it's randomly set so that some machines can't print, they just try to save an image or something, and it requires admin level access to fix it.

[gunsage]

I haven't taken my Network+ yet, but so far it sounds like improper permissions are assigned or something. I mean, especially if it's demanding admin level to access the printer...that's whacked. I took some database administration courses, so it sounds familiar, but I'd rather not suggest anything as I'm by no means an expert.

[Pedersen]

Hmmm.... Three possibilities present themselves to my mind:

1. A firewall between you and the server is finding itself overloaded with traffic, and is shutting all traffic down for a bit.
2. The server is rebooting at unknown intervals.
3. An environmental event is causing an interruption.

A cheap firewall can get easily overloaded, depending on the traffic which runs between them. Also, if the server is not local (i.e.: It's in another building, across town, etc), then that connection between your building and its building needs to be examined.

For environmental events, there could be any number of things: The network cable runs under the carpet, and when people stand on it, it crimps, wrecking the connection. The server room is too hot, causing the server to shut down. The wind blows outside, pulling a wire, which pulls a wire, which pulls another wire, which lightly pulls the network wire for the server. Literally any number of things.

My starting point would be to look at the server, and see if anything unusual is happening in the logs, and expand the search from there.

[Broomjockey]

Only problem with those, Pederson, is it's down for hours or days at a time. It's never just short term, as for a few minutes. Also, one computer will sometimes be able to access it, while the other won't. And they're about 10 feet away from each other.

Most of the time, the drive disappears off the list, and it's the only one to do so out of about 8, which are all kept in the same building, as the school has its own server farm. All the other drives are fine, it's only the one. The only clue I have to work with is once, when it didn't disappear, but only appeared as unaccessable, it said something about not having more than one connection, or something like that.

It's also worth noting that the IT guys live in the building where the servers are, and that not only would I never be allowed to talk to them directly, I doubt anything I said past the present request for it to be looked at would be taken seriously.

[Pedersen]

Wait, it said something similar to being unable to map to a network drive due to conflicting credentials?

Crap. I've dealt with that. Hell, I've caused it.

This is kind of weird to explain, but here's what's going on if that's the error you're seeing.

When you map a network drive, you specify a username and password for that connection. Windows can hide this detail, or you can explicitly specify one. You also specify a server name, and a share name.

Now, here's the weird part: The login session on your local machine stores that connection information. And every time you try to connect to the that server (any share) it uses the stored username and password. Any attempt to use a different username and password will give an error message about conflicting credentials (I'm sorry, I can't remember the exact text, and Google was fruitless for that info for me).

That still seems overly convoluted to me, so let's use an example with names. You're working on your computer, named "PC", and you're logged in as "USER" with password "PASSWORD". You need to access a server named "SERVER" which has two shares on it, named "SHARE1" and "SHARE2".

You go through the "map network drive" process, and connect to SERVER\SHARE1 with username of "USER" and password "PASSWORD". You work all day long quite happily. "PC" stores all of this information in memory.

Now, you need to connect to the second share, but you have to connect as user "OTHERUSER" to access the data in "SHARE2". So, you run the "map network drive" process and specify a different user. Specifically, "OTHERUSER". Windows now has a fit, since you're making two connections to the same server using different usernames.

Now, how does all that mess apply to what you've said? Basically, something happens during your login which needs to use a different set of username/password to connect to that server. In order to do this, Windows has to be instructed to forget the old username/password. The problem won't go away until Windows forgets the new username/password, which should be fixable by way of reboot (normally) or, in extreme cases, finding the new drive you're using and manually disconnecting it and then rebooting.

I hope I've made some sense here. If not, let me know, and I'll try again. I do tend to ramble a bit when explaining these things.

[Broomjockey]

Oddly, it does make sense, but a reboot didn't fix it, as it was the second thing I tried. As I don't have access to the network drives, I'm not likely going to be able to fix this.
Would the fact that IT forces all part-time staff to use the same log-on for about a half-dozen machines all accessing the same resources affect anything? And would it do anything if I said they refuse to create more accounts?

[Pedersen]

Oddly, it does make sense, but a reboot didn't fix it, as it was the second thing I tried. As I don't have access to the network drives, I'm not likely going to be able to fix this.

Unfortunately, unless you have command line access (not very likely), I doubt I could step you through fixing it. I just don't know any mouse driven tools to use to check for these items.

On the other hand, if you do, I'll send you a fairly hefty bit of docs that would help you troubleshoot the issue without your having to tell me anything. It'd take me a day or two to write them up, but that's not so bad.

Would the fact that IT forces all part-time staff to use the same log-on for about a half-dozen machines all accessing the same resources affect anything? And would it do anything if I said they refuse to create more accounts?

Unfortunately, no, and no. What it very much sounds like to me is the problem I described earlier. And getting to a low enough level to actually troubleshoot the problem, under the conditions you've described, is unlikely at best. You are welcome to try, though. Click Start->Run and type in "cmd", and click OK. If you get a command prompt on your screen, I'll give you the information to figure out the root cause the next time it occurs. Which would thoroughly embarass IT, since somebody not on their team figured out a problem and handed them the solution. Oh, and you could take all the credit for it too, for maximum fun to be had with it

Without the command prompt, though, I don't know how to do it.

How sad is that? I need a command prompt to fix a problem with Windows, a point-and-click operating system. Something's not right with that, definitely

[Jadedcarguy]

1. An environmental event is causing an interruption.

Global warming. I knew it!

[Rapscallion]

Global warming. I knew it!

El nino!

Rapscallion

[gunsage]

I thought global warming was a direct result of there being more pr0n on the Internet and as a result, more batin'.



...n destroin' teh atmospfear!

[Broomjockey]

El nino!

Lol. Continuing with my "The IT department here is not the swiftest" idea, they've done their darndest to lock out the part time staff from being able to do anything, but I can still pull up the command window. How the heck did they miss that?