Question

Connection to Windows 2003 Server randomly drops

Asked by: jdunnill

My predessor informed me of a bug in Mac OSX where it fails to communicate with a .local or Windows based server properly. The problem occurs when you mount a windows server share, it mounts OK but there is a random length time and it disconnects without warning. Sometimes it could be minutes, sometimes hours, it has even happened within seconds of connecting to the server.

He also informed me that to get around this bug you need to edit a config file on the mac and told me to google for 'Rendezvous'. Unfortunately googling many terms was fruitless. I have found many posts in Mac forums where users are experiencing the same problem but not one solution has been posted as far as I can see.

There was an authentication setting that needed changing on the server to allow a mac to connect initially but this is set correctly.

This mac in particular was connecting fine before I had to format and reinstall Tiger. So the theory of the config file sounds the most probable.

I am using Tiger OSX 10.4.11 and trying to keep a solid connection with a Microsoft Small Business Server 2003 R1.

Any Mac gurus out there with details of this config file hack?

Thanks

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Asked On
2008-03-07 at 01:22:00ID23222372
Tags

Apple Macintosh

,

Mac OSX

,

10.4.11

Topics

Mac OS 10.4 (Tiger)

,

Apple Networking

,

SBS Small Business Server

Participating Experts
1
Points
0
Comments
3

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Answers

 

by: strungPosted on 2008-03-07 at 05:34:51ID: 21069782

See if any of these links help:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;297684

http://macwindows.com/Win2003.html#110104a

http://macwindows.com/Win2003.html

Also, try:

   1.  Go to the Start Menu
   2. Select Programs
   3. Select Administrative Tools
   4. Select Local Security Policy
   5. Choose Local Policies
   6. Select Security Options
   7. Change Amount of idle time required before disconnecting session to 0

 

by: jdunnillPosted on 2008-04-14 at 08:48:28ID: 21351037

I've tried this but it has already been done. I was informed that I need to edit a config file on the mac to get it to stop dropping connections. Any ideas?

 

by: jdunnillPosted on 2008-04-16 at 08:23:54ID: 21368786

The above suggestion by strung had already been performed on our server so did nto fix the problem. However I did fix the problem yesterday by doing the following... It all seems fairly stable now, will report back if problems continue...

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107800

Looks like a dead simple solution for Tiger but more complex for old OSX version.

To be on the safe side I also turned off the airport on the laptop as I heard intermittent scans from the airport can cause a dip in the connectivity on the ethernet port.

I also turned off all file sharing as this was also a suggestion from elsewhere.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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