swartwe
asked on
ERROR_TOO_MANY_NAMES
I have an NT 4.0 Workstation SP5 which is generating the message "The name limit for the local computer adapter card was exceeded", often when attempting to map to a remote machine's drive. Technet says that this error is ERROR_TOO_MANY_NAMES with a number of 68. However, Technet offers no details as to the cause of this problem. Re-booting the machine typically helps.
Can anyone tell me what the cause of this message is?
Can anyone tell me what the cause of this message is?
what services have you got bound to your local card?
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what card is it?
Any time you map a drive to another computer you first have to resolve it's name to an IP address. Once this address is resolved, your computer stores it in it's NetBIOS name cache so it does not have to be resolved again. A NBTSTAT -c|more will show you the contents of the cache.
I've looked for, but can't find the registry entry that controls the size of the NetBIOS name cache. I know it exists and can be increased above 100. The lifetime of each cache entry can also be changed in the registry. You may be loading a bunch of names unnecessarily. Check in the LMHOSTS files for entries with a #PRE after them and delete any you don't need. Or at least delete the #PRE part.
I've looked for, but can't find the registry entry that controls the size of the NetBIOS name cache. I know it exists and can be increased above 100. The lifetime of each cache entry can also be changed in the registry. You may be loading a bunch of names unnecessarily. Check in the LMHOSTS files for entries with a #PRE after them and delete any you don't need. Or at least delete the #PRE part.
Sorry, that's LMHOSTS file (singular) and it's in c:\winnt\system32\drivers\
ASKER
Although the problem has not occurred since I submitted the question (it figures), Tim Holman's explanation sounds reasonable. I don't want to keep the question open forever. I also wish to thank klover for the input. I awarded the points to Tim Holman since he was the first to respond with what I believe to be the answer.