Possible Roaming profile issue.

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jason Paper
  • Start date Start date
J

Jason Paper

All,
I am having a problem I am hoping someone can shed some light on. First
real quick here is a general overview of the network in question:

2 Windows 2000 Advanced Server in the role as DC's with SP4 and all patches
up to date
2 Windows 2000 Advanced Server in the role as Member Servers with SP4 and
all patches running Exchange 2000 fully patched.
All users are using roaming profiles.

Our users can log into the domain, perform all the work they need to and
then log off. About 20 to 30 minutes after the user logs off the
workstation they were just using and providing no one else logs onto that
work station then the monitor power saver kicks in and the screen goes
blank. All normal stuff right? Now when a new user or even the previous user
that last used the work station and logged off from it comes back, moves the
mouse or hits a hit to get the monitor to come back on the workstation is
locked with the last user who used the workstations account. This happens
even though that user successfully logged off the workstation. The user with
those credentials can unlock that workstation but instead of taking them
back to their desktop it takes them back to the initial log on screen. This
is happening on all our workstations. We have looked for viruses, reloaded a
few workstations and nothing seems to get this problem to go away. Since
this was happening when the monitor power saver function was kicking off we
looked at the power settings and screen saver settings on the workstations
and nothing out of the ordinary is showing up. Also no errors with the login
scripts are seen, and nothing during the log out process pops up as a
warning of any problems or is there anything adverse in the event logs.

One thought I had was that this might have something to do with roaming
profiles not updating completely during the users log out. No new GPO's
have been created or none of the old one have been modified either.

Another odd thing is if the user logging off chooses to reboot the computer
instead of a normal logoff then when the computer reboots and no one logs in
before the monitor power saver kicks off then the computer locks itself with
the administrator account name, which is very odd since all the local
administrator accounts have been renamed.

If anyone has seen this issue before, or something similar please point me
in the direction of another post or KB article.

Thanks in advance.

Jason
 
Jason Paper said:
All,
I am having a problem I am hoping someone can shed some light on. First
real quick here is a general overview of the network in question:

2 Windows 2000 Advanced Server in the role as DC's with SP4 and all patches
up to date
2 Windows 2000 Advanced Server in the role as Member Servers with SP4 and
all patches running Exchange 2000 fully patched.
All users are using roaming profiles.

Our users can log into the domain, perform all the work they need to and
then log off. About 20 to 30 minutes after the user logs off the
workstation they were just using and providing no one else logs onto that
work station then the monitor power saver kicks in and the screen goes
blank. All normal stuff right? Now when a new user or even the previous user
that last used the work station and logged off from it comes back, moves the
mouse or hits a hit to get the monitor to come back on the workstation is
locked with the last user who used the workstations account. This happens
even though that user successfully logged off the workstation. The user with
those credentials can unlock that workstation but instead of taking them
back to their desktop it takes them back to the initial log on screen. This
is happening on all our workstations. We have looked for viruses, reloaded a
few workstations and nothing seems to get this problem to go away. Since
this was happening when the monitor power saver function was kicking off we
looked at the power settings and screen saver settings on the workstations
and nothing out of the ordinary is showing up. Also no errors with the login
scripts are seen, and nothing during the log out process pops up as a
warning of any problems or is there anything adverse in the event logs.

One thought I had was that this might have something to do with roaming
profiles not updating completely during the users log out. No new GPO's
have been created or none of the old one have been modified either.

Another odd thing is if the user logging off chooses to reboot the computer
instead of a normal logoff then when the computer reboots and no one logs in
before the monitor power saver kicks off then the computer locks itself with
the administrator account name, which is very odd since all the local
administrator accounts have been renamed.

If anyone has seen this issue before, or something similar please point me
in the direction of another post or KB article.

Thanks in advance.

Jason
Click to expand...

What is the size of a typical user's profile?
(e.g. c:\documents and settings\Jason)
 
All users have a capped profile size of 200MB. There are a few exceptions
for higher-ups. I can look to see what the average size is across the board.
We have roughly 3000 users, do you think it is possible that all the users
roaming profiles are bad?

Jason
 
I would check if this issue is related to the profile size, by
picking a user with a small roaming profile (20 MBytes)
with a big user (300 MBytes).
 
Pegasus,
We did look into that, but this issue is affecting all users regardless
of profile size. Is there a way to verify that when a user is logging out
that his roaming profile is updating back the profile server as it should?

Jason
 
I would do this to get a handle on the issue:
1. Start a Command Prompt on a problem machine by running
this command from a networked PC:
psexec \\ProblemPC cmd
You can get psexec.exe from www.sysinternals.com.
2. When in this Command Prompt, run this batch file:
@echo off
:again
echo %date% %time% >> c:\Logs.txt
pslist >> c:\Logs.txt
echo =========== >> c:\Logs.txt
ping localhost -n 20 > nul
goto again
You can get pslist.exe from www.sysinternals.com.
3. Log off from ProblemPC and track the logoff process with
your watch.
4. Compare the contents of c:\Logs.txt with the log you recorded
in Step 3.

The comparison will tell you what happened during the log off
phase and what process(es) delayed the log off.
 
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