Roaming profiles will not update to server

  • Thread starter Thread starter Brad
  • Start date Start date
B

Brad

I'm running a Windows 2000 Server SP4 with all W2k SP4
clients.

I set up a share on the server with full control granted
to everyone. Then, I created a base user with
\\server\profiles\%username% in the profile path for that
user.

When I copy it to create new users, they retain the
profile path, as they are supposed to.

When the new user first logs in, a folder is created in
the profiles directory, with their username as the
directory name, with the access rights set up correctly,
just as it should.

However, the folder stays empty no matter where the user
logs in from. No changes are updated to the server. If I
user folder redirection for My Documents, that folder will
show up under the users's profile directory on the server,
and they can access their documents from any computer on
the domain.

When I go into the User Profiles screen on the client
computer, it shows that the new user is logged in with a
roaming profile. Also, when users log off their machines,
the "Saving your Settings" dialogue stays on the screen
for an extended period of time, even if their profile has
nothing in it. It seems to take far longer than it
should. My server is brand new and I planned for growth,
so I know I'm not taxing its resources.

I've even tried making test user accounts with domain
admin privelages, and it still won't work.

If I use the Copy To control on the user's profile, and
copy it to the server location, everything you would
expect to be in the user's profile shows up in their
folder. So now, instead of an empty profile folder, I
have everthing in it that is supposed to be. However,
when that account logs into another computer other than
the one that copied the profile information, it turns out
it's not being loaded.

I'm at a loss as I'm creating these profiles completly by
the book, but they just won't work.

Any help at all would be appreciated.
 
I just looked at the Userenv.log file, and here is what is
coming up each time a user logs off.

USERENV(d8.35c) 14:56:45:453 ProcessGPOs: MyGetUserName
failed with 1722.
USERENV(d8.c0) 07:36:24:734 MyRegUnLoadKey: Hive unload
for S-1-5-21-1214448339-1659504503-839522115-500 failed
due to open registry key. Windows will try unloading the
registry hive once a second for the next 60 seconds (max).
USERENV(d8.c0) 07:37:24:906 MyRegUnLoadKey: Windows was
not able to unload the registry hive.
USERENV(d8.c0) 07:37:24:906 MyRegUnLoadKey: Failed to
unmount hive 5
USERENV(d8.c0) 07:37:24:906 UnloadUserProfile: Didn't
unload user profile <err = 5>
USERENV(d8.c0) 07:37:24:906 DumpOpenRegistryHandle: 2 user
registry Handles leaked from \Registry\User\S-1-5-21-
1214460339-1659304503-839522115-500
 
I found the solution to my problem, so here it is for
everyone's reference:

The root cause had nothing to do with Roaming profiles. I
had simply not gone far enough down the problem chain.
The problem was actually caused by a service keeping the
registry locked while a user tried to log off, thereby
preventing replication of the profile.

Turns out there are several services that can cause this
problem.

TightVNC
Terminal Services
PCAnywhere
Print Spooler.

In my case it was TightVNC. Once I uninstalled it, users
logged off in a fraction of the time, and their roaming
profile was updated.
 
I am having the same exact problem, and have posted a
message here also, with little help from MS.

I have had a couple people e-mail me, and one guy from the
UK had this to say...

I work for a college maintaining 500+ PC's & I have this
problem on every Windows 2000 box we have applied SP4 to
(50 at last count so I'm not applying this to anymore
machines until either I find a solution or Microsoft
acknowledges this to be a problem!!).
In my case I have managed to find a solution to this but
it is a total hack; we can't uninstall SP4 because we
never saved the uninstall files but I've heard if you do
this it doesn't work anyway! What I did find is that the
problem is not too disimilar to Microsofts Knowledge Base
Article 327984. In that article (which I think you've
already looked at) it lists five files related to the
print spooler service that I have found if you copy from a
SP3 PC to the affected SP4 PC this will fix your problem.
Try testing it on one...... The only trouble with this is
copying the files across - they always seem to be in use
no matter what services I kill or even booting in safe
mode, so I had to shove the disk in another PC as a slave
to do this. Like I said a total hack!!
Would like to hear if you've actually come across any
other ideas or solutions though, as this is driving me
mental!!


If this does solve your problem the reason it may be
happening for some users and not others on the same
machine could depend on whether or not they print
something or at least look at a print dialog box, as when
a user does this Win2k/SP4 seems to leave some registry
handles open which is why the profile doesn't update when
they logoff... Or that's what I've discovered in my case.
Still don't quite know why this doesn't happen to everyone
who has upgraded to SP4 though!! Microsoft support still
have no answers to this and don't seem very keen to listen
to me either.... To busy creating other so
called "patches" that fix one thing but break twenty
others I suspect.
I will keep you informed if I do learn anymore about this
problem though.
 
So what if the service that's at the root of the problem
is Print Spooler? You can't uninstall that, right?
 
I've discovered that if I stop and disable
the "RemoteRegistry" service, the roaming profiles unload
properly. This thanks to the Uphclean utility service
which pointed me in the correct direction.

I tried having a logoff script to stop the service when
logging off, but that didn't work. It seems the service
can't be running at all when the user first logs on.

Why this is happening? I don't know.

Any thoughts??
 
Back
Top