User Guide

Troubleshooting the NetWare Server 153
Server Operating System Administration Guide
103-000148-001
August 30, 2001
Novell Confidential
Manual 99a38 July 17, 2001
Workstations Can’t Communicate with Server
To troubleshoot different kinds of workstation to server problems, see the
following sections:
 “Errors Reading from and Writing to Network, Server Cannot Be Found
Errors” on page 153.
 “Connections Dropped Periodically” on page 156.
 “Tips for Resolving General Communication Problems” on page 156.
Errors Reading from and Writing to Network, Server Cannot Be
Found Errors
When workstations can’t communicate with the server, users lose their
connections to the server or cannot log in at all. Users might see Server Cannot
Be Found messages or errors about reading from or writing to the network.
Follow these steps to troubleshoot the problem.
1 Make sure other clients can connect to the server.
If other clients can connect to the server, then the problem is with this
client, not with the server or network. Consider the following:
 If the user cannot log in, did the user power off without logging out?
If the user powers off without logging out, the client connection
remains open and the user cannot to log in again until the connection
is cleared. The server’s watchdog process retries the connection a
designated number of times, and then the connection times out and
the server clears the connection. After the connection is cleared, the
user can log in again.
Watchdog processes are controlled by Watchdog (Communications
category) SET parameters.
 Has the user’s password expired?
Sometimes users don’t understand that they must change their
passwords before they use up their grace logins.
 Are there other restrictions on the user account, such as time periods
when the user is not allowed to log in? Check the user’s properties.
 Has intruder lockout been activated?
 Is the workstation LAN cable functioning?