Comms timeout

[NotAllThere]

I've a server running Windows Server 2003 R2. I connect to it remotely using TeamViewer, which works fine. However, every now and then, the server loses its connection to the Internet, and so I can't connect to it remotely.

Any pointers on how to begin to troubleshoot this issue gratefully received!

thanks

[VectraMan]

Has the server lost its connection to the internet, or is it that whatever "TeamViewer"'s server is has fallen over? I.e. can you connect to the machine via FTP/WWW, or anything else?

[NotAllThere]

It's definitely the server losing connection to the internet. Can't ftp it either - when it's in that state.

[doodab]

event log?

some sort of script that periodicly logs a traceroute to a file?

[NotAllThere]

Well, the event viewer (system), has a few errors in it,
DCOM -
The server {xxxxxxxxxxx} did not register with DCOM within the required timeout.

Dhcp - The IP address lease x.xx.xxx.xxx for the Network Card with network address xxxxxxxxxxx has been denied by the DHCP server x.x.x.x (The DHCP Server sent a DHCPNACK message).

[doodab]

Well, that DHCP one would be worth following up. It might be it's getting assigned a different address when it renews.

Out of interest, why is a server using DHCP?

[VectraMan]

Indeed. Why would a DHCP server refuse a request? Perhaps only because there were too many things on the network and it had ran out of addresses, but then how did your server get its address in the first place? Weird.

That would seem to explain the problem. Presumably this isn't a paid for hosted server somewhere? Otherwise this sort of thing would be their problem.

[NotAllThere]

The server (which runs an SAP development system) belongs to my company in the US. It sits in my business partner's airconditioned kitchen. ( You know, washing maching, dryer, dishwasher, fridge, server ).

The problem is that neither of us know much about networks and servers! I believe that we have to run DHCP in order for SAP to run. So it could be a SAP problem rather than an OS problem, which is more hopeful for me as I know something about SAP!

[NotAllThere]

i just checked. We've had the same problem - and this time without a DHCP error in the event viewer. We had something similar last year that turned out to be a couple of the network cards set to power down after a period of inactivity. I've checked, and the setting is fine - they don't (or shouldn't) power down.

[stek]

Whilst I'm no SAP expert I would contradict the statement that it requires a DHCP IP, in fact, I'd go on to say any server should have a fixed IP as a matter of course.

Imagine if it's lease expired and it tried to get a new one, and got a different IP during a huge batch-type transaction?

Is the box running Netweaver and/or Oracle?

Also never a good idea to have power-saving on a server!