Missing Roaming Profiles

Hey everyone!

Got a couple roaming profile questions for you. It's a bit long winded, so bare with me.

Domain Controller running Server 2000
Laptop running Windows XP Pro SP2

One of our users is having a reoccurring problem; he'll log onto his laptop, a Dell Latitude D620 and he'll receive an error message stating that his Roaming profile cannot be found. Normally in this case, the login process will point at the local copy of the roaming profile. Instead, this user, (we'll call him Bob McPrescott) is warned that his roaming profile cannot be located and a 'TEMP' user profile will be loaded.

This TEMP profile logs on with all of the system defaults, including Dell manufacturer background and any icons located in the "All Users\Desktop" folder. Also, a new folder has been created located at: "C:\Documents and Settings\TEMP" Strangely enough, when we open up the start menu, it's titled as "Bob McPrescott," even though this certainly isn't either his roaming or local profile on the PC.

Although it can't find his profile on the network, he can log onto a different computer elsewhere and have his profile work exactly how it's supposed to. Likewise, I can log onto his laptop with a different username and password and that profile works just fine. I've also tested that we can ping and access files on the Domain Controller as well as made sure he has internet access.

What we finally stumbled across was under Control Panel > User Profiles where we could force his user account to use a local copy of his profile, instead of the roaming. Once we changed this setting and restarted, sure enough it grabbed his local profile instead of the TEMP user profile. As it worked the first time, we swapped his profile back to roaming again, rebooted, then everything was back to normal.

Now were stuck trying to figure out what exactly is happening.
1. Why does he receive the "can't located roaming profile message? "
2. Why doesn't it grab the local copy of his profile, instead of the TEMP user?

The only happenstances are these:
1. It's occurred after a proper system shutdown (Start > Shutdown) and after a logout and log back on; but it doesn't happen every single time. He's had several log outs and shutdowns since the last time this happened.
2. Before today's incident, there had been a Windows update that had installed. There had also been one the last time this issue happened.
3. User installed the Blackberry Desktop manager.

Other than that, he's had normal usage on his PC.

Any ideas what can be causing this? Lemme know if you need any other information.

 

As this is a laptop, is it being used off network? If so, how does the pattern of problems relate to the laptop being used off network?

I'm starting to sound like an old record, but it is worth checking that the laptop is picking up the correct DNS settings from the server as this can cause strange authentication problems. Have a look at this post.

 

Yes, the laptop is taken offsite and used elsewhere. Most of the time, when the user comes back into the office with the laptop, hooks it up to his docking station, there are no problems. On occasion, this issue happens where it all of a sudden cannot find the roaming profile. Strangely enough, we haven't had this issue with any of the other laptop users who also take their PC's out of the office.

Although we're not running Server 2003, it may still be worth a shot changing the DNS as shown in your link.

 

My thinking is that the laptop is connected to another network and is "remembering" that other network's settings or not correctly resetting its network settings when it reconnects to your network.

The DNS setting is key to AD, so relevant to 2000 networks as with 2003. If you have not got your server as the primary DNS, then changing it so that it is, is a good idea.

However, if DNS is already set correctly and working on other systems I'd dig a little deeper before changing anything. For example, do an ipconfig /all on the laptop when the problem is manifest, and check the DNS setting then. If it is pointing at your server (and nslookup shows that name resolution is working), then I've sent you down a blind alley - and the solution is elsewhere.

 

Certainly not a blind alley; it's already more ideas than what I had. Besides, it never hurts to learn new troubleshooting techniques.

Once his laptop does it again, I will check DNS

 

It happened again and I think I found our culprit.

DNS are forced to point at both our domain controller and our backup domain controller. When I IPCONFIG'd /all, sure enough the DNS connections were correct.

We went into the Control Panel > System >Advanced Tab > User Profiles and again saw both the Temp profile and his profile. We applied the same fix as before by switching his domain logon account to "local," restarted, switched back to "roaming," but this time noticed something different. The manual fix didn't work and we received a new error message.

The error message was complaining about the Blackberry Manager not seeing the domain...which as far as we understand it shouldn't be looking there; it doesn't sync emails via the server, it's rec'd through the phone carrier's mobile internet connection.

SO, we removed the Blackberry Manager from the pc, rebooted and voilà, the roaming profile was located successfully. Perhaps something in Blackberry's proprietary software is causing the network connectivity issue. I know that having it installed can allow a Blackberry user a dial-up connection via their phone when connected to the PC, which may have something to do with it, but we're not versed in their hardware nor contracted to service it.

Unless you think there's something else to check, I appreciate all your help!

 

Sorry - I don't have any experience with Blackberries (of the electrical kind - I don't think my experiences with Blackberry and Apple pie will be that helpful here.)

 

I remember my mom made a killer jam out of Blackberries....but I don't think that relates either

Thanks again!

 

Ah! Came across something at Blackberry's site which may help anyone with this problem in the future:

http://www.blackberry.com/btsc/sear...Public&dialogID=49630876&stateId=1 0 49622564

It's a known issue that the Desktop Blackberry Manager can cause issues with Roaming Profiles disappearing.

 

Thank you for posting that information. Glad you seem to be getting there now.