Master Browser Problem?

I'm not sure what my problem is. But, here's my best shot at the description. I've been "losing" computers from the network neighborhood on a Win2K,XP network. Most of the computers are members of a domain, and a few belong to a workgroup that is also on the physical network. All of the computers receive dhcp address assignments from the domain controller. As of today, the domain controller shows only two computers when viewing "entire network ". Does anyone have a clue as to what's happening. It doesn't appear that the domain controller is the master browser any longer. I don't know how to force the master browser assignment.

Help

 

If it was a master brouser issue you will see it in the error logs of the DC.

What about DNS?

Where is DHCP pointing the hosts for DNS?

 

Also, my suggestion would be to stop and disable browser service on all PCs except your domain controller(s) and one PC in the workgroup if you have one that is turned on most/all of the time.

 

also, if you have any 9x clients on the subnet, this will cause you much grief.

 

DNS and DHCP both seem to be working correctly. The active directory on the DC lists all of the domain computers. This is not a new installation, it's been functioning well for approx 2 years. Suddenly, this week, the DC shows only two computers when you look at the "entire network" and the member computers show only themselves. If I try to access the domain via Explorer and click on Network Places->Entire Network->Windows Network->Domain from a member computer, I get a message that the "domain is not accessible" and "the list of servers for the workgroup is not available ".

On any computer, I can access almost any other computer by entering the computer name into the address bar in explorer. But, cannot get the normal listing of domain computers and workgroup computers. Cannot find the workgroup at all from the member machines.

The reason that I suspect a browser problem is that I get the following message in various member servers event log

The browser was unable to retrieve a list of domains from the browser master \\SHIPPING-Z on the network \Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{2E2FB24F-ECCA-44B9-98C4-36033AFF9EC4}. The data is the error code.

Shipping-z is a domain member. It is always on and is logged into the domain. It is an XP workstation and at the moment is not accessible via the network. It is one of the few computers that cannot be reached. This is also new.

I realize that I could probably patch the problem by populating the lmhosts file and using wins, but since this has been working correctly for a couple of years, something has happened and I need to know what.

 

My bet would be XPs firewall.

 

if you have 2 network cards on the DC, may I suggest this?