Losing connection to mapped drive while working in microstation V8

Has anyone experienced problems with cad users losing connection to a
mapped network drive while working in microstaion version 8? The
server is a windows 2000 server and the desktops are windows 2000 pro.
A login script is used to map the drives. It does not happen to all
users, and it does not happen to the same users, nor does it happen at
the same time each day. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

Hi,

It is unclear from your message whether the mapped drives are lost all together
from your workstation (i.e. inaccessible from Explorer) or only are they gone
from MicroStation dialog boxes?

 

When the connection is lost, they can minimize Microstation and go to
"my computer" and the "G:" drive (this is the cad server location with
all project drawings) will have a red X. When trying to ping the
server, they receive no response. They do not lose all network
connections, only the connection to the cad server. And not all users
lose connection at the same time. The server is running "per seat" so
there is no licensing issue on the server side.

 

Okay, so you've lost connection to G: alltogether.

If you run IPCONFIG in DOS window when you see that
you have lost your connection you'l see something like this:

C:\> ipconfig /all

Windows 2000 IP Configuration

Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : BlahBlah
Primary DNS Suffix . . . . . . . :
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Broadcast
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

Ethernet adapter BlahBlahBlahBlah:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : 3Com 3C920 Integrated Fast Ethernet Controller
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 12-34-56-78-AB-CD
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 111.111.1.11
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 222.222.0.1
DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 222.222.0.1
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.0.0.1
10.0.0.2
Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : 14 january 2004 20:17:50
Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : 15 january 2004 00:17:50


You will see on the bottom of the output above whether your box has valid
connection (IP Lease) or not and when it was obtained. I had similiar problem
like you (albeit no MicroStation involved) on my office network, where one
of my boxes intermitently (once or twice a week) was loosing connection to the
server.

Restarting the connection from the Control Panel -> Network and Dial-up Connections
was helpfull most of the times but not all times. Event Viewer had excessive records
about troubles when obtaining IP address, autoconfiguring IP, etc.

Eventually the mystery was solved:

The reason was purely electrical -- the network hub was grounded to an other ground
than the common ground used for all other boxes. And this particular computer had
its network adapter very sensitive to this fact. Moving the power cord of the hub to the
electrical outlet powered by the same UPS as all other computers solved the problem.

Above situation may not even remotely resemble the cause of *your* problem, but it
may give some ideas about weirdness of the nature of network setups...

 

If I recall, when I do an ipconfig/flushdns then ping the server i get a
response. I have placed a static entry to the cad server in the arp table
of the client machine, but this did not solve the problem either.