PDC "demoting" itself

Anita · External Since: Jul 01, 2006 Posts: 7

Occasionally, our Windows NT 4.0 PDC will "demote" itself, where if you look
at the login screen, there is no Domain option, just username and password.
Users cannot authenticate. Once you reboot the PDC, it then remembers it's a
domain controller and everything works. The BDC is not affected.

I am not sure if there are browser elections are causing the problem or
what. Occasionally, but not always, there are Replicator errors 3216, 3209,
3208 that we get that I performed the posted solutions in the MS KB, but they
continue to occur.

I did check the WINS db and it appears fine; however, I did notice that
after reboot the WINS db is doing recovery (some Jet event log items
display).

I also recreated the license database but that didn't help either.

Any assistance anyone has would be greatly appreciated.

Ray · External Since: Mar 20, 2007 Posts: 8

Explanation: It's NT and it does that ocasionally. It does it on domain
controllers and it does it on member servers. There's no fix except for
getting rid of it.

Ray

"Anita" <Anita RemoveThis @discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:678A259E-5F51-448E-9176-3AEA097F1D15@microsoft.com...
> Occasionally, our Windows NT 4.0 PDC will "demote" itself, where if you
> look
> at the login screen, there is no Domain option, just username and
> password.
> Users cannot authenticate. Once you reboot the PDC, it then remembers
> it's a
> domain controller and everything works. The BDC is not affected.
>
> I am not sure if there are browser elections are causing the problem or
> what. Occasionally, but not always, there are Replicator errors 3216,
> 3209,
> 3208 that we get that I performed the posted solutions in the MS KB, but
> they
> continue to occur.
>
> I did check the WINS db and it appears fine; however, I did notice that
> after reboot the WINS db is doing recovery (some Jet event log items
> display).
>
> I also recreated the license database but that didn't help either.
>
> Any assistance anyone has would be greatly appreciated.

Joshua Bolton · External Since: Apr 11, 2006 Posts: 62

I have worked on too many NT installations to ever say this is normal. No
PDC/BDC promotes or demotes itself automatically. This is a sign of serious
corruption. I would make the BDC be the PDC and see if the problem follows.
If not, reload the former PDC and then bring it back online as a bdc then
promote to pdc after checking out all hardware [most likely cause or add on
programs].

"Ray" wrote:

> Explanation: It's NT and it does that ocasionally. It does it on domain
> controllers and it does it on member servers. There's no fix except for
> getting rid of it.
>
> Ray
>
> "Anita" <Anita DeleteThis @discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:678A259E-5F51-448E-9176-3AEA097F1D15@microsoft.com...
> > Occasionally, our Windows NT 4.0 PDC will "demote" itself, where if you
> > look
> > at the login screen, there is no Domain option, just username and
> > password.
> > Users cannot authenticate. Once you reboot the PDC, it then remembers
> > it's a
> > domain controller and everything works. The BDC is not affected.
> >
> > I am not sure if there are browser elections are causing the problem or
> > what. Occasionally, but not always, there are Replicator errors 3216,
> > 3209,
> > 3208 that we get that I performed the posted solutions in the MS KB, but
> > they
> > continue to occur.
> >
> > I did check the WINS db and it appears fine; however, I did notice that
> > after reboot the WINS db is doing recovery (some Jet event log items
> > display).
> >
> > I also recreated the license database but that didn't help either.
> >
> > Any assistance anyone has would be greatly appreciated.
>
>
>