Novell's client issues

[matthew.bauer]

Hey all,

I am at a bit of a loss. I wonder if the following is a network issue, here goes:

I just purchased 9 new p4 machines (compaq/hp d510 evo small form factors). I am up to date on most recent drivers and Novells client 32. The OS is XP sp 1. When the machine first boots up and displays the login splash screen. I try to login and I get a message that the tree or server cannot be found. I try again 3 seconds later and all works well. I am able to login, get mappings, browse network and the internet.

This occurs in different segments of my network. The server is connected to a 4006. I have tried connected to the 4006 and from an port from a 2950ei-48 that is connected to the 4006 via gigabit fiber. Portfast is enabled on the ports that hosts directly connect to.

I use a p3 system that has XP and I have yet to run across this situation. Is the server request not coming back quick enough before the workstation is ready to login?

Am I barking up the wrong tree? I have a post over in Novell's area and nothing has worked so far. I thought I would try all aspects.

Thanks

Matt

[ddnicholls]

Hi Matt, not sure how relevant this is but I had a similar problem a little while ago in a switched NetWare environment where the users had to wait a few seconds after the splash screen came up before it would accept their login credentials as it would take that time to find the tree. The major difference in this case is that it was an NT4.0 envioronment and it was actually some of the NT services that were taking that time to start that was causing the problem. So in our case it was a problem with the NetWare client (what's new) and the MS operating system. Maybe check to see you have the latest client patches or even backrev to a known working one. I'd laso make sure your SLP setup is working as it should.

Hope this helps

Dean

[paulmcdonald]

What kind of switch are the clients connected to? It is possible that the switch ports are going though the spanning-tree learning-listening-forwarding routine. Try disabling spanning-tree on the client switch ports. Portfast mode in Cisco speak.

[glen.grant]

I have seen situations where these are time sensative enough that you also have to make sure trunking and chaneling are off in addition to portfast being turned on , if it's a later Cat OS just use the "set port host" command on alll user ports on the switch and see if this helps .

[agnelo]

Hi Matt

Trying forcing the frame type (same as on your layer device if IPX is routed or same as on the server ) and the network number on the XP P4 machine. I think this should solve your problem.

Agnelo