I hope that someone has run into this problem before...

Our company has a large number of laptop computers (which seem to be
the only machines affected for now) that are used outside of the
office. The users logon to their computers using a cached domain
username and password.

The problem....
All of a sudden (and yes, I do mean all of a sudden) when they attempt
to logon to their machine they get the error message "The system
cannot log you on now because the domain <domain name> is not
available". I have seen this many many times, so it didn't concern me
to begin with. The part that concerned me is when I look in Active
Directory to see if their computer is still listed...IT ISN'T!!!!
When I tried to logon to the macine using the local admin username and
password (and I am 100 percent SURE that it is the correct username
and password) and change the "Log on to" to the local machine (and I
am 100 percent SURE that I am selecting the correct location), it
tells me the password doesn't match the account.

I experienced this EXACT same problem about a year and a half ago
while working for a different company. It happened on 3 or 4
computers then (randomly, on different days) and it has now occured
twice here (randomly, on different days), all with the EXACT same
results. Computer missing from AD and local admin password doesn't
work. I have resolved the issue by cracking the local admin password
and dis-joining the computer from the domain, then re-joining the
computer to the domain. But I need to know why this is happening
BEFORE it happens again. Having users drive 5 hours to me so I can
crack their password isn't acceptable!

Thank you very very much for any help you may be able to provide!!!!

>I hope that someone has run into this problem before...
>
>Our company has a large number of laptop computers (which seem to be
>the only machines affected for now) that are used outside of the
>office. The users logon to their computers using a cached domain
>username and password.
>
>The problem....
>All of a sudden (and yes, I do mean all of a sudden) when they attempt
>to logon to their machine they get the error message "The system
>cannot log you on now because the domain <domain name> is not
>available". I have seen this many many times, so it didn't concern me
>to begin with. The part that concerned me is when I look in Active
>Directory to see if their computer is still listed...IT ISN'T!!!!
>When I tried to logon to the macine using the local admin username and
>password (and I am 100 percent SURE that it is the correct username
>and password) and change the "Log on to" to the local machine (and I
>am 100 percent SURE that I am selecting the correct location), it
>tells me the password doesn't match the account.
>
>I experienced this EXACT same problem about a year and a half ago
>while working for a different company. It happened on 3 or 4
>computers then (randomly, on different days) and it has now occured
>twice here (randomly, on different days), all with the EXACT same
>results. Computer missing from AD and local admin password doesn't
>work. I have resolved the issue by cracking the local admin password
>and dis-joining the computer from the domain, then re-joining the
>computer to the domain. But I need to know why this is happening
>BEFORE it happens again. Having users drive 5 hours to me so I can
>crack their password isn't acceptable!
>
>Thank you very very much for any help you may be able to provide!!!!

You may want to dig around in the Microsoft Knowledge Base and see if
this is documented anywhere. I found the following article:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/244671

- Thee Chicago Wolf

> You may want to dig around in the Microsoft Knowledge Base and see if
> this is documented anywhere. I found the following article:http://support.microsoft.com/kb/244671
>
> - Thee Chicago Wolf- Hide quoted text -


I'm sorry, but that is an irrelivant post. That says that the local
computer is not available, which is not the case. It's the domain
that becomes unavailable, and the local passwords just stop working.
It doens't say that the local machine is unavailable, just that the
password doesn't match the user ID. If I crack the admin password, I
am able to logon, which means there is nothing wrong with the
cryptography files. I have done PLENTY of "digging", that's why I
have now come to post here. Please, if anyboyd knows what is going
on, I could really appreciate your help. Thank you!!!!!

>> You may want to dig around in the Microsoft Knowledge Base and see if
>> this is documented anywhere. I found the following article:http://support.microsoft.com/kb/244671
>>
>> - Thee Chicago Wolf- Hide quoted text -
>
>
>I'm sorry, but that is an irrelivant post. That says that the local
>computer is not available, which is not the case. It's the domain
>that becomes unavailable, and the local passwords just stop working.
>It doens't say that the local machine is unavailable, just that the
>password doesn't match the user ID. If I crack the admin password, I
>am able to logon, which means there is nothing wrong with the
>cryptography files. I have done PLENTY of "digging", that's why I
>have now come to post here. Please, if anyboyd knows what is going
>on, I could really appreciate your help. Thank you!!!!!

It sounds like it is not the local computer if you're caching user and
PW across the domain. Have you tried to not cache the username and PW
and actually have users enter the information manually? Sounds like AD
is either changing the user's PW or something else mucking up on the
Server side and being pushed on the client. You may want to ask this
question in microsoft.public.windows.server.general instead.

- Thee Chicago Wolf

I will ask them, thank you. I have tried to logon to the domain while
directly connected to the network, but we have the same problem. As
listed above, the computer actually dissapppears from active
directory, so I would say something strange is happening.

Thanks.