Getting "element not found" error when joining workstation to a do

[Guest]

I am getting an error every time I try to join a workstation to my domain:

The following error occured attempting to join the domain
"element not found"

I have verified the workstation is on the netowrk and I can ping the domain
controller and dns server. I have disabled the firewall on the local system
and my domain controller has not got a firewall that would prevent the
machine from joining the domain. The user account I am attempting to use to
join the domain with has the correct rights to join the domain. Any
inforamtion you can provide to help with this situation would be greatly
appreciated. Thanks in advance.

John Yarbrough II

 

[Steven L Umbach]

Is this happening to more than one computer? I have never heard of that
error when trying to joined a computer to a domain. Double check that the
workstation is pointing only to domain controllers as their preferred dns
server as shown by ipconfig /all. I would also check the logs via Event
Viewer for the domain workstation and domain controllers for anything that
may indicate a problem and run the support tool netdiag on both the
workstation and domain controller and dcdiag on the domain controller
looking for any problems such as for dns, dc discovery, Kerberos,
trust/secure channel, services tests for the domain controller, etc. --
Steve

 

[Guest]

The problem was a the DNS record for the two workstations I was trying to
join to the domain. They are the first two workstations for this domain and
I had joined them previously. I did remove the workstation objects from the
computers OU, but the DNS records were bad for the workstations. I deleted
them from DNS, let them register again and then I could Join the Domain with
no issues. Thanks for the ideas.

John

 

[Steven L Umbach]

Good work and thanks for reporting back what the problem was. DNS is the
root of most Active Directory problems. --- Steve