My sites have disappeared!!!

[Steve H]

I was using ntdsutil to do a metadata cleanup after an
unsuccessful demotion of a dc. When I did "select
operation target" it returned "No current site, no current
server, and no current naming context".

I was logged on as Enterprise Admin on the first GC of the
forest, a server that holds all FSMO roles. I have used
ntdsutil before and all sites etc have been present and
correct.

If I go in to Active Directory Sites and Services all the
sites are present and all servers are there etc with their
connections.

While everything appears to be working fine in the domain
at the moment, I am worried that it soon won't be!!!

Any insight as to why this is happening would be greatly
appreciated as I'm sure things will start to go wrong soon.

Thanks

Steve

 

[David Pharr [MSFT]]

What you're seeing is normal behavior when you are using the metadata
cleanup article 216498. The message doesn't mean your site information is
lost or destroyed, you just haven't listed any information that shows that
information. You need to continue on with the remaining steps in the
article to list the information you are using and perform the metadata
cleanup.

I've used this utility numerous times and have had to explain that message
on more than a few occasions so you are not alone in panicking when you see
that screen. It's not the most intuitive utility and the messages can be a
bit confusing, but the article works well as written.

David Pharr, (e-mail address removed)

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.