Offline files never go back online

[Russell Jones]

Our laptops are getting a strange problem with our offline files
(under both W2K and XP). When reconnecting to the LAN, our offline
file shares don't go back online. The Synchronisation Manager reports
that the machines are still offline, and a sync does not make them go
back online. All other machines in the network are visible in the
Network Neighbourhood. The offline machines can be pinged, and can
even be accessed using alternate URLs (eg IP address). The only way of
synchronising is turning off offline files, and then turning it on
again - not much use really.

This doesn't happen all the time, or with all the shares accessed, but
once it starts it doesn't stop. I've tried using both short names (eg
//zaphod) and fully qualified names (eg //zaphod.acme.com), and I get
the same behaviour.

The only fix we've found is to login to a local account on our
laptops, ie. the problem only occurs when logged into a domain account
(our PDC is a W2k server).
The closest thing I've found in Microsoft's KB is article 290523, but
that refers to connections via a VPN or remote access, which isn't the
case for us - our laptops just refuse to recognise that the shares are
back online.

Any suggestions will be gratefully received.

 

[Russell Jones]

Our laptops are getting a strange problem with our offline files
(under both W2K and XP). When reconnecting to the LAN, our offline
file shares don't go back online. The Synchronisation Manager reports
that the machines are still offline, and a sync does not make them go
back online. All other machines in the network are visible in the
Network Neighbourhood. The offline machines can be pinged, and can
even be accessed using alternate URLs (eg IP address). The only way of
synchronising is turning off offline files, and then turning it on
again - not much use really.

This doesn't happen all the time, or with all the shares accessed, but
once it starts it doesn't stop. I've tried using both short names (eg
//zaphod) and fully qualified names (eg //zaphod.acme.com), and I get
the same behaviour.

The only fix we've found is to login to a local account on our
laptops, ie. the problem only occurs when logged into a domain account
(our PDC is a W2k server).
The closest thing I've found in Microsoft's KB is article 290523, but
that refers to connections via a VPN or remote access, which isn't the
case for us - our laptops just refuse to recognise that the shares are
back online.

Any suggestions will be gratefully received.

Further information: This is possibly related to our use of ZoneAlarm, and
the "Services & Controller app", which I suspect talks to the Master Browser
on the network. Does anyone know if this is likely?