Profile loading problems

[Bill Evans]

I have roughly 600 Windows XP SP2 workstations connecting to a file server
that houses home directories and roaming profiles for all 600 stations.
Recently we have noticed problems loading user profiles. The login process
will take quite a bit longer than usual and the roaming profile will fail to
load. Also, some Group Policy desktop settings will fail to apply for
desktop setup. The only way to fix this is to have them log off, delete the
profile, and then log in again. With 600 users this happens about 3-4 times
a day randomly. Has anyone experienced this, or fixed it?

Thanks,

- Bill E.

 

[Anteaus]

Difficult to give any precise answer, rather with this kind of problem you
need to go through a methodical faultfinding process, eliminating possible
causes.

First I would start with some stress-tests on the network connection itself,
such as copying a large volume of files with XCOPY. I would also let the
connection idle for a while (say an hour) and then check that there is no
delay or hesitancy when a file copy is commanded.

Do you run automatic updates? If so, could the problem be related to LAN
card drivers (server or client) which have been auto-updated? Powersave
options on LAN drivers are notorious for causing intermittency.

I would also have a careful think as to whether any permissions have been
changed on the server or clients, such that the user might no longer have the
rights to copy the profile. This is a very common cause of roaming-profile
issues.