SystemException: The trust relationship between this workstation andthe primary domain failed

[Andy]

Hi,

I have a C# application, and use Windows Authentication to
authenticate my users. I set the current thread to a new
WindowsPrincipal based on WindowsIdentity.Current.

Once every few weeks, one of my users gets a "SystemException: The
trust relationship between this workstation and the primary domain
failed" error. Sometimes they've been using the program just fine,
othertimes its right on startup. Rebooting thier workstation always
seems to fix it, but I'd like to find out what's going on.

The application is a standard desktop application, which uses .Net
Remoting to talk to an IIS / database server, and run some code on the
server. Everything is part of a Windows 2003 domain, and all
computers are always connected.

Any ideas?

Thanks
Andy

 

[Chuck D]

I have seen this error dozens of times in the past and in my experience it
always indicates one of the following:

1. The client workstation is not connected to the network and using cached
credentials (ruled out by your post)

2. The client cannot contact the domain controller at that instant
(intermittent network problems), or the domain controller was too overloaded
to give a timely response.

3. Synchronization problem between domain controllers in an evironment with
multiple domain controllers.

Chuck

 

[Andy]

2. The client cannot contact the domain controller at that instant
(intermittent network problems), or the domain controller was too overloaded
to give a timely response.

Hmm... that could be, but I'd be suprised. We only have about 35
workstations in the building, and two domain controllers in the server
room (and two more in the other office building in the next town).

3. Synchronization problem between domain controllers in an evironment with
multiple domain controllers.  

Is there any way we could determine for sure if that's the cause?

It seems when this happens the workstation will continue to get the
exception until the machine is rebooted... which makes me wonder if #2
isn't ruled out.