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Q164647: Server Displays Offline When Link Drops and Recovers

Article: Q164647
Product(s): Microsoft SNA Server
Version(s): WINDOWS:3.0
Operating System(s): 
Keyword(s): 
Last Modified: 13-JUN-2001

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The information in this article applies to:

- Microsoft SNA Server, version 3.0 
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SYMPTOMS
========

If the network connection between SNA Server Manager and a remote SNA Server
service is lost, the SNA Server service shows a status of "Offline." If the
network connection is reestablished within a few minutes, it stays offline until
the administrator reopens the SNA subdomain in the SNA Server Manager.

CAUSE
=====

If the network connection between the Manage Client to the Manage Agent fails,
the SnaBase service (which relies upon broadcasts) still considers the services
to be active. If the connection is reconnected before the SnaBase service frees
the services from the services table, the SnaBase service never sends a service
table update to indicate the services have recovered. Therefore, the network
connection is never reestablished. This may cause the SNA Server Manager to
display the SNA Server status as "Offline."

RESOLUTION
==========

An update to SNA Server 3.0 is available to correct this problem. With the new
Manage files, Mngcli.exe will now retry a dropped connection to Mngagent.exe
three times with a two-minute delay between each retry. If the outage is longer
than four minutes (the default setting), SnaBase detects the recovery and
signals Mngagent.exe to try again. If the server broadcast times are changed to
be longer, these times may need to be adjusted. The value of the retry delay
multiplied by the number of retries should be slightly longer than the server
broadcast value multiplied by four. The server broadcast value, which has a
default of 60 seconds, is configured in the Server Broadcasts folder in the SNA
Server Manager, in the SNA Server properties. The registry entries for adjusting
these settings are:

  HKEY_Local_Machine\Software\Microsoft\SNA Server\Parameters\Manage\ 
     ConnectRetryLimit: REG_DWORD: <value>

  HKEY_Local_Machine\Software\Microsoft\SNA Server\Parameters\Manage\ 
     ConnectRetryDelay: REG_DWORD: <value>

The updated modules are:

  <Snaroot>\System\Mngagent.exe
  <Snaroot>\System\Mngcli.exe
  <Snaroot>\System\Snamanag.dll

STATUS
======

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in SNA Server version 3.0. This
problem was corrected in the latest Microsoft SNA Server 3.0 U.S. Service Pack.
For information on obtaining the service pack, query on the following word in
the Microsoft Knowledge Base (without the spaces):

  S E R V P A C K

Additional query words: prodsna sna30

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Keywords          :  
Technology        : kbAudDeveloper kbSNAServSearch kbSNAServ300
Version           : WINDOWS:3.0
Issue type        : kbbug
Solution Type     : kbfix

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