RAS Clients Unable to Connect to NetWare Servers
Article ID: 128783
Article Last Modified on 11/1/2006
APPLIES TO
- Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 3.5
- Microsoft Windows NT Server 3.5
This article was previously published under Q128783
SYMPTOMS
When you dial into a Windows NT server or workstation with Windows NT
Remote Access Service (RAS) clients, you are unable to connect to one or
more NetWare servers. You receives error 53 - "the network path was not
found" when trying to connect to or view a NetWare server's shares.
CAUSE
The NWSAP Agent builds and maintains the table of servers by listening to
all SAP broadcasts (socket 452) on the network. When the RAS server service
is installed, this table is used to satisfy SAP requests from RAS clients.
If the NWSAP Agent receives an error (for example, a buffer overflows), the
thread responsible for handling the SAP broadcasts and maintaining the
table may terminate. When this happens, new entries are no longer added to
the table and any current entries are aged and removed from the table. The
default time for aging a SAP entry in Windows NT 3.5 is five minutes.
Consequently, a new SAP broadcast must be seen within the timeout period
for the server to always be available to RAS clients.
STATUS
Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Windows NT version 3.5. A
supported fix is now available, but is not fully regression-tested and
should be applied only to systems experiencing this specific problem.
Unless you are severely impacted by this specific problem, Microsoft
recommends that you wait for the service pack release containing this fix.
Contact Microsoft Product Support Services for more information.
Keywords: KB128783