NTFRS Error 13559

Oh this is not a fun one. I am doing a lot of domain controller maintenance on one of the many Windows active directory domain I manage and I noticed a little problem with replication on one of the domain controllers in the forest.

For those of you not familiar with NtFRS, according to Wikipedia, “File Replication Service is a Microsoft Windows Server service for distributing folders stored in the SYSVOL shared folder on domain controllers and Distributed File System (DFS) shared folders. It is also known as NTFRS after the name of the executable file that runs the service. This service is part of Microsoft's Active Directory.”

The error that I kept seeing was right after the file replication service was trying to start, and it would say:

Event Type:    Error
Event Source:    NtFrs
Event Category:    None
Event ID:    13559
Date:        9/01/2009
Time:        9:19:05 PM
User:        N/A
Computer:    SERVER
Description:
The File Replication Service has detected that the replica root path has changed from "c:\ad\sysvol\domain" to "c:\ad\sysvol\domain". If this is an intentional move then a file with the name NTFRS_CMD_FILE_MOVE_ROOT needs to be created under the new root path.
This was detected for the following replica set:
    "DOMAIN SYSTEM VOLUME (SYSVOL SHARE)"
Changing the replica root path is a two step process which is triggered by the creation of the NTFRS_CMD_FILE_MOVE_ROOT file.
[1] At the first poll which will occur in 60 minutes this computer will be deleted from the replica set.
[2] At the poll following the deletion this computer will be re-added to the replica set with the new root path. This re-addition will trigger a full tree sync for the replica set. At the end of the sync all the files will be at the new location. The files may or may not be deleted from the old location depending on whether they are needed or not.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

You know what though? The fix is actually pretty easy. All you have to do is browse to the directory that is mentioned in the error. In the above case it is c:\ad\sysvol\domain right click in there and create a new text file called NTFRS_CMD_FILE_MOVE_ROOT with no extension. After that, the error will go away, and replication should continue again within a few minutes.

Did that help you with your issue? Are you experiencing another replication issue? Maybe we can help. Hit us up in the comments!

 

Technorati Tags: Technorati Tags: ntfrs,error,eventid,13559,windows server 2003,replication,active directory

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Windows Server Update Services 3.0 Install Error

The other day I was getting ready to do my weekly approvals for Windows updates using our WSUS servers. Just as I was getting ready to do that one of the downstream servers went down in one of our remote offices. I called the local site liaison and asked her to power it back on. When It came back up, I remoted in to see if there was anything wrong. That is when I discovered it… WSUS had been uninstalled! WTF?!?!

Okay, it was time to calm down. I checked the logs and didn’t see anything about who or why WSUS was uninstalled. That also wasn’t my immediate concern though. The immediate concern was that I had some approvals to make, and patches to deploy. No server, no patches. no patches and my systems would be vulnerable.

No, I had to re-install Windows Server Update Services 3.0 so that particular region could get their updates. No problem right? Wrong, when I tried to re-install WSUS I got the following error:

Windows Server Update Services 3.0
There is a problem with this WIndows Installer package. A program run as part of the setup did not finish as expected. Contact your support personnel or package vendor.

That was disappointing. I did a search for that error online, and didn’t find out too much. I decided to check the install logs and found the following error code in there:

Error 0x80070643

Once again, I searched online and didn’t find out much except a related article saying that 0x80070643 had something to do with a problem installing MSDE 2000. How could that be though right? WSUS 3.0 doesn’t use MSDE.

I decided to double check Add and Remove Programs. Sure enough, there was no installation of MSDE, however I did find something else. A little application called Windows Internal Database. I hadn’t heard of that, so once again I hit up Google. The first article was from Wikipedia. This is an excerpt from Wikipedia:

Windows Internal Database (codenamed WYukon, sometimes referred to as SQL Server Embedded Edition) is a variant of SQL Server Express 2005 that is included with Windows Server 2008, and is included with other free Microsoft products released after 2007 that require an SQL Server database backend. Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Windows Server Update Services 3.0 both include Windows Internal Database, which can be used as an alternative to using a retail edition of SQL Server.

A ha! there was the culprit! I decided to uninstall Windows Internal Database and reboot the server. After the reboot, WSUS re-installed without any issues at all! Booya!

Now I just have to find out why/how it got uninstalled in the first place…

Technorati Tags: wsus,wus,windows update service,error,0x80070643

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CD/DVD Drive Not Working

So since I’ve moved over to web development I haven’t had too much Tech Support type stuff to write. But now I do. I had to load a Virtual Box to test site in XP SP2 with IE 6… yeah I know some people are still using that :( but anyway. My CD drive wasn’t working when I went to go mount it into my virtual box. I tracked it down and found out in the Device manager I was getting an error stating that it couldn’t load my CD Drive. Well like with most things I didn’t read the error and just shut the PC down and re-plugged the power and IDE cables.

The PC came back up and I notice that it wanted to boot from the CD. So I thought to myself. Well it must be working. Windows came up and I logged in but still no CD Drive. “Damn it, I hate when stuff doesn’t work!” So I decided to actually look at the error and noticed it was one I’ve seen before:

“Windows cannot start this hardware device because its configuration information (in the registry) is incomplete or damaged.”

Oh well that’s not too hard of of a fix. I just had to track down that registry key again, which was an Epic Pain in the arse. So I figured I’d tell you guys about it and without further adieu:

To fix a CD or DVD drive that is not working due to the error:

“Windows cannot start this hardware device because its configuration information (in the registry) is incomplete or damaged.”

Click Start

Click Run (Or press Windows+R on the keyboard)

In the run box type REGEDIT and hit ok or press enter

Make a backup of your Registry (as always when you make any changes)

Navigate to the following Registry Key

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}

There will be keys named UpperFilters, LowerFilters and Installer32

Delete all those keys

Close Regedit

Right click on My Computer

Click on Manage

Click on the Device Manager

Find your CD Drive that has the Yellow exclamation point on it

Right click on that CD Drive

Click Uninstall

Click OK on that Popup

Now Right click on any device in there and click Scan For Hardware Changes

And that should fix it. If not try to reboot. I’m not sure exactly what causes this but I’m assuming probably software like Nero or what not. Let us know if this helps you out at all.

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File not found essexcln.xll Runtime Error 48

I work the early shift starting at 5:00am, so I spend most of my morning dealing with our needy users in the Tampa office. I got in this morning to be greeted with an issue with one of our financial system tools. This particular tool takes data from Hyperion's Essbase, and allows users to create really cool, and pretty Excel spread sheets. The only problem is that Hyperion's software rather sucks, and usually causes more problems than it helps (IMO). This particular user was complaining that when they tried to open a spreadsheet they would get a Runtime error 48. It took me a little while to figure it out, but I got it!

If you have been running into an issue where the Excel Add-in for Hyperion Essbase is installed, you launch it as the user and get a Runtime error 48, File not found essexcln.xll. This is almost always a permissions issue. Below are steps to fix it.

1. Log in as administrator
2. Navigate to your Hyperion install. Usually this is C:\Hyperion\AnalyticServices.
3. Give Domain Users, Read/Write permissions to the local folder.
4. Navigate to C:\windows\system32.
5. Find all DLL files that start with mfc and msv and give Domain Users Read/Write permissions.
6. Have the user log in and test it and it should work.

By: Sundance of Free TV Shows Online

[EDIT By El Di Pablo]- Do you use Hyperion? Do you have as much problems with it as we do? It seems every other day, we have some weird thing go wrong with it, and when we go to Hyperion they usually tell us it is a known issue and will be fixed in some later release. I would love to hear about your Hyperion horror stories in the comments. I would also like to hear your Hyperion happy stories! If you have a good stable Hyperion environment, hit us up in the comments as well!

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VMWare: Failed to configure disk ide0:0...

I was receiving the error mentioned in the title on one of my home VMWare machines. This happened after we had a power outage which shutdown my home VMWare server box expectantly. The outage didn't hurt the other Virtual server running on that machine. The one that it did affect was my secondary domain controller.

When I SSH'd into my VMWare server I found that two files had the appendage of .writelock after them. There was the problem I was having. After doing some Googling, I found on electrictoolbox.com that the writelock was caused because:

VMWare was shut down without powering down the virtual machine and left behind some files which lock the virtual disk files.

To fix my problem I had to delete the files with the .writelock appendage. After that, my virtual machine powered up just fine.

Have you experienced this at all? Do you have any more info to add to the writelock problem? Please kick down some knowlege in the comments.

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How to Fix The Free/Busy Fiasco in Outlook

I had a user today who said she could open a shared calendar in Outlook, but when she did she would get the following error:

"Can't open this item. Unable to open the free/busy information."


If you are seeing this, then you have two options that I have found:

Option One:

• Have the user whose calendar you wish to open close out of Outlook.
• Click on Start > Run and type in the following:
  outlook.exe /cleanfreebusy

If that doesn't fix the problem, then you have to move on to Option Two, which is:

• On the user's computer whose calendar you wish to view, download MfcMapi.exe from Microsoft.com
• Run MfcMapi.exe, then click on Session > Logon and Display Store Table
• Select the profile of the person whose calendar you wish to view
• Double click on the line that says "Mailbox-"
• Expand Root Container
• Expand Top of Information Store
• Click on Inbox
• Now in the right windows look for PR_FREEBUSY_ENTRYIDS, right click on it and select Delete Property.
• Close out of MfcMapi.exe
• Now repeat option One from above.

The corrupt free/busy issue should now be resolved.

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When Windows XP SP3 Update Fails

Hello readers! If you have been hanging around the last few days you know that I recently posted an article about how to get Service Pack 3 RC1 for Windows XP. I'm sure that 98% of you had no problems at all with the install.

If you are like me though and like to customize your Windows XP box, you may have had problems. What I like to do is install Style XP on my computer and use a custom boot screen. (My favorite is my own Bauer-Power boot screen). When you do that, Style XP backs up the original Windows kernel file, and sets up their own custom one so you can use a custom boot screen.

Well, if you do that, or something similar, when you do your Windows update to get Windows XP Service Pack 3, Microsoft checks to make sure that you don't have any modified system files that may cause the install to fail, or jack up your computer. The error I got was:

Installation Failure

Error Code: 0x8007F0CC
Try to install the update again, or request help from one of the following resources.

For self-help options:

Frequently Asked Questions
Find Solutions
Windows Update Newsgroup

For assisted support options:

Microsoft Online Assisted Support (no-cost for issues related to getting updates)

To fix it I had to go into Style XP's bootscreen options and reset the kernel file, and boot.ini file and reboot once. After that the install was smooth.

If you don't have Style XP, but your files are modified, you might want to try system file checker, or run the repair installation from the Windows XP CD before upgrading to Service Pack 3.

Has anyone else out there had problems with WinXP SP3? Hit me up in the comments.

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Now What's Going on With Blogger?

I posted yesterday about a problem I was seeing with Feedburner (Which I am still seeing today) and now I am having problems editing my site lay out with Blogger! Seriously, what is going on with Google's products?

What's next? Will Youtube crash today? Will all of your Adsense dollars go away? What can possibly go wrong next? (I know, I'm getting into slippery slope territory, but I don't care!)

Google! Hear me! Please get your act together! Wordpress is looking awfully attractive right about now! If only Feedburner had some competition, I might look into that too!

Am I the only one seeing this, or experiencing this? Let me know in the comments!

Your Ad Here

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Bauer-Power was down: Sorry about that!

ERROR 404
Page Not Found

Earlier today, my blog along with someother "blogger" blogs were down with the dreaded 404 error. Sorry about that. Not sure what went wrong there. I couldn't find any links to complain to blogger.com about it or else it may have been back up sooner. Once again, I am sorry.

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