Hello All:

 

I have a client that is in transition. They are currently sharing office space with a huge company.  The huge company is working on getting their routers to allow communication through to the remote server (2003 server across town, via vpn).  It's been a couple of weeks now and no problems while waiting.  Just last night, we began testing the VPN issue and noted the "error 721" problem.  We figured it was no big deal.  The users came in this morning and one of the six could no longer log in to his computer. He got the typical "username or password is incorrect" message.  The other users are having no problems. Their cached credentials appear to still be intact.

 

Is there a way to restore this users credentials so he can login again as he was? 

Did setting up the VPN connection on his machine some how kill his domain credentials? 

Worse case scenario - schlep the machine the 20 blocks over to the server, connect it 'normally', test while there, then schlep it back across town.

 

I'm actually hoping the VPN issue gets fixed so we could try logging in via 'dial up' connection.  That should fix things right?

 

Thanks for any insight.

 

joel*

 

p.s. VPN is working from other locations. Tested from three other places, different machines and connection is flawless and quick.

Hey Kevin:

 

Thanks for the response.

 

None of the machines were connected directly and/or authenticating to the DC any more but they could all ping the IP address and they could still log in on the local workstation with their username and pw and domain.

 

The issue was just resolved by opening up the VPN GRE protocol 47 ports.  Once that was done I logged in using the dial-up networking option. His cache was recreated. I was able to log back off and log in again without using dial-up networking option and he was just fine.

 

The troubleshooting for Error 721 starts with making sure port 1723 and GRE IP Protocol 47 are open.  The error comes up before pw authentication.

 

I'm still curious though. Is there a way to get someones cached credentials back without logging in to the domain controller?

 

joel*

Hi Joel,

 

Only other way is to logon with the 'dial up' option where the VPN connection will connect to the server and then log in with the credentials and boot up. The login script will also run then and the credentials will be cached again.

Thanks Marina.

That's the approach we had to use.  Luckily the VPN was up long enough to use that option.

 

Do you know if there is a time limit on cached credentials or will a workstation hold onto that info indefinitely?

 

joel*

Hi Joel,

 

There is a time limit, but I don't know how many months that is. I don't even know if it is limiting in time or in amounts of log in with cached credentials.

Marina: 

 

Okay, well, that's good to know. Hopefully it wont be a big deal.  Trying to get VPN to behave (see this thread - http://www.smallbizserver.net/Forums/tabid/53/forumid/26/postid/86566/view/topic/Default.aspx)

Once that's done this will be a non-issue, at least for this client.

 

Thanks.

 

joel*