During the last few days, I have experienced daily network communications failures on our only Windows 2000 Server (firewall/proxy/content filtering/file-print sharing). This resulted in access to the internet and all other network communications being halted across campus. I was able to determine that is was not a proxy issue because bypassing the proxy did not get me out to the Internet. Not knowing exactly what was cause, I found that I could bring the services back online if I restarted our server. What a pain! I have had to do this 4 out of the last 5 days first thing in the morning.
The last failure was at about 4PM Monday. The event log showed the following two errors:
- DHCP service - The JET database returned the following Error: -1808
- DHCP service - Error when backing up the database
First, the 1808 error. I googled for Error 1808 and discovered that this is a DHCP error indicating that there is a lack of space on the volume. I checked my system and discovered that the 3.5 GB system partition had only about 50 MB. So I removed some unnecessary programs and opened this up to nearly 100 MB. Since my dhcp.mdb database is 1.0 MB, I thought this ought to be plenty.
A Google on the second error led me to
this article and the possible need to fix my dhcp.mdb file using jetpack.exe. I have not done this yet as I am seeking some advice as to whether I should proceed since this is an OFFLINE operation.
Good news! Since I cleared up some space on Tuesday, the network communications have not failed ("knock on wood"). I will be examining the logs further when I get a chance. First, I have grading to do.
