Hi !

I have encountered a really strange behavior. My remote DP in a untrusted forest suddenly stopped working.

In the log files I'm getting:

Distribution Manager failed to connect to the distribution point ["Display=\\REMOTEDP\"]MSWNET:["SMS_SITE=C01"]\\REMOTEDP\. Check your network and firewall settings.

Distribution Manager failed to find or create the defined share or folder () on distribution point "["Display=\\REMOTEDP\"]MSWNET:["SMS_SITE=C01"]\\REMOTEDP\" for distributing package "C0100011".    Possible cause: Windows NT distribution points might not have at least one available NTFS drive.  Solution: Verify that there is at least one NTFS drive with enough free disk space to store the package. Then, verify that the distribution point directory exists, has the proper permissions, and is accessible.     Retry Interval is 30 minutes, number of retries left is 100.

The strange things is that is has been working since before. On my remote DP settings I have:

* Require the site server to initiate connections to this system

* Use another account for installing this site system: Untrustedforestdomain\svcaccount (localadmin on remote dp)

* I have verified that rpc ports are open (135, 445, 49152-65535) from the remote dp

* I have tried with Windows Firewall on and off on the remote dp

* I have verified that I can connect to shares on remote dp from Primary site server

* I have tried running mofcomp.exe smsdpprov.mof on the remote dp

The strange thing is that I can run wbemtest to connect from Primary site server to remote dp on IP adress but when I try with the hostname I get:

Number: 0x800706ba
Facility: Win32
Description: The RPC server is unavailable.

I'm running out of ideas. Please help.

Can you validate that the account you used Site system Installation Account is still good (password not expire or account not locked)



• Edited by Frederick Dicaire 17 hours 5 minutes ago

Yes I have validated it. I have used the credentials to connect to shares on remote dp from Primary site server and also RDP to remote dp.

Did you try WBEMTEST against both the short name and FQDN of the server? SCCM really prefers FQDN and I have seen odd behavior when the shortname is configured in various places. 

If both shortname and FQDN are resolving properly, perhaps this is a kerberos ticket error on one or both machines? You can do something like this to clear them on both sides. 

WBEMTEST against FQDN is what I have tried and it doesn't work. I cannot use short name because remote dp is in another untrusted forest. 

WBEMTEST again IP is working. I dunno what is causing this? Maybe WBEMTEST is not really the reason for the dp problem ?

Well if IP work and name doesn't could it be related to DNS. If you ping the FQDN of the DP do you get a ip back ?

DNS resolution seems to work. I can ping FQDN and IP. I can also browse shares via FQDN and IP.

DNS resolution seems to work. I can ping FQDN and IP. I can also browse shares via FQDN and IP.

What DNS records do you have for that server?

Can you validate that the account you used Site system Installation Account is still good (password not expire or account not locked)



• Edited by Frederick Dicaire Tuesday, June 30, 2015 2:41 PM

I have a conditional forwarder to the untrusted domains dns servers. 

I don't have access to the untrusted domains dns so I can't check the records.

But if I do nslookup again the hostname on the remote dp it gets resolved right.

I forgot what DNS record you need but if you force it to re-register within DNS. I have found that it help after the cache times out (~20 minutes).

why don't you delete the existing record(s) of DP, assign static IP address to the DP and then check if DP connectivity happens ?.