I manage a company's network. They have two locations connected by a VPN. They have 3 windows 2000 servers. Two are domain controllers and one is a terminal server. There is one domain controller at one location (192.168.1.2) and the other two on the other side (DC: 192.168.0.2, TS: 192.168.0.8). Every once in a while, the terminal server will be inaccessible from the 192.168.1.2 side. I can ping the terminal server from that side but cannot browse its files nor can I connect to it with remote desktop. We manage the network remotely using a system which employs VNC. When the terminal server is down for the .1.2 side of the network, it shows up as offline in our database. In order to reach it, I need to remote into 192.168.0.2 and then use remote desktop to connect to 192.168.0.8. When I'm in 192.168.0.8, I'm able to ping all points on the network (local, over the VPN and external like yahoo.com). I can't browse to any webpages. It always times out. I can browse files on local systems but nothing over the VPN. Nobody on the .1.2 network can use remote desktop to get to the terminal server. Everyone on the 0.1 side of the network can. Also, I can't access the router's (192.168.0.1) web administration yet I can ping it just fine. 192.168.0.2 and 192.168.0.8 are both plugged into a large switch (along with numerous other computers). We are moving the two servers directly to the router. Will this fix the problem? Or am I just grasping at straws?

192.168.0.2 and 192.168.0.8 are both plugged into a large switch (along with numerous other computers). We are moving the two servers directly to the router. Will this fix the problem? Or am I just grasping at straws? I hate to break it to you but......that's not likely to fix the issue. You might want to run a packet sniffer on the TS server to see what's going on with regard to traffic and the interface on the TS server itself. Considering what you posted, it seems the problem is isolated to the TS server itself and is not a network issue.

What would cause a computer to lose access to the outside world with everything except ping ability yet maintain internal access? Also, do you have a packet sniffer you recommend? I've never used such a utility.

google wireshark for packet sniffer Is the firewall disabled on the TS server? Sounds like it isn't or is misconfigured. Review the event viewer logs on the ts server for clues

It is a windows 2000 server so there is no windows firewall. Also, there are zero clues in the event log. There's nothing to indicate a problem at all. Anyone else have some ideas? I will look into wireshark.

When was the last time you... ran chkdsk /f on the TS? ran disk cleanup on the TS? defragged the TS? You have no events that are not blue in any of the event viewer logs? That seems strange.

We run maintenance on the server every Thursday night. I will check as to whether all three of those are being run. It is strange. The server stopped fully functioning around 8:30pm on 10/14. The event log has zero errors or warnings at that time. One thing that might help: Once in a great while, the print spooler service will stop working and all the printers will disappear. I can re-enable it to bring them back. I'm not sure why that is happening either. They might be related. This server is probably about 6 years old.