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For some reason I can ping all servers in my network except for the mail server and the mail server can ping all servers except the windows server 2008 R2. The firewall has been disabled and still it doesn't respond. The weird part is that every once in a while it will all of a sudden start allowing pings and then just as suddenly stop allowing pings. I've made sure there's no type-o's in the ip address or subnet mask or gateway. Any other ideas?

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2 Answers

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Perhaps test with PathPing to help determine where along the path the signal is dying?

Note: You have to run PathPing in an elevated command prompt on Windows 2008 to get results.

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Tracing route to mail.xxx.xxx [192.168.1.1] over a maximum of 30 hops: 0 vs4.xxx.xxx [192.168.1.2] 1 mail.xxx.xxx [192.168.1.1] 2 * * * Computing statistics for 25 seconds... Source to Here This Node/Link Hop RTT Lost/Sent = Pct Lost/Sent = Pct Address 0 vs4.xxx.xxx [192.168.1.2] 1/ 100 = 1% | 1 15ms 1/ 100 = 1% 0/ 100 = 0% mail.xxx.xxx [192.168.1.1] Trace complete. – S. M. Feb 3 '10 at 15:54
You've got 1% packet loss between .2 and .1, which although is low, it should be 0 in most cases (especially in a LAN). The thing that strikes me as extra odd is the 2nd hop ("2 * * *") in the trace. If 192.168.1.1 is the target, and it's found at hop 1 I'm not sure as to why it would be trying that 2nd hop at all. Start checking/substituting any wires and switches in between .1 and .2. If possible try hooking them directly to each other with a crossover cable and start testing (try ping -t) if all the pings go both ways without loss over a long time then it's probably not the computers. – techie007 Feb 3 '10 at 18:03
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if, while pinging, you do arp -a on the client sending ping, do you see the mac address resolved ?

Can you RDP to the server ? I mean, it's working as a mail server anyway ?

How did you disable the firewall ? could you use this command to disable it ?

netsh advfirewall set currentprofile state off

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I can remote desktop into the mail server from my new Windows Server 2008R2 but I can't ping the mail server from the 2008 server. At best it may allow 1 ping then it will timeout on the other 3 in a standard ping test. I have a group policy that disables the firewall on all servers at the moment while testing connectivity between servers. On occasion I'll be able to ping normally for no apparent reason then it'll stop responding again. From both servers I can't ping each other. But I can from all other servers on my network. – S. M. Feb 3 '10 at 15:50
Can you do the arp test and also use the netsh to be sure you don't have gpo issue ? Do you use team software for your network card ? – Mathieu Chateau Feb 3 '10 at 15:57
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Sounds deceptively like a routing issue... – Oskar Duveborn May 11 '10 at 18:24

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