IPX Clients Fail to Obtain A Sponsor Connection (180693)

SYMPTOMS

After upgrading an SNA Server 2.11 Windows NT or Windows 95 client workstation (attached via Netware IPX/SPX) to SNA Server 3.0, 3.0 Service Pack 1 (SP1) or SP2, the workstation may fail to obtain a sponsor connection to an SNA Server.

CAUSE

An SNA Server 3.0 Windows NT or Windows 95 client may issue a Get General Server query in an attempt to locate a sponsor SNA server. When the client workstation receives the query reply, it will attempt to contact the first server in the list that is provided. The client will then create an IPX connection to the remote server and query the bindery for the address of the sponsor server. In certain situations, possibly due to SAP filtering strategies, the remote bindery based server will not have the IPX address and SAP type (0x444) registered for the intended SNA Server and the connection attempt will fail.

STATUS

A correction has been made to the SNA Server client IPX interface (SNANCP.DLL) which forces the SNA IPX client to query with a Get Nearest Server request first before attempting to use a Get General Server query.

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in SNA Server versions 3.0, 3.0 SP1, and 3.0 SP2.

This problem was corrected in the latest SNA Server version 3.0 U.S. Service Pack. For information on obtaining this Service Pack, query on the following word in the Microsoft Knowledge Base (without the spaces):

S E R V P A C K

This problem is fixed in the original retail release of SNA Server 4.0.

MORE INFORMATION

With this SNA Server client update applied, the following registry entry can be used to force the client to use only Get General Server queries if required. It also works with SNA Server version 4.0.

For Windows NT Clients

Subtree:   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
 Key:       \SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\SnaBase\Parameters\SnaSpx
 Type:      REG_SZ
 Value:     UseGeneralQuery=YES

For Windows 95 Clients

Subtree:   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
 Key:       \SOFTWARE\Microsoft\SnaBase\Parameters\SnaSpx
 Type:      REG_SZ
 Value:     UseGeneralQuery=YES