Error – Group Policy Client service failed the logon

Got a call about a user receiving the following error when trying to open Citrix applications after their account was created.

 

Tried to find the user profile under C:\Users on the Citrix XenApp servers but no luck. Wasnt there.
Normally with this error you would rename the old account to <username>_old on the Citrix XenApp servers.

 Ask the user if he ever had an account and he said yes he one 2 years prior. Double check Active Directory and looks like the

 Solution: rename the new account to <username>1 (with a 1) and user was able to open applications.

Lesson learnt: dont delete user accounts from Active Directory if disabled. Causes more of a headache down the line.

SQL Server Failover Cluster Instance Wont Fail Over

 

At a previous client, had an issue where the SQL Server instance in a 2-node failover cluster wouldn’t fail over to Node B therefore not making it highly available.

NP – this is relates to SQL Server Failover Clustering Instances not SQL Server Always On.

During the patching maintenance windows, there was an issue where a particular application would go offline during patching.
So i performed a controlled test, and manually failed over the instance and services to Node B. Checked if the instance has failed over but it was sitting back on Node A. Hmmm… weird. Tried again. Watched it more closely. It failed over then would error trying to start the SQL Server Instance and then fail back to Node A.

Went and checked the error logs on Node B and found the following:

 

Checking the Registry, I could see that the executable sqlserver.exe is suppose to be located under
C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSQL10_50_.MSSQLSERVER\MSSQL\Binn\.
Checking that location on the server I could see that the exe and the folder structure didn’t exist. This meant that SQL Server wouldn’t be able to start on this server as its unable to find its binaries and files.

Solution

A re-install of the SQL Server binaries on the problematic node fixed the issue and I was able to fail over the SQL Server service which that the intended designed High Availability was able to be met.

Was never able to find a reason why the SQL Server binaries just up and left, but touch wood it hasnt happened since.

 

Access Denied SharePoint

I was recently trying to re-provision a solution through Farm Solutions within Central Administration for SharePoint.

Once I clicked deploy on the solution I got the below error.

Weird. I doubled check that I had the correct permissions, which I did.

Solution

Run Internet Explorer as Administrator by holding shift key and right clicking on the Internet Explorer icon and select Run as Administrator.

This will then run IE under the machine Administrator account.

 

 

Missing ‘Manage services on Server’ in SharePoint Central Admin

Applies To:
SharePoint 2010
SharePoint 2013
SharePoint 2016

Recently encountered an issue where I was trying to confirm that the relevant services on SharePoint were running on an application server.

Logged onto the Central Admin server and went to the Central Admin site only to find that under System Settings the link for Manage Services on Server was missing.

Solution:

Go to Start -> All Programs -> Internet Explorer -> Right Click on program -> click on Run As Administrator.

A reboot also resolved the problem for me, but that is not always a valid option.