The following error occurred during the attempt to contact the Domain Controller. The target principal name is incorrect.
- The attempt to establish a replication link for the following writable directory partition failed.
- Cannot connect to domain controller. The interface is unknown
- This directory service will be unable to replicate with the source directory service until this problem is corrected.
- This server is the owner of the following FSMO role, but does not consider it valid. For the partition which contains the FSMO, this server has not replicated successfully with any of its partners since this server has been restarted. Replication errors are preventing validation of this role.
- The target principal name is incorrect.
All of the above errors surely be known and scary for an IT administrator. all these are related to Microsoft Windows Active Directory. Most of them will not be solved without the help of Microsoft Support. Some of these can be solved with the help of blogs and forums. Still you need to get going because world will not stop. I face all of the above errors when I had a broken motherboard of a global catalog and schema server. I spent three days but recovered it from a backup. the error “error occurred during the attempt to contact the Domain Controller.” shows that you are not able to connect to the domain controller. This error “error occurred during the attempt to contact the Domain Controller” might give a heart attack to an IT administrator.
I restored the bare metal machine of Microsoft Active Directory Server. Assigned all the necessary Settings, like IP address etc. Still was getting the above errors. I tried different options but only the under listed solution worked for me.
Solution!!!!!
You need to complete an authoritative restore. To accomplish this task, stop the FRS service you have to configure the BurFlags registry key, and then restart the FRS service.
Follow the under listed instructions:
Click Start Menu, and then click Run. You can open the run menu by pressing Windows key + R at the same time.
In the Open box, type cmd and then press ENTER.
In the Command box, type net stop ntfrs command.
Click Start, and then click Run.
In the Open box, type regedit and then press ENTE
Locate the following sub registry key in the registry:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\NtFrs\Parameters\Backup/Restore\Process at Startup
In the right pane, double click BurFlags.
In the Edit DWORD Value dialog box, type D4 and then click OK.
Quit Registry Editor, and then switch to the Command box.
In the Command box, type net start ntfrs.
close the Command prompt.
as soon as the FRS service is restarted, the following actions occur:
The value for the BurFlags registry key is set back to 0. An event ID 13566 will be logged to signal that an authoritative restore is started.
Files in the reinitialized FRS replicated directories remain unchanged and become authoritative on direct replication. Additionally, the files become indirect replication partners through transitive replication. The FRS database will be rebuilt based on current file inventory.
When the process is complete, an event 13516 is logged to signal that FRS is operational. If the event is not logged, there is a problem with the FRS configuration.
I hope this method will solve your problem. This worked for me and I tested this method in the production environment without taking precautions because I was not able to find another solution. Before attempting this solution, take a full backup of the active directory. WindowsTechUpdates will not be responsible for any loss while following the above instruction.
