-3 Errors When Trying to Update BorderManager - Feb. 20, 2001

Ever make a change in NWADMN32 to some BorderManager property and get that 'error -3 Cannot update' message? Yet the changes are saved, and when you bring up NWADMN32 again, you still see the changes?

This problem can occur in various BorderManager properties. As far as I can determine, what is happening here is the following:

1. You make a change and press the OK button in NWADMN32 to save the change.
2. NWADMN32 saves the change into NDS properties of the BorderManager object.
3. A snapin for BorderManager running under NWADMN32 communicates with a BorderManager NLM running on the server, notifying the server to reread its properties from NDS to pick up the change.
4. The BorderManager server tries to reread its properties and fails, and returns a -3 error to NWADMN32.

WHY it fails to read the properties I don't know. Some people say this error means that you have to reinstall the BorderManager service pack. I am skeptical. In my experience I just had to reboot the server, and I suspect that the reboot at the end of the service pack installation is what is actually helping.

One idea that has worked in some cases is shown below. If it works, it should be a lot quicker and easier than rebooting the server. If someone tries this and it works for them, please let me know in the Novell public forums. My idea: restart directory services on the server with the following command:

SET DSTRACE=*.

The period after the asterisk is required. This command is equivalent to UNLOAD DS, LOAD DS. Directory services will be stopped, and restarted. NDS communications will pause for what is usually a short period of time, less than 15 seconds in my experience. You might get an error message about CDROM issues, in which case you may also need to unload and reload the CDROM NLM's (on NW 5.x servers).

In my test network, I occasionally have the -3 issue on a BorderManager 3.0 server. I have found that the problem simply goes away on its own if I wait long enough.



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