Mapped Drives and AO

[ford]

Hi

I am using Accountants office ver 19.0.0 and The data drive is stored on our Windows 2012 Server.

One of our PCs an Acer windows 7 pro we cannot map a drive to the data folder by the server name. (we don't logon to a domain). We just map drives to it. On the Acer PC I can only connect to the myob data drive via the server's IP address not the server name.

All other workstations can connect to the server by typing in \\servername but not the Acer PC. I have to type \\IPaddress of the server.

I did manage to install MYOB to it and link the data drive via IP address but when I try to install Document Manager to the PC it can't connect to the name of the mapped drive to be able to install it.

I did try all different security and permission settings and turned off the firewall and antivirus on both the server and the Acer. Don't know what else to try. The Acer is a new machine so no viruses.

I also tried setting up another user profile on the ACER but still can only map to the server by IP address.

Any advise would be appreciated. Thanks

[MattN]

hi @ford

Thanks for your post!

It sounds very much like you have a DNS resolution issue on these particular workstations.

Its a good idea to work with your IT provider to resolve any DNS resolution issues on these workstatations, and the MYOB products need to be able to communicate with the servers (by name) and if they can't you will encounter issues.

See this previous post : http://community.myob.com/t5/Accountants-Office/Mapped-drives-to-data-folder/m-p/396738#M787

[ford]

Thanks for your suggestion

There is nothing wrong with the DNS its set the same as the other workstations

Thanks anyway

[MattN]

Hi @ford

If you are not able to map a drive to a UNC path with a name - for example : \\SRV01\AONET  - but you are able to map the drive to a UNC path with IP addresses, then your DNS resolution for local network names is not working correctly.

Easy test - you can open a command prompt and type 

PING SERVERNAME

(where SERVERNAME is the name of your server).

If you get a Ping response, then your resolution is working correctly - if you get errors about not being able to find the host, then your resolultion is not working correctly for local machines.

Its important to understand that while you might be able to surf the internet fine, your local network is a different matter.

[ford]

Hi

No I can't get a ping result with the UNC name.

but I can ping to IP address.

All PCs have the same DNS DNS 1 is the IP address of the router and DNS 2 is the ISP's 2nd DNS.

All other PCs have those exact DNS's and I can ping the server name from those pcs.

I don't know what is wrong about them.

The workaround in the meantime was to add the server name to the hosts file.

That allowed myob to get installed.

Ford

[MattN]

Hi @ford

Thansk for the info.

You are correct that adding an entry to the 'hosts' file will allow you to "get around" the issue - and in fact, when the internet was first being built, that was how the Name Resolution worked - we just edited/added to a hosts file and passed it to all users.

However, with the billions of devices on the internet now, that became a little hard to manage.

</end internet history lesson>

To your issue, it sounds very much like your router/DNS/DHCP server is not communicting the DHCP leases to the local DNS on the router.

ideally, what should be happening when a computer gets an IP address from the DHCP server in the router (DHCP stands for Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol - its what issues IP addresses on your network) it should dynamically register the machine name so other machines on your network can find that machine by name.

It sounds like this is not working as it should - causing the issue you are having.

Certainly, putting the entry in the hosts file is a viable workaround for a small network.

[ford · Accepted solution]

Hi, we put an entry into the hosts file

And that did work

So that seems ok.

Our server and PCs are all static IPs

So it didn't really make any logical sense to me.

Anyway it seems to be working ok and myob 2014 and Document manager installed ok

Ford