Common problems and their solutions

  • Article

Applies To: Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2003 with SP1, Windows Server 2003 with SP2

Common problems and their solutions

What problem are you having?

  • I need more help using Phone Book Administrator.

  • I am unable to post to Phone Book Service (PBS).

  • I am unable to import a phone book file or region file from the command line.

  • No POPs appear in Connection Manager.

  • When a client computer sent a query to Phone Book Service, the phone book did not download.

  • Phone Book Administrator will not display particular characters.

  • The application log available through Event Viewer does not contain messages about phone book activity.

I need more help using Phone Book Administrator.

Solution:  In the Phone Book Administrator dialog box, open the Help menu, click What's This?, and then click the component you do not understand. A message will be displayed with information about the component. In other dialog boxes, click ? and then click the component you do not understand.

I am unable to post to Phone Book Service (PBS).

Possible solutions:

Make sure that:

  • The server is turned on.

  • You are connected to the network.

  • The PBS server has FTP installed and running.

  • FTP is not set to Allow only anonymous connections.

  • Write permission is turned on for the FTP virtual directory.

  • The server name or address, user name, and password are typed correctly in the Options dialog box. Null passwords and passwords that contain spaces are not supported.

  • You have logged on with an account that has permission to write to the hard drive on the server. These include FTP service, share, and file permissions (NTFS only).

  • You have connectivity to the PBS host. Try PING and TRACERT to verify that the TCP/IP connection is correctly configured.

  • The proxy settings in Internet Explorer are set correctly. The proxy might have changed, or someone might have reset it.

  • Firewall issues are not interfering.

See also:  Set permissions early; Set the Write permission for the FTP virtual directory; Set up FTP accounts for known users

I am unable to import a phone book file or region file from the command line.

Possible solutions:

Make sure that:

  • You have the appropriate permissions to alter the phone book database.

  • You typed the full path to the phone book file or region file. The file path cannot contain spaces.

  • Your file is in plain-text format.

  • You typed the correct phone book name as it appears in the Phone Book Administrator interface.

  • All of the POPs have 11 fields. All regions have two fields.

  • You did not exceed the limit for any of the input fields.

  • None of the numeric input fields contain nonnumeric characters.

  • The country, region, or dependency that you specified exists in the phone book.

  • You used the correct import command. At the command prompt, type pbadmin /? for a list of valid command-line parameters.

  • You used the correct import format for your region file. Command-line region files do not match the region-file format imported or generated by the Phone Book Administrator user interface.

  • You did not try to import more than 6,000 POPs. If you have not yet posted your phone book, you can import up to 32,000 POPs. If, however, you have already posted, the limit is 6,000 POPs (combined adds, edits, and deletes) for each subsequent post.

See also:  Set permissions early; Use your existing database with Phone Book Administrator; Import a region list by command line; Phone Book Administrator command-line error messages

No POPs appear in Connection Manager.

Possible solutions:

Make sure that:

  • The profile created with the Connection Manager Administration Kit wizard is set up correctly to use your phone books.

  • No files are missing. If they are, use your backup copies to restore them.

  • The name of the phone book in Phone Book Administrator matches the name typed in when the profile was built using the Connection Manager Administration Kit wizard.

  • You did not exceed the limit for any of the input fields. (For a table that describes limits, see Add, edit, or delete POPs by command line.)

  • None of the numeric input fields contain nonnumeric characters.

  • You specified the correct country or dependency for the POP.

  • You and your users have the appropriate version of Internet Explorer installed. Phone book downloads require that Internet Explorer 5.01, Internet Explorer 5.5, or Internet Explorer 6 be installed on the computer. Internet Explorer does not have to be set as the default browser.

See also:  Back up your data; Use your existing database with Phone Book Administrator

When a client computer sent a query to Phone Book Service, the phone book did not download.

Possible solutions:

Make sure that:

  • The server is turned on.

  • The client computer is connected to the network.

  • The name of the phone book in Phone Book Administrator (PBA) matches the name in Connection Manager.

  • The user gave the phone book enough time to download.

  • WWW is currently running on the server. Even though WWW is installed, it may not be running.

  • The proxy settings in the client computer are set correctly.

  • The current network configuration still passes your previous tests for production readiness.

  • The security attribute is set properly on the phone book update files. It should not be set to Read Only.

  • Firewall issues are not interfering with phone book downloads.

  • Your users have the appropriate version of Internet Explorer installed. Phone book downloads require that Internet Explorer 5.01, Internet Explorer 5.5, or Internet Explorer 6 be installed on the computer. Internet Explorer does not have to be set as the default browser.

  • Anonymous access is enabled for the Phone Book Service virtual root directory. Connection Manager requests phone books through the anonymous account.

  • You have looked at the application log in Event Viewer on the PBS host server for error messages. If Event Viewer messages have been enabled for PBS and the phone book file is missing, you will see error 30005: "Cannot open file."

  • The phone book file is present on the host server, and that the host server is accessible. The phone book file might be missing from the host server, or access to the host server might be denied.

  • The phone book is posted to the phone book server. A profile might have been configured to ask for a phone book, but the administrator might not have posted that phone book to the server.

  • The phone book has been posted to the production environment. The phone book might have been posted to a staging server but not replicated to the production environment. Try editing a POP in the phone book and then posting the file again. (You can edit the POP to repeat the existing data.) When you edit a POP, PBA changes the version number of the phone book. PBA does not post to the host server unless the phone book version number changes.

If your Connection Manager profile uses Connection Manager 1.3, have the user enable logging and check the Connection Manager log file for more information about the problem.

See also:  Set permissions early; Phone Book Service error messages; Test for production readiness; Connection Manager Administration Kit

Phone Book Administrator will not display particular characters.

Cause:  Phone Book Administrator does not support Unicode.

Solution:  Set Language for non-Unicode programs to match the language that you want to display:

  1. Open Regional and Language Options. To open Regional and Language Options, click Start, click Control Panel, and then double-click Regional and Language Options.

  2. Click the Advanced tab. In the Language for non-Unicode programs section, click the appropriate language version.

  3. Click Apply.

    This may cause your system to restart.

The application log available through Event Viewer does not contain messages about phone book activity.

Cause:  PBS cannot, by default, write to the application log.

Solution:  On computers that are running a Windows Server 2003 family operating system, applications that are members of Guests cannot, by default, write to the application log. You can change this behavior, but you should first consider whether the security implications of doing so outweigh the benefits. To change this behavior, you can set the following registry key to a value of zero:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\EventLog\Application\RestrictGuestAccess

Caution

  • Incorrectly editing the registry may severely damage your system. Before making changes to the registry, you should back up any valued data on your computer.