SNA Server is Working Although SNA Manager Shows "Offline"

ID: Q182913

The information in this article applies to:

SUMMARY

SNA Server Manager opens a LAN connection to the ?Manage Agent? (MngAgent) service that is running on each active SNA Server in the SNA subdomain to retrieve and display status information for the server. However, if SNA Server Manager loses its LAN connection to the server and is unable to reconnect to it, Manager will display the SNA Server status as ?Offline,? even when the SNA Server service is actually running.

If SNA Server Manager loses its LAN session to an SNA Server, Manager attempts to reopen the connection for another three to four minutes. After that time passes, Manager attempts to reconnect to the SNA Server only if its local ?service table? (maintained by the SnaBase service) indicates that the MngAgent service is active on that server. When running on an SNA Server Windows NT client, the SnaBase service receives this status information from its ?sponsor? SNA Server. When running on an SNA Server, the SnaBase periodically receives status updates from other servers in the subdomain.

MORE INFORMATION

To diagnose the cause of the offline status:

1. Verify the communication between Manager and the SNA Server

If TCP/IP is being used to connect to the SNA Server, try issuing a "ping" command to determine if the remote SNA Server is reachable. If SNA Server is not reachable, there is a problem in the LAN connection, between the Manager computer and the SNA Server. If some other transport is being used, try to connect to a network resource on the server. If the connection attempt fails, this could be because of a LAN connection problem, or the user may not be authorized to connect to the server.

2. Determine whether the SNA Manage Agent service (MngAgent) is running on the SNA Server that appears as Offline. If this service is stopped, restart it and check for the presence of an <ntroot>\drwtsn32.log file, which may indicate that SNA Manage Agent failed abnormally. If the service is running, try stopping the service and restarting it.

NOTE: See the following articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base that describe known problems that can cause a Manage Agent failure with SNA Server 3.0. If you run SNA Server 3.0, try upgrading to the latest SNA Server 3.0 Service Pack. 

   ARTICLE-ID: Q178493
   TITLE     : SNA Server Status Shows "Off Line" Even Though It's Active

   ARTICLE-ID: Q169490
   TITLE     :  SNA Server Appears to Be Offline After MNGAGENT AV

   ARTICLE-ID: Q Q173173
   TITLE     :  SNA Manage Agent Traps After Saving Configuration Change
3. Capture the following additional diagnostic information if the problem 
   is not related to the status of the Manage Agent service:
  • Capture a Microsoft Network Monitor (or Network General Sniffer(TM)) LAN trace of all traffic to and from the computer where SNA Manager is running.
  • Capture the following SNA traces from the computer running Manager:

    - SnaBase full internal trace - Manage Client full internal trace

    The above traces should capture the time period when the server status changes to the Offline status. 

    Keywords          : prodsna snammc snamanager snawinnt 
Version           : WINDOWS:3.0,3.0SP1,3.0SP2,4.0
Platform          : WINDOWS
Issue type        : kbhowto kbinfo

    Last Reviewed: August 1, 1998