Cannot find the DHCP Server

Question

The network was fine yesterday and as far as I know nothing has been changed or added. This morning some computers are connected to our domain but most of them are reporting limited connectivity. On checking our DHCP server we are getting this message.

Cannot find the DHCP Server:

The DHCP server you specified cannot be located. The DHCP server might be down, there might be a network problem, or the DHCP service might not be installed.

The Error was: The DHCP Server service is not running on target computer.

I had to temporary issue the PC's with a static IP for them to connect and continue to work.

This is when the issue appears to start -

Error Message:-

The processing of Group Policy failed. Windows could not obtain the name of a domain controller. This could be caused by a name resolution failure. Verify your Domain Name System (DNS) is configured and working correctly.

Error message for below:-

The DHCP service failed to see a directory server for authorization.

I have checked the DHCP server Services and they are started.

In addition I have noticed that the DHCP Server service is not listed under Task Manager - Services Tab, but is listed as started in Services.msc. Is this normal?

Solution

We could not find an exact reason why this has failed, however we did find out that the firewall was enabled which really did not help matters. After restarting the server it came back up and started to work as intended.

Comments

[jscott]

It could help if you typed out those error messages, the screenshots are too small to read.

[Dan]

Is your DHCP server your domain controller?

[Matt]

Yes, we have two domain controllers. The one with the issue is the main domain / DHCP Server.

[Dan]

@Matt Your DHCP Server service should be started, but it stands to reason that your errors have come from it attempting to start. Feel free to try it, though, it may have been just a momentary glitch. If it doesn't start, see if you can ping your Active Directory domain name. I.e., not a SERVER name, JUST your domain name. ping .net.ang[retracted]c.com

[Matt]

@Dan thank you for your advise, everyone is working at the moment - some on static IP's and some on IP's that were issued by DHCP and worked some how. Would you know if trying to restart the DHCP service will affect Users PC's? I have managed to ping net.ang[retracted]c.com and it pings to the main dns server. Both DNS servers are pointing to where they should be.

[HopelessN00b]

@Matt Restarting the DHCP service won't impact user PCs. No one will be able to get a DHCP lease while it's restarting, but they can't do that now anyway.

[samantha]

@matt, if you DHP Server service is indeed running, it will show up in the Task Manager list, so this tells me something is hokey with the DHCP Server service. Are you sure the network cable on the DHCP Server didn't get unplugged or the port on the switch went south?