Windows Server 2008 R2 random black screen on rdp and console

Question

I am having a problem that I just can't sort out.

Windows server 2008 R2, This server has been working fine since 2013. Now all of a sudden when I am logged in remotely through RDP the RDP window will just freeze. If i try to reconnect, all I get is a black screen. If try to log in to the server while physically sitting in front of it, the log in window doesn't even come up. However the server is still running because I can copy files to its shared folders without issues when this happens. The only way I can get back into the machine is by rebooting.

Things I have tried: setting a timeout to 10 minutes on disconnected or idle RDP sessions.

Pressing ctrl + alt + end / esc when I get the black screen in RDP - doesn't work.

Disabled bitmap caching, and tried reconnecting with different resolution.

Checked for kb2830477 - not present.

I have also tried everything listed on this article, http://www.grishbi.com/2015/01/rdp-black-screen/

I am not sure what else to do. This server worked perfectly fine for years, now all of a sudden it's not working.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Solution

I know its been a while since anyone has posted to this question but I thought I would share my experience. Some coworkers were having a similar experience on a 2008 r2 server. When I logged in I noticed an unidentified network icon in the taskbar. It turns out that there was an IP conflict on the network and shutting down the conflicting machine seems to have fixed the problem. I'll update if the problem returns but so far, so good.

Comments

[Kyle Vaughan]

As I stated in the question, I have tried ctrl + alt+ end. It does nothing.

[Todd Wilcox]

Oh, I thought you were doing CTRL+ALT+END followed by ESC to see if it would kick explorer.exe into action, which is a thing. The "/" was open to interpretation.

[Kyle Vaughan]

As I stated in the question, I have tried ctrl + alt+ end to bring up task manager, It does nothing. Also when this balck screen happens, I cant even log on while sitting in front of the server itself. Also trying to log on with different user accounts gives the same results.

[TheCompWiz]

Sounds like your server is seriously hozed. Windows <control><alt><del> (and <control><alt><end> for RDS) sequences are interpreted at the lowest level possible... if windows isn't responding to it... that means something is seriously wrong and you should seriously consider wipe/reload. It sounds like something at the kernel-level is seriously screwed up.

[Kyle Vaughan]

ctrl + alt + delete / end works fine once you are logged in, it only doesn't work when you are sitting at the black screen.

[TheCompWiz]

Have you tried logging in at the console with the same credentials? Same results? different? Control-Alt-Del sequences should ALWAYS work. There is no easy programmatic way of overriding the sequence... short of some very dirty hacks.

[TheCompWiz]

Honestly, this sounds more & more like the server has become compromised or corrupted. Just wipe/reload... and you'll quickly find yourself spending less time than trying to troubleshoot the problem.

[Kyle Vaughan]

Here is a question, is it possible that if someone is trying to brute force an account that this type of issue could happen? I checked the event logs and noticed that a specific ip address in denmark was repeatedly trying to log on to the administrator account with a bad password. I have used the firewall to block all connections from that ip address.

[HunterX3]

Does this machine use an Nvidia driver? If so, update it if you can.