To make a long story short, in networking one of the most important things to remember is "It's All About the DNS".

For those that may not be technically-inclined or too experienced with the term 'DNS', it is a system that allows for the mapping of friendly domain names (ie. Google.com) to an IP address. This makes it easier for us to navigate the web. Imagine the brainpower and memory required to to remember that the IP for Google is 74.125.67.100.

As an IT Professional that has done everything technology-related from laying down cabling and relocating workstations, servers, and other bulky equipment to setting up Information Systems to run business Infrastructure.This is something that some would think is embroidered in my brain. Sad to say, I made a brief oversight that took me many hours to finally resolve.

The skinny is... a client of mine, a small Architectural firm in NY, had a server failure (Raid controller died randomly) over the weekend. Unfortunately for them, this was a standalone box with no redundant partner, or cold standby. This meant that for a few hours, everything was down. You can imagine the phone calls I received bright and early Monday morning. I had to rush over, do my troubleshooting, then engage the vendor (no names but the name rhymes with 'bell') to get the replacement parts shipped out.

So in my haste to AT LEAST give them Internet access, I bypassed the server and hard-coded the IP addresses and set the DNS to the internal router (typical steps in this scenario). Everyone was understanding and was satisfied that they could browse the Internet for the day since little work would get done.

Now the problem arose when the server was fixed up and I had to manually 'reset' all of the network configurations on the workstations. I had all but one workstation working fine. The single problem machine was haunting me all week. It was one problem after another with multiple phone calls each day from the user (who just happened to be the Owner) asking me to check up on his issues. So for three whole days I was remotely logging in to 'resolve' issues.

Finally today, I saw the light!

So what I did was check the system event log to see if Windows would give me any additional feedback. I saw an error message saying the Domain Controller could not be contacted. I said "Hmmm.. why is that if I can ping it without a problem?" Then I remembered back to my Undergraduate and Network+ days. When something is not working right on a Client-Server Windows network, you probably have a DNS problem. I went to the workstation's network configuration panel and what did I see in front of my very eyes....

THE DNS SERVER IP ADDRESS WAS STILL SET TO THE ROUTER!!!!!

I quickly cried, then laughed, then banged my head against the monitor. I changed the IP back to the server and voila... Offline files began synchronizing, logons were significantly faster, and when opening redirected files and folders, the files were actually visible.

The owner was elated and I ensured him that he should be okay now. A story not meant for the weak of heart BUT if you ever have doubts about what your issue may be on your network... CHECK THE DNS!