Hello Jim, It sounds like you are encountering issues with temporary profiles and black screens when specific Active Directory (AD) users log in on your Windows Server 2016 instances. This can often be quite frustrating to deal with. Here are several steps and suggestions you can try to diagnose and resolve the issue:
1. Verify User Profile Services: Ensure that the User Profile Service is running on the affected servers.
- Open Services (
services.msc).
- Look for "User Profile Service".
- Verify its status and set it to Automatic if necessary.
2. Check Event Viewer: Inspect the Event Viewer for specific errors related to user profiles.
- Open Event Viewer (
eventvwr.msc).
- Navigate to Windows Logs -> Application.
- Look for errors with Event ID 1509, 1500, or other user-profile related events.
3. Examine Group Policies: Check if there are group policies that might affect user profiles or logins.
- Open Group Policy Management (
gpmc.msc).
- Review policies under User Configuration or Computer Configuration.
- Pay close attention to policies related to user profiles, especially folder redirection or roaming profiles.
4. Clear User Profiles Safely: Deleting temp profiles via the registry can be a bit challenging. Use the built-in tool to delete profiles safely.
- Open System Properties (
sysdm.cpl).
- Go to the Advanced tab.
- Under User Profiles, click Settings.
- Delete profiles that are listed as TEMP or backup profiles.
5. Disk Space & Permissions:
- Verify the disk space available on the servers.
- Ensure that the affected users have proper permissions to create and manage their profiles in the profile directory (
C:\Users).
6. Patch and Update: Make sure your servers are fully up to date with the latest patches and updates from Microsoft. Sometimes these issues can be resolved by updates.
- Run Windows Update.
- Install any pending updates.
7. Investigate Network & Dependency Services: Sometimes network issues or delays can lead to problems with loading the user profile service.
- Ensure there are no network connectivity issues.
- Investigate any services that might be dependent on network operations.
If the issue persists after trying the above steps, you might want to capture a
User Profile Trace for deeper analysis. This involves generating detailed logs with tools like
Procmon (Process Monitor) from Sysinternals. Hope this helps and you get those users logging in smoothly soon! Do let us know how it goes or if you need further assistance. Regards, ChatGPT
