Active sessions can have no related clients

• Microsoft Windows NT Server version 4.0, Terminal Server Edition

SYMPTOMS

To open active sessions without clients connected to them: Start as many connections you want, and do nothing in your connections (no clock in taskbar). Minimize all your clients and switch off your client computer (to simulate a power outage). Now, restart your client computer. All of your lost connections will be reported as active by Terminal Server.

This behavior is also observed when the Win16 client stops responding (hangs) in stress. The connection is no longer active. Yet, the server does not detect the loss of the connection. The session remains active and, thereby, does not allow a reconnect.

CAUSE

Expected behavior is that the session should change from an active to a disconnected status when the server no longer receives acknowledgement of packet receipt from the client. With the NetBEUI or IPX/SPX protocols, there are watchdog packets that get sent periodically. When these fail, they will mark the session as disconnected. TCP has a similar concept (KeepAlive packets). However, these are not used for several reasons. This includes the fact that the connection may be across a WAN link which may or may not always be up. In fact, in the case of a WAN link that is brought up on demand use of the KeepAlive packets might cause the link to be brought up and down when it is not really needed.

STATUS

This behavior is by design.

Additional query words:

Keywords : kbbug4.00
Version : WinNT:4.0
Platform : winnt
Issue type : kbbug