Bill Williams wrote:
> This is an
> elementary school and only MM connections are made to the server, file
> sharing only. The only two AS users are "Multiple Users User" and "aefw". I
> have the same set up at two other schools with no problem. Three weeks ago
> I used another computer and copy only the MM folder, Secure-1, and the MM
> server extension 1.2.2. This failed so I put in a new MM extension and that
> also disconnected. During vacation week, last Friday, I updated 1st aid to
> 8.6 and the installed 9.0.4 updater. I rechecked all the settings: AutoPush
> disabled, VM off, Sherlock is not indexing. I used the new first aid,
> Norton, Disk Warrior, AS 1st Aid, Defrag, and rebuilt the desktop. Today it
> happened again.
Couple of things...
1. You state that there are only two AS users - Multiple Users User (used
internally by MM) and aefw. Do you mean that you only have one login name
for all of your students to share? If true, this will cause you mondo
grief. Even at elementary, you can set up individual accounts... I just set
up a MM network for one of our county's elementary schools and made each
student an individual user - yes, even the K and 1st grades! We also had a
lab of iMacs, and they were numbered (1 - 20, I think), and we made users
for the numbers 1 to 20... that way, the really young ones could log in to
the lab computer by it's own number, and all was unique.
If you have tons of MM users but you only have 2 ASIP users on the MM
server, there's a problem. MM creates disabled ASIP users for each MM user
you create. Or at least that's what it's supposed to do. So if you have
500 MM users but the ASIP server running MM only has 2, I'd reinstall the OS
and MM and start over. Maybe someone who's done this before can give you
advice on backing up user docs and prefs...
As an aside - we just took a FileMaker Pro database of all students and
exported three fields as tab delimited text... student name, student ID
number, and student homeroom teacher. Then we imported the file into MM,
with the name being the user name, the ID number being the password, and the
homeroom teacher being the workgroup. Probably took only about 8 minutes!
2. The easy fix... move the server to another room and connect it to the
network with another cable. If the old room's wiring was the problem,
this'd fix it ('less the new wiring's bad too.) Probably not the case, but
worth trying...
3. When we had some serious mystery problems at another school, and nothing
I tried worked, I did what I normally do with Macs that misbehave when
conventional fixes won't fix... I wiped the HD (after backing up all data)
and reinstalled the OS. Then I did the updates. And then all was well.
My personal opinion is that any time you have to use a utility program other
than Apple's, and other than to defrag, you might as well reinstall the OS.
Norton is infamous for telling you "OK, everything's fixed!" and you say
"YES!" and then you come in the next day to a flashing question mark.
One more comment, while I'm on my cyber-quarter...
You state "I have the same set up at two other schools with no problem."
In the Mac world, we tend to do things like this (myself included), and it
gets us into trouble. It's the old "if A = B and B = C, then A = C" rule.
Problem is that B never truly equals C. No two schools are identical... not
even with the exact same equipment and identical software, because the users
are different. Some obscure software bugs are only triggered by weird
combinations of events... which can occur at one school and not another.
The fact that a certain setup or way of doing things works at one school
does not guarantee that it will work at another. Usually it will, but it's
not a guarantee. It's also not a given that if a setup works at one school,
it must be set up correctly. It might not be, it might just be that the
problem with the setup is not exposed. In this case, if you really only
have one user, I'd say that's the problem. And if you have 500 MM users and
2 ASIP users, I'd say that's the problem too.
:)
Richard MacLemale
Instructional Technology Specialist
James W. Mitchell High School
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