Server Essentials 2016 client machines show as removed

Question

I've had to reinstall the Essentials experience on my WSE 2016 system due to some network issues with remote access. Everything is now back up and running, but all devices show as Removed in the dashboard, which means they aren't available for remote access, they show in Devices as a generic icon with no description, statuses, alerts of GPO. They also can't be added to a user's computer access in properties. I've tried reinstalling the connector which fails without visible errors on some systems. On the one system where the connector installed the computer still shows in Devices as removed, but gives the correct icon and description. The server itself shows up correctly and is accessible remotely for admins. What might be wrong, and how might I correct it?

Answer 1

Event Viewer is pretty much filled with the typical metadata issues:

Metadata staging failed, result=0x80070490 for container

I see this on most of my machines as well as my customers over the last few months. I doubt it has anything to do with the issue.

Health report shows two issues:

Critical Errors and Warnings in Event Logs in Last 24 Hours

Warning ActiveDirectory_DomainService

Event ID: 3041

The security of this directory server can be significantly enhanced by configuring the server to enforce validation of Channel Binding Tokens received in LDAP bind requests sent over LDAPS connections. Even if no clients are issuing LDAP bind requests over LDAPS, configuring the server to validate Channel Binding Tokens will improve the security of this server.

For more details and information on how to make this configuration change to the server, please see https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=2102405.

Last occurrence: Tuesday, May 14, 2024 8:12:51 AM

Total occurrences: 1

---

Warning DFSR

Event ID: 5014

The DFS Replication service is stopping communication with partner AK22 for replication group Domain System Volume due to an error. The service will retry the connection periodically.

Additional Information:

Error: 9036 (Paused for backup or restore)

Connection ID: F938E871-777E-4C34-AFB9-72F265E58E33

Replication Group ID: 6DC57457-A2CE-47FF-94C0-1DFE716A8F0D

Last occurrence: Monday, May 13, 2024 9:00:41 PM

Total occurrences: 1

Again, I doubt either of those is involved in the issue. I currently have one more machine working, but it just seemed to fix itself without my intervention. So when connecting remotely two machines are visible, the WSE machine and one client. The rest of the clients all show as 'removed' and aren't available for remote access.