Affected versions: Windows Server 2019

📖 ~1 min read

Table of contents
  1. Symptom & Impact
  2. Environment & Reproduction
  3. Root Cause Analysis
  4. Quick Triage
  5. Step-by-Step Diagnosis
  6. Solution — Primary Fix
  7. Solution — Alternative Approaches
  8. Verification & Acceptance Criteria
  9. Rollback Plan
  10. Prevention & Hardening
  11. Related Errors & Cross-Refs
  12. References & Further Reading

Symptom & Impact

DHCP failover partner communication intermittently fails, causing lease sync lag.

Environment & Reproduction

Appears after NIC advanced-property changes on DHCP nodes.

Get-DhcpServerv4Failover
Get-NetAdapterAdvancedProperty -Name 'Ethernet'

Root Cause Analysis

Offload/packet steering changes alter timing and packet handling for failover replication traffic.

Quick Triage

Validate partner state and inspect NIC settings changed in recent maintenance.

Step-by-Step Diagnosis

Capture failover event IDs and compare with adapter error counters.

Solution — Primary Fix

Revert unstable advanced properties, update NIC driver, and reinitialize partner sync.

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Set-NetAdapterAdvancedProperty -Name 'Ethernet' -DisplayName 'Large Send Offload v2 (IPv4)' -DisplayValue 'Disabled'
Restart-Service DHCPServer

Solution — Alternative Approaches

Temporarily increase MCLT and monitor manual replication while driver rollout proceeds.

Verification & Acceptance Criteria

Failover state remains Normal and lease updates replicate without delay.

Rollback Plan

Restore previous adapter profile export and failover relationship settings.

Prevention & Hardening

Freeze NIC tuning baselines on DHCP infrastructure and audit drift.

Related to NDIS LWF packet loss and tcpip DPC latency issues.

Related tutorial: View the step-by-step tutorial for Windows Server 2019.

View all Windows Server 2019 tutorials on the Tutorials Hub →

Browse all common problems & solutions on the Tutorials Hub.

References & Further Reading

Microsoft DHCP failover and network adapter tuning documentation.

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