Member Avatar for jime0726

hey everyone,
i'm wondering if someone knows of any issues with wireless connections through a vpn to a terminal server. we have a couple of people who work from home on a wireless network and whenever they log into our terminal server, after maybe 20min or so, they get disconnected for no reason and its an ongoing cycle.

we have a win2000 server running terminal server 2000 and about 25-30 people who have access to it but usually less then 15 on at a time. so far 2 people i know of are using a wireless connection at home keep getting booted. i had one of them try to install the software on another machine at home that was wired and they said it worked great, werent kicked off once.

dial-up (even though EXTREMELY slow) seems to work fine for people logging in so i wouldnt think it was a bandwidth issue.....

anyone have any ideas of why wireless would be dropping the connection? and one thing though is when the connection to terminal server is dropped, internet still works (as i've been told). any help would be appreciated, thanks! if you need any more info, let me know.

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by crispyking

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Quick, actionable checklist for (building on and ): when an RDP session over a VPN drops repeatedly while general web traffic still works, the problem is usually the tunnel/NAT mapping or packet handling on the home gateway — not RDP itself. PPTP uses a control channel and then GRE for data; many consumer routers need special handling (ALG/passthrough) and may drop GRE/NAT state after an idle period. Router NAT/GRE timeouts vary by vendor and can silently remove the translation that carries the VPN traffic. (cisco.com)

What to collect and test first (low effort, high signal):

  • On the laptop, connect the VPN and run continuous tests to the internal host; note the exact time the failure appears.
  • Capture client VPN logs and check Event Viewer (RasClient/RasMan) and the server System log (TermDD/Terminal Services errors).
  • Enable RDP auto-reconnect on the client and enable TCP/RDP keep-alives on the server (KeepAliveEnable / KeepAliveInterval) so idle tunnels send heartbeats and avoid firewall/router idle drops.
    Example quick commands to run on Windows after VPN connects:
ping -t <internal-server-ip>
tracert -d <internal-server-ip>
netstat -n | find "1723"
ipconfig /all

Look in the logs for disconnect times that match the ping/tracert failure, then correlate with any TermDD errors on the server and Ras/RasMan messages on the client. Enabling server-side keepalives can prevent middleboxes from treating the TCP connection as idle. (redmondmag.com)

Router and MTU considerations:

  • Verify the home router’s PPTP passthrough/ALG and GRE handling; test by temporarily putting the client in the router’s DMZ or swapping routers/firmware.
  • If large packets or transfers hang before dropping, Path MTU Discovery may be failing because ICMP “fragmentation needed” messages are blocked; lowering the MTU on the VPN interface or enabling MSS-clamping on the gateway often fixes this. (cisco.com)

Wireless-specific checks:

  • Do the proximity/coverage test suggested by , but also check adapter drivers and power settings: set the wireless adapter to Maximum Performance and disable any “allow the computer to turn off this device” options in Device Manager / Power Plan. Disable NIC offloads (LSO, checksum offload) for testing if problems persist. If forwarding/passthrough helped some cases (as saw), combine that with keep-alives and router firmware updates; consider moving off PPTP to a modern VPN if feasible. (learn.microsoft.com)

If the problem persists after these checks, paste the exact Event IDs/binary codes from the server’s System log and a short timeline (connect time, drop time, recovery time) — those details pinpoint whether the server, client, or an intermediate device is closing the session.

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Member Avatar for w1r3sp33d

When I have this problem it is because one area of my house has poor wireless coverage, if I move closer to my AP I can stay VPN'd and RDP'd all day long just fine.

I would focus on the wireless logs of the users having trouble, see if they are staying associated to the correct AP and what their drop rate is on their packets.

Member Avatar for jime0726

thanks for the advice! we're testing it out in the next couple days so i'll let you know if that works. i never thought about bad areas in the house but that makes a lot of sense. if it continues to happen, i'll have her tell me what the logs look like. thanks again!

Member Avatar for crispyking

Was there any resolution to this issue ?
We are having the same problems with VPN terminal server connections dropping after 20-30 minutes for no apparent reason.
Proximity to the AP is not relevant in this case as all the users are using high gain antennae and signal strength is never a problem.
Home users are using different makes of routers - belkin, linksys
Some problems were resolved by forwarding port 1723 on the router to the laptop (as we're using PPTP)
any other ideas ?

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