DHCP stops without an error event

Now this one took a bit of head scratching to figure out. DHCP had stopped on a Domain

Controller and there was no error in the Event Logs. The only entries in the Event Log are the

ones below:

The problem with this is that because there is no error log there was no way to tell that DHCP

had stopped working without having a user call in to complain.

After a bit of investigation and interrogation, it turns out that a System State backup failed at the

same time that the DHCP stopped. The reason for the ‘mysterious’ DHCP shutdown was in fact

the failed backup. The reasoning behind this is that in order for the backup application to backup

the Jet Database that DHCP uses, it has to stop DHCP. Under normal operating circumstances

the Backup Application would then start the DHCP Service once it has completed the Jet

Database backup.

This was not a DHCP error and the service can safely be started.