Since Microsoft update client computers cannot communicate with host

[beaconlab]

We are using a Sage Act 11 Pro in our office with a shared database.  Microsoft had an update yesterday or early this morning and now the client computers will not connect to the host.  The host's ip address changed but I do not have the pad file linked to the ip address- only to the computer's network name.  I deleted the old pad file and also the alf file and constructed new ones.  The SQL server is running.  I can access ACT fine on the host.

Any thoughts?

[chrisbunyan]

Has the share gone for database from ACT! do to Tools -> database maintenance and make sure there is a tick in the share database.

Can you see the shared folder on the server via the client machine?

Then I would check the firewall settings on the server, switch it off and then see if the users machines can connect.

http://kb.swiftpage.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/19420

[GLComputing]

Do you get a specific error?

[beaconlab]

Sharing was active.  And there were no firewall issues.  

What I did was change to pad file to reflect the ip address instead of the network name and that worked.  Why I don't know.  But everything was working fine yesterday and is today as well.

[chrisbunyan]

It might be the DNS causing the issue, try pinging the machine via it's name on a client machine and see what IP it is trying to ping.

If it's incorrect try flushing the dns on the machine, open a comand prompt on the machine and then enter ipconfig /flushdns then ping it again to see if it correctly resolves the correct IP.

[GLComputing]

You should set a static local IP address on the server - otherwise, depending on your network, the DNS or WINS can take a while to update if the IP changes