If you have Routing and Remote Access Service (RRAS) installed on a computer running Windows NT Server and you attempt to dial out to establish a PPP connection with a remote RAS server, the PPP connection may not successfully complete at times. The inability to connect is most likely to occur on a slow or delayed link in which the round-trip delay for a PPP negotiation packet is approximately 1 second or greater. Also, the following error message may be displayed in the graphical user interface of the dialing computer:

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The initial phases of starting a PPP link involve negotiating the Link Control Protocol (LCP) layer of the connection. LCP itself has a time-out function when waiting for a response to a configuration request from its PPP peer. If the sending side does not receive a configuration acknowledgement in time (that is, in less than 1 second), then the sending side times out and sends a second configuration request. In the meantime, the receiving end of the PPP connection receives a second configuration request, which results in a restart of LCP and the timeout counter is reset to zero. This scenario repeats in a "round-robin" fashion between the two PPP peers. The ultimate result is that negotiation of the LCP layer never completes.

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To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Windows NT 4.0. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

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Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in Windows NT 4.0. This problem was first corrected in Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 5.

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