ERROR: Can't connect to AIS server

[JosephBuckles]

We have ArcGIS Image Server 9.3.1 and ArcGIS Server 9.3.1. Up until a couple weeks ago everything was running fine. From the Image Server box all services appear to be running fine.

But now when I right click on the image service from ArcCatalog we have running and try to start it I get the following error:

Configuration XXXXX.ImageServer can not be started. Can't connect to AIS Server.

I checked the firewall and all that appears to be fine. I can ping the servers from each server and that works fine.

[PatrickWard1]

Are you able to use the Image server authorization wizard to reauthorize Image Server?
Start - All Programs - ArcGIS - Image Server - Software Authorization

[JosephBuckles]

Patrick, Yes i did try that. It did not seem to improve anything. I even unregistered ArcGIS Image Server and re-registered it without any success in getting the images to serve again.

[PatrickWard1]

If you haven't already done so, take a look at the following ArcGIS Resource Center document to re-register ArcGIS Image Server with ArcGIS Server.

http://webhelp.esri.com/arcgisserver/9.3.1/dotNet/index.htm#register_image_server.htm

[JeffreySwain]

Also can you check to see if the SOC account has permission to see the source rasters and overviews.  Also confirm that the server can see the rasters via the path used in the image service.  Are there other services running on that machine?  It also might be easier to have someone look over your shoulder, for that I recommend creating a Support call if the above solutions do not solve the issue.

[JosephBuckles]

I want to thank the responses from the ESRI folks here. We did finally solve the problem. I do not know how it happened but our firewall was changed somehow.  The fix was to set the firewall port exceptions to all instead of domain only.  Hopefully this sticks. Just another mystery in our IT realm here.

Thanks again!