Problem Description: Error: "RPC server is unavailable"
The user is trying to start WinRunner remotely. When attempting to launch an automated test script on a remote machine, the Status field of the Test Execution dialog displays "RPC server is unavailable." This message indicates a problem in communicating with the WinRunner Remote Server on the target machine.
If using WinRunner QuickTest for SAP, the user can also refer to Problem ID 6683 - Error: "Access is denied" when running QuickTest SAP scripts remotely.
The first thing to verify is that TCP/IP is installed and working on both machines. This can be verified by performing a "ping" operation from each machine to the other.
EXAMPLE:
If the machine that is running the Remote Exectution Controller (the TestDirector machine) is called "Picard" (Windows machine name) and the machine used to run scripts remotely is called "Skipper," then from a command line on Picard, you would execute:
ping skipper
If the communication channel is working then you should get several responses such as:
Reply from 199.35.108.112: bytes=32 time<10ms TTL=127
The same operation should be carried out from Skipper by running:
ping picard
It should be noted that pinging by IP address (i.e., 199.35.108.112 in the above example) will indicate that TCP/IP is installed and working, but it does not tell us whether name resolution is being handled. In some cases name resolution will fail because the two machines are on different sub-domains (different physical networks, connected through a router). If this is the case it may sometimes be neccesary to "help" name resolution by editing the "hosts" file. This file can be found in the Windows directory for Windows 95 installs and in the "WinNT\system32\drivers\etc" directory on Windows NT installs. In the example above, if Picard was having trouble pinging Skipper by name, you would append the following line to the end of the "hosts" file on Picard:
199.35.108.112 skipper
Please consult your system administrator for more information on resolving hostnames on your network.
NOTE:
The machine name should not contain a space. If it does, rename machine without a space.