Unable to bind OS X Mavericks to Active Directory

Question

Recently I had one of my iMacs lose its trust relationship with Active Directory.  I tried unbinding and then rebinding it but that's where I ran into problems.  Of course, unbinding was simple and easy.  Now, I can't get this bound back to the domain.  Everytime I try, it fails with a very vague error message and it doesn't tell me what's causing the problem.  I know for sure that it's not a username and password problem.  I've tried using just the basic Join... button on the Login Options screen.  I've tried using the Directory Utility.  I've even tried using dsconfigad.  All seem to be giving the same error.
Authentication server failed to complete the requested operation. (5103)
Several forums seem to indicate that it was a problem with the version of OS X that I was using.  Originally, it was version 10.7.5, but I just upgraded it today to vesion 10.9.2, hoping that it might help.  That too failed.  Still the same problem and same error.
Can anyone give me some assistance with this problem?

Answer 1

Start with the basics.
• Confirm that your time is in sync with the DC.  (ntpq -p)
• Make sure your client is using the DC's DNS records. (nslookup name.yourserver.com)
If all that is checking out, you simply may have some damaged configuration file.  You can:
• Navigate to /Library/Preferences/ and move the entire Open Directory folder to the Trash and reboot
• On reboot, the folder will be recreated with default values.
• Try binding with clean configuration records.
Or,
• Connect to the DC and search it and all replicas for a stall computer record.  Manually delete it from the directory.
Beyond this, you can place directory services into debug mode (sudo odutil set log debug).  Then try the bind and find the error.
R-
Apple Consultants Network
Apple Professional Services
Author "Mavericks Server – Foundation Services" :: Exclusively available in Apple's iBooks Store