This Computer Cannot Connect to Your Home Server…

This post is for anyone who has ever gotten the “This computer cannot connect to your home server. Check your network connection and make sure your home server is powered on. If your home server has recently restarted, try again in a few minutes.” message.

I recently, for no apparent reason, was greeted by this message when trying to login to my WHS box via the desktop console. I have done some research on the issue and apparently it is caused by your computer being on a different domain than your WHS box. As to why it happened all of a sudden, I’m not sure. It worked fine for me for over a month.

Anyway, here is your fix… you have to add your WHS  box to your computer’s host file. In order to do this you need to first assign your WHS box a static IP address using your router. Since each router is different, I cannot explain how to do this, you’re on your own here. It should be in the documentation for your router.

Once you have setup a static IP on your router for your WHS box the next step is on the computer with which you are having connection issues. Navigate to this address in Explorer: “C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc” and open the file hosts using Notepad.

Once you have the hosts file open you need to create a new entry between the lines “127.0.0.1 localhost” and “::1 localhost” for your WHS box in the following format: <whs static ip address> <whs box name>. As you can see in the picture below, the static IP for my WHS box is 192.168.1.106 and the name of my WHS box is grendel; obviously the IP and name of your WHS box will be different so fill it in appropriately.

Once you have the new entry made, save and close the hosts file. If you followed the steps correctly you should now be able to connect to your WHS box again!

Bonus points for anyone who can tell me what “Grendel” is.