BAD_ADDRESS in Windows 2008 DHCP Server

[Nothinman]

The DHCP server would hand out addresses to devices when it had addresses to give out.. The problem was the BAD_ADDRESS would fill up all available IPs.. When they were cleared out the machine(s) were able to get on..

The fact that the DHCP server logs had the router as the device doing the requesting and then following up with the bad_address in the log makes me believe it was the router, and only the router, that was the issue..

Also the fact that the subinterface on the router had DHCP enabled but didn't have an IP address also backs up what I'm thinking was that it kept trying to request and address but didn't get one (which matches up with the logs).

The router itself wasn't forwarding requests via IP helper so I think just that sub interface being setup as DHCP was the issue.. Why Windows wouldn't give it one and instead marked all those as bad I have no idea and would love an explanation.

I suppose it could've been a timing issue where the router adds the DHCP IP to it's interface before Windows tests it which causes Windows to get a ping reply, send a DHCPNAK and just go down the list. But I've never heard of anything like that happening.