I've spent 1/2 the day trying to troubleshoot this problem and finally give up.
My client has a Windows Server 2012 Essentials server (with all updates installed - no errors in error logs nor SFC /SCANNOW). Purchased a new Windows 8 Pro computer, which we installed all the updates from Windows Updates and are now trying to join the domain using the "Microsoft way" (i.e.: http://[servername]/connect).
The site comes up and it prompts us to download the software and run... so far so good, but when we get to the screen where it asks, "Type your new network user name and password" - the next screen after that we get the error, "Cannot connect this computer to the network...".
I've been looking at cases all day long through Microsoft and Google - all pointing to problems with the SSL on the server - that's not the problem here (as other workstations have, in the past, successfully connected and we verified today that the local server certificate is what is the default, as it should be).
I've tried just about everything I can think of and cannot get this silly wizard to work (why Microsoft, WHY!??!?!). Yet, I can join this domain just fine doing it through normal means. I've even tried joining the domain this way, and tried installing the software afterwards (as the Essentials Console won't reflect the new workstation, thus it won't add it to group policies etc... though yes, I could manually do that and have - but we'd still like to get it to show up in the console). I even tried the trick noted in a KB talking about running the connect software without joining the domain (registry key that gets added) - that didn't work either.
I'm out of ideas - and at this point had to get the client online and working today - so we joined it manually, configured it and left it. But I would like to get this fixed the "proper" way. Help?
I do have the clientdeploy.log file - which only points out an internal error, but I'm unsure how to enable the improved logging it suggests (I'll gladly post the logs if someone tells me how - I'll skip posting the log file here for now):
[1544] 140204.203620.0794: ClientSetup: MachineIdentityManager.GetMachineStatus had errors: ErrorCatalog:NetworkError ErrorCode:-1
BaseException: Microsoft.WindowsServerSolutions.Devices.Identity.MachineIdentityException: MachineIdentityManager.GetMachineStatus ---> System.ServiceModel.FaultException: The server was unable to process the request due to an internal error. For more
information about the error, either turn on IncludeExceptionDetailInFaults (either from ServiceBehaviorAttribute or from the <serviceDebug> configuration behavior) on the server in order to send the exception information back to the client, or turn on
tracing as per the Microsoft .NET Framework SDK documentation and inspect the server trace logs.
Suggestions? Thoughts? I hope Essentials 2012 R2 improves this - as I've had this error for other various reasons with other clients (and spent 1/2 days troubleshooting to clear those up). Essentials Connect, IMHO, needs a re-write - as it's been nothing but a hassle... miss the SBS connect.