JSI Tip 6192. Windows 2000 DNS zone transfer fails, event ID 6524?

When you configure a zone transfer between to DNS servers on your network, the transfer fails. If you inspect the DNS event log, you receive an error similar to:

Event Type: Error
Event Source: DNS
Event Category: None
Event ID: 6524
User: N/A
Computer: Description: Invalid response from master DNS server at during attempted zone transfer of zone test.microsoft.com. Check DNSServer and insure that it is authoritative for this zone. This can be done by viewing or updating the list of authoritative servers for the zone. When using the DNS console, select zone Properties at server IPAddress and click the Name Servers tab. If needed, you can add or update this server in the list there. As an alternative solution, you could also modify settings in the Zone Transfer tab to allow transfer of the zone to this and other DNS servers.

This error will occur if the DNS registration contains an illegal character. Only 0-9, a-z, A-Z, . (dot), and - (hyphen) are allowed.

To fix this problem, remove any invalid host name records:

1. Administrative Tools / DNS.

2. Use the DNS Manager to inspect the client host records in the Forward and Reverse Lookup Zone.

3. For each invalid host record, right-click the host record and press Delete and OK.

4. If you are using DHCP to register the client host names with DNS, you may have to rename the client to prevent recreating invalid host records.