Active Directory Lag on Login

No solution for you but I'd be curious to know what happens if you hard code the IP address and other TCP/IP settings on the computer including DNS servers.

Yes, I had this problem and it was caused by two issues.

1) Check your DNS, I found that our Mac's couldn't always resolve the DNS service records on a large forest. Use dig -t SRV _service._tcp.fqdn.example.com and also check ldap, kerberos, _kpasswd and _gc. Simple fix for me was to send dsconfigad -preferred <Name of your domain server>* to each mac client.

2) If you are on a large domain try pointing your clients directly to the domain controller rather than the "All Domains" settings within the Directory Utility. This is under the Administrative tab and the check box is called "Allow authentication from any domain in the forest" make sure this is not checked.

Here is the script which I use that fixed it for us.

#!/bin/sh

# Make sure that Active directory settings are turned on

defaults write /Library/Preferences/DirectoryService/DirectoryService "Active Directory" "Active"

# Check the searhc policy settings
searchPolicyAuth=(dscl /Search -read / | grep SearchPolicy: | awk '{print $2}')
searchPolicyCont=(dscl /Search/Contacts -read / | grep SearchPolicy: | awk '{print $2}')

dsconfigad -alldomains disable
dsconfigad -preferred <Name of your domain server>
dsconfigad -mobile enable
dsconfigad -mobileconfirm disable
dsconfigad -protocol smb
dsconfigad -groups "<Name of your domain>/domain admins,domain admins"
dsconfigad -useuncpath disable

osversionlong=sw_vers -productVersion
osvers=${osversionlong:3:1}
echo $osvers
dscl localhost -list /Active Directory

if [ $osvers -eq 6 ]; then
echo "old OS detected as ${osversionlong}"
dscl localhost -read /Search CSPSearchPath | grep "Active Directory"
sudo dscl /Search -delete / CSPSearchPath "/Active Directory/All Domains"
sudo dscl /Search -delete / CSPSearchPath "/Active Directory/"
sudo dscl /Search -delete / CSPSearchPath "/Active Directory/<Name of your domain>"
sudo dscl /Search/Contacts -delete / CSPSearchPath "/Active Directory/All Domains"
sudo dscl /Search/Contacts -delete / CSPSearchPath "/Active Directory/"
sudo dscl /Search/Contacts -delete / CSPSearchPath "/Active Directory/<Name of your domain>"

dscl /Search -create / SearchPolicy CSPSearchPath
dscl /Search -append / CSPSearchPath "/Active Directory/<Name of your domain>"

sleep 10

dscl /Search/Contacts -create / SearchPolicy CSPSearchPath
dscl /Search/Contacts -append / CSPSearchPath "/Active Directory/<Name of your domain>"

else if [[ ${osvers} -eq 7 || 8 ]]; then
echo "new OS detected as ${osversionlong}"
dscl localhost -read /Search CSPSearchPath | grep "Active Directory"
sudo dscl /Search -delete / CSPSearchPath "/Active Directory/<Name of your domain>/All Domains"
sudo dscl /Search -delete / CSPSearchPath "/Active Directory/<Name of your domain>/"
sudo dscl /Search -delete / CSPSearchPath "/Active Directory/<Name of your domain>"
sudo dscl /Search/Contacts -delete / CSPSearchPath "/Active Directory/<Name of your domain>/All Domains"
sudo dscl /Search/Contacts -delete / CSPSearchPath "/Active Directory/<Name of your domain>/"
sudo dscl /Search/Contacts -delete / CSPSearchPath "/Active Directory/<Name of your domain>"

dscl /Search -create / SearchPolicy CSPSearchPath
dscl /Search -append / CSPSearchPath "/Active Directory/<Name of your domain>/<Name of your domain>.com"
dscl /Search -append / CSPSearchPath "/Active Directory/<Name of your domain>/"

sleep 10

dscl /Search/Contacts -create / SearchPolicy CSPSearchPath
dscl /Search/Contacts -append / CSPSearchPath "/Active Directory/<Name of your domain>/<Name of your domain>.com"
dscl /Search/Contacts -append / CSPSearchPath "/Active Directory/<Name of your domain>/"
dscl /Search/Contacts -append / CSPSearchPath "/Local/Default/"
fi
fi

exit 0

-preferred, is that address really used every time the client talks to AD?

I've always been under the impression that is only used during the initial bind.

Awesome thanks for the tips guys. What makes this so difficult to troubleshoot is that I'm not able to reproduce this issue. We also have a separate issue where users randomly lose admin rights to their system. Simply doing a 'dscacheutil flushcache' and logging out / in seems to fix that. I wonder if its related to this issue. Stevie, for #1, we have all our clients point to a preferred domain controller. Going to try #2 to see if it makes a difference.