What does Windows error code 8419 (ERROR_DS_CANT_FIND_DSA_OBJ) mean?

Status / error code:		Category:

Constant name:
Source:		Operating System:
Description: The directory service could not locate the expected DSA object.

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ERROR_DS_DRA_SCHEMA_MISMATCH	ERROR_DS_CANT_FIND_EXPECTED_NC

ERROR_DS_CANT_FIND_DSA_OBJ

ERROR_DS_CANT_FIND_DSA_OBJ (8419) is an Active Directory Domain Services error. The operation expected a Directory System Agent (DSA) object, typically part of a domain controller topology, but could not find it. This is often associated with stale metadata, incomplete DC promotion/demotion, or a broken configuration-partition reference.

What to check

Check whether the referenced domain controller is online, promoted, and advertising correctly.
Inspect the server and NTDS Settings objects in Active Directory Sites and Services.
Use metadata cleanup only after confirming that the missing DC cannot return and its records are stale.

Useful command

dcdiag /test:Advertising /test:Services /v

Microsoft: DCDiag · Microsoft: Clean up AD DS server metadata · Microsoft: Diagnose AD replication failures

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