Error 0x80070047: no more connections can be made to this remote computer

Fix it now

0x80070047 is Win32 71, and Microsoft’s published text is exact: no more connections can be made to this remote computer at this time because there are already as many connections as the computer can accept. Everyone already connected keeps working. Whoever arrives last sees the error.

Get-SmbSession | Measure-Object
Get-SmbSession | Select-Object ClientComputerName, ClientUserName, NumOpens
Get-SmbOpenFile | Select-Object ClientComputerName, ClientUserName, Path

1. Read the session list before you close anything. NumOpens above zero means somebody has a file open on that session, and closing it can lose unsaved work.
2. Free the sessions with nothing open: Get-SmbSession | Where-Object NumOpens -eq 0 | Close-SmbSession.
3. Stop idle sessions piling up again: net config server /autodisconnect:15 sets the idle disconnect to fifteen minutes.
4. Look for one machine appearing more than once in the list, which is a device spending more than one slot. Standardise on one name for the host and have that client map once.
5. If the host has to serve more than a handful of devices at once, move the share to Windows Server. No registry value, policy or update raises the ceiling on a client edition.

Closing a session cuts the connection under whatever that person was doing. Run Get-SmbOpenFile first and check what is in use before closing anything during working hours.

If the person who could not connect can now map the share, you have bought yourself time. Whether you have fixed it depends on what the next section says about where the ceiling comes from.

Why it happens

Windows client editions carry the same SMB server component as Windows Server, with one difference that matters here: a client edition will accept only a limited number of simultaneous inbound connections, and Windows Server does not impose that ceiling. The refusal is not about permissions, a corrupted share or a driver. It is the host declining because it already holds as many connections as it will take.

It is worth being careful about the number, because a specific figure is repeated everywhere and Microsoft does not publish it on any page you can point a customer at. What is published is the error’s own text – as many connections as the computer can accept – and the fact that the ceiling belongs to the client edition rather than to a setting. The figure that applies to a given edition and version is set by that edition’s licence terms, not by anything readable on the machine, and there is no supported way to raise it. If someone quotes you a number, ask them where it is published.

Sessions also outlive the people using them. They stay in the table until the idle disconnect timer expires, and the default is long enough that a morning of casual browsing fills most of the available slots with connections nobody is using. That is why the error appears in the afternoon on a machine that was fine at nine o’clock, and why shortening the idle disconnect buys real headroom.

The codes that travel with this one describe a different failure. 0x8007046A is Win32 1130, “Not enough server storage is available to process this command”, and 0xC0000205 is a status value Microsoft does not publish a meaning for. Both show up when the host is short of resources rather than short of session slots, and they need the resource investigation rather than this one. 0x80070044 is different again: Win32 68, “The name limit for the local computer network adapter card was exceeded”, which is a NetBIOS name registration limit and has nothing to do with sessions.

Full reference

The four codes, and what each is actually about

Only the first of those is the connection ceiling. The other three are why people conclude the ceiling has moved when it has not. 0x80070044 in particular gets folded into this article’s territory and is a separate problem: it is the adapter running out of registered NetBIOS names, which you now only meet where NetBIOS over TCP/IP is still enabled and a large number of names or aliases are registered against the host. Let NetBIOS follow DHCP, or disable it in the adapter’s IPv4 advanced settings on the WINS tab, wherever nothing depends on it.

Reading the symptom before you change anything

Managing what you can manage

When a desktop is acting as the file server

This error is almost always a sign that a machine has grown into a role it was not licensed or built for. Before spending anything, it is worth checking whether it is genuinely a ceiling problem: a machine serving five people that refuses the sixth has a different problem, and one serving a floor of people has outgrown the arrangement rather than hit a bug.

• Count distinct machines, not sessions. Sessions inflate with duplicates and stale entries.
• Check the idle disconnect before concluding anything. A long timer makes a small estate look like a large one.
• Check what else the host is doing. A desktop that is also somebody’s workstation will hit resource limits before it hits session limits.
• Ask whether everything connecting needs to. Backup agents, indexers and monitoring tools each hold connections.
• If the answer is still that too many people need the share at once, the arrangement is the problem, not the tuning.

Closing sessions is disruptive and nothing warns the user. Anyone with an open file loses their handle and any unsaved work in the application holding it. On a machine that people are actively working from, do this at a moment you have chosen rather than the moment you found the problem.

Every code this article covers

Confirm the fix worked

1. Get-SmbSession | Measure-Object on the host shows a count well clear of where the refusals began.
2. The person who could not connect maps the share again and opens a file from it.
3. Get-SmbServerConfiguration | Select-Object AutoDisconnectTimeout shows the idle timeout you set.
4. No single ClientComputerName appears more than once in the session list.
5. Check the host’s System log an hour later, under normal load, for any repeat.

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