This means that at any given moment you do not know which machine is supplying you with namespace information. Similarly, a general command such as nisls may not list a newly created object if the system sends the nisls query to a replica that has not yet been updated. You can use nisping to resync a lagging or out of sync replica server. Restore these files from your most recent backup. Sometimes an object is there, sometimes it is not.
Diagnoses Use nisls to display the object's name.
Look carefully at the object's name to see if the name actually begins with a blank space. Cannot Use Automounter Symptoms You cannot change to a directory on another host. Diagnosis Use nisls and niscat to determine if the automounter tables are properly constructed. Solution Change the periods to underscores.