Intrepid "failed to join domain: failed to get DC for domain xxxx.LOCAL" issue

[Guest]

I am having the "failed to join domain: failed to get DC for domain BLAH.LOCAL" issue in Intrepid - anyone else solve this? "net ads lookup dc" and "net ads info" work fine. Pinging DC by FQDN or netbios works fine. At least one other person is having the same issue (I emailed him to see if he'd had a resolution - he hasn't responded): http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=6252005 (entry by DouglasK on pg 18). I've disabled avahi and added IP, netbios & fqdn (in caps) to /etc/hosts (below 127.0.1.1 entry). I don't know what else to do - I've been working on this for 8 days - I'd hate to have to reinstall to go back to 8.04 Hardy - BIG MESS. I have successfully integrated 8 Hardy servers with Windows network/DC - Hardy was simple - apparently many things changed with Intrepid. If anyone can help, it would be appreciated. Thanks