Issue working in namespace with documents

Strangest thing.....

We have two servers setup in a namespace. When opening a word doc through the namespace, making edits, and then clicking SAVE, we get a "trying to connect..." message as shown in the screenshot. This lasts anywhere from 30-45 seconds until it goes away and we can proceed.

Namespace = \\domain\dfs\folder1

Very annoying and just started happening this week. The namespace has been setup for 5+ years.

If we open the same doc by bypassing the namespace address and going directly to the fileserver:  \\server1\folder1, everything works fine and do not see the "connecting window".

I have rebooted all of my DCs. I tried pointing the namespace to the secondary server. No success.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.