Re: EMERGENCY! Offline Files Disappearing / Vanishing
- From: "kj" <kj@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2006 20:56:31 -0700
"Macker" <Macker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:6FB6C2DE-471B-4EC4-8221-382D9724F8D4@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I never believed the Offline Files horror stories I would read on forums
from
other system admins - until now. (Apologies for not taking "you"
seriously).
I may have lost a client today...
(Please excuse the length of this post, but I want to try and give as much
information as possible)
Here is the infrastructure/scenario:
- SBS 2003
- My Documents Redirection enabled
- My Documents made "Available Offline"
- Size Limit on server set to 5GB (rather than default 1GB limit)
- Client laptop: Dell Latitude, XP Pro SP2
Here is a basic overview of what is happening:
- STARTING POINT (before any problems):
- The client's My Documents are fully synched and available offline - no
problems.
- The client has no problems for two years - his My Documents are always
available offline.
- Everyone is happy.
- The size of his "My Documents" before the problems started, is about
4.2GB
- PROBLEMS:
- One evening (6 months ago) I get a call: The client is offline, and the
most of the contents of his My Documents are GONE.
- I say "most", because about ten files (out of 2,000+) are available.
They
are the files he most recently worked on. They are available at the end of
the tree, eg:
My Documents\School Files\School 2005\Science Class\ScienceProject1.doc
AND
My Documents\School Files\School 2006\Civics Class\CivicsProject1.doc
However, in the "Science Class" or "Civics Class" folders, there should be
hundreds of files, not just the ScienceProject1.doc and CivicsProject1.doc
files. Additionally, there should be (lots of) files in the folders above
these. eg: the "School 2006" folder should also have hundreds of files in
it,
as well as other folders. They are all missing.
ATTEMPTED FIXES:
FIRST TIME:
The first time this happened (at 11PM at night, when he had a flight at
6AM):
- I drove to his house, picked up his laptop, and drove to his office
where
the server lives.
- I first of all looked on the server, and sure enough his "missing" files
were all there under his appropriate user folder on the server.
- Next, I hooked up the laptop, and logged onto the network as the user.
- I DID NOT SYNCHRONIZE (YET)
- I opened up his My Documents, and sure enough, there were his files -
all
WITHOUT the blue synchronization arrows next to them. The only ones that
DID
have the arrows, were the ones mentioned above (ScienceProject1.doc,
CivicsProject1.doc, etc.)
- I then performed a full synchronization. This took about three hours,
over
a 100mbps network. It appeared to have to rebuilt the offline cache from
scratch.
- Once the synchronization was complete, I did another synchronization
"just
to be sure." This time it ran like a normal sync, and took about a minute.
- I then powered down the laptop, disconnected the network cable, and
rebooted in offline mode. All the files were now there - everything seemed
fine.
- I returned the laptop to the client (at about 4AM).
SECOND TIME:
My client worked away merrily for about a week, then disaster struck
again:
Exact same symptoms - only about the most recent 7 to 10 files he had been
working on, were available. Again, the tree structure above the 7 to 10
files
was intact, but there was nothing else in the folders.
This time (about 1PM in the afternoon), he was again about to leave for
the
weekend at 8PM.
- I rendevouzed with him at his office.
- I synched up the laptop as before.
- THEN -
- I COPIED the contents of his My Documents onto his Desktop.
- I DELETED the contents of his My Documents
- I did another sync (of his now empty My Documents)
- I deleted his Offline Cache (Folder Options, on the Offline Files tab,
press CTRL+SHIFT, and then click Delete Files).
- I did another sync.
- THEN -
- I COPIED the (previously copied) My Documents contents, from his
desktop,
back to his real My Documents.
- I performed another full sync.
- I then did another sync (just to be sure), and rebooted.
- Everything was still there. I synched again.
- I shut down, rebooted in offline mode.
- All the files were there. "This is fixed!" I thought.
THIRD TIME:
Everything was okay for about a month. Then lightning struck a third time.
Again, the exact same problem - only a few files available.
This time I really went overboard: It is a small office - three users
only.
(I have a client with FIFTY users, and have never had these problems).
His assistant (let's call her "Mary") has a workstation. She sometimes
needs
access to his files, so sometimes she logs onto her workstation as him
(let's
call him "Joe"). There is also a laptop which Mary uses, and sometimes she
logs on as Joe on the laptop too. I figured that perhaps there was some
conflict between the three machines. I therefore decided to re-image
(wipe)
ALL THE MACHINES and start afresh.
- I first of all made a systemwide backup.
- For added backup, I then burned several DVDs with each user's My
Documents
on them.
- I deleted the contents of the User's folders on the server.
- I re-imaged all the machines.
- I deleted the computer accounts of the old machines (using the proper
SBS
tools).
- I joined the "newly minted" computers to the domain (using the proper
SBS
wizards).
- I logged on each machine as Administrator on the domain, and added a few
extra apps that were not on the image.
- I then logged on as the respective user who would be using that machine.
- I copied the contents of the User's My Docs DVD to their desktop
first...
- Then I COPIED the contents of the desktop folder to their My Documents
(thereby repropogating their empty/clean User folder on the server).
- I then synched up each machine.
- THIS ALL TOOK A-G-E-S BY THE WAY!!!
- I then went offline with Joe's laptop, checked the files were there,
etc.
- Everything was fine.
- That was back in January.
FAST FORWARD SEVEN MONTHS...
FOURTH TIME:
I really thought that was the end of it. There have been no problems since
January. To my horror, I received a call from my client on Monday of this
week (today is Wednesday). MISSING FILES AGAIN!
Same problem - exactly.
I thought there may be some "salvation," as he said he had been "moving a
lot of files around." My guess was that he had just moved some files
around
while in the office, and then forgot to synchronize at the end. He had
basically moved older folders into a new "Past Years" folder in his My
Documents. Nothing wrong with that - you should be able to do that! I
guessed
he hadn't synchronized.
So, back over to his house, and back down to the office...
- Hooked up the laptop
- Logged onto the network as Joe.
- Synched files - took a good while (half-hour on his new 1000 mbps
network)
- Synched again (just to be sure)
- Shut down.
- Rebooted in offline mode.
- All the files were there.
- Returned the laptop to him.
FIFTH TIME (TODAY):
- I get a call from Joe at 6AM. I am asleep. He is at the airport in San
Francisco. (We are based in San Francisco).
- HIS FILES ARE GONE AGAIN!
- He is flying (via Chicago) to a small town in the East Coast for
business
- He needs his files.
- I may lose Joe as a client as a result of this.
SUMMARY / ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS (POSSIBLE OTHER REASONS):
This is clearly unacceptable. This is business "make or break" stuff.
I have a single rule for myself and my employees: I don't care if you go
out
and get drunk every night. I don't care if you prefer to work naked at
your
desk. I don't care if you masturbate for an hour each day in the bathroom
at
work. I don't care if you lose your temper and take a hammer and chisel to
a
computer (as long as it's backed up). I really don't care what you do, as
long as...
*** YOU NEVER EVER EVER E-V-E-R LOSE A CLIENT'S DATA - NEVER. ***
You will be fired immediately. We can work on your personal problems. We
can
replace broken equipment. We can get you in a recovery program. We can buy
new computers. WE CANNOT BUY NEW DATA. Therefore it must never happen.
POSSIBILITIES:
1) The one common thread in all of this, is that this ALWAYS seems to
happen
when Joe is AWAY from the office: He has all of his files offline and
working
fine. Then, suddenly, they disappear. There is no VPN involved. He is not
connecting to the network remotely (except for Outlook via RPC over
HTTPS).
2) THIS MAY BE IMPORTANT: There was a time, that Mary had direct access to
Joe's User folder on the server. He would ocassionally need her to go in
and
modify a file. However, when I reimaged all the machines (see "Third
Time"),
I explictly removed her permissions from his folder and restored the
folder
to it's default state - and replaced permissions with the proper ones.
Maybe
that has something to do with it, but I don't see how? It has been working
for seven months without a hitch.
CAN ANYBODY HELP ME?!!! Thank you.
What entries were in the workstation and server event logs at each of these
occurances?
/kj
.
- References:
- EMERGENCY! Offline Files Disappearing / Vanishing
- From: Macker
- EMERGENCY! Offline Files Disappearing / Vanishing
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