Re: EMERGENCY! Offline Files Disappearing / Vanishing

One "problem" with SBS is that we don't have a huge sample size to give our
experiences statistical significance (and I dropped statistics twice
anyway). I have two users who use offline files just about daily, including
one with an approximately 10 GB My Docs, and they don't generally have
issues. Several others work offline less often.

Any real sync issue I've had has turned out to be normal, as-expected
behavior that was misunderstood by the user. I have some files stored on a
server that will be critical if my network or server goes down, and I sync
those to my desktop for added security. Again, no issues.

But who knows - if I had a thousand users doing it, I could have dozens of
problems. The one thing I think everyone would agree on - including
Macker's client, and even if he switches to a MAC - don't put all your eggs
in one basket. This guy could have as easily had a drive failure or other
unpredictable event that calls for him to have a backup when he travels.
That will not depend on brand or platform - he should be doing it
regardless.

If he wants a MAC, why does that involve changing vendors? He can run a MAC
as a client on his SBS network. Eriq Neale's book has a section on MACs in
SBS.

Microsoft Small Business Server 2003 Unleashed
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0672328054/sr=8-1/qid=1155922463/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-6318704-0179014?ie=UTF8


"CO-DBA-SC-EL" <dx6490@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:uA1NmRpwGHA.5064@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
We use offline sync but it feels like a crap shoot. A maddening problem
with offline files sync is how poorly the feature documented (unless you
have something like 2 months of your life to waste to read through the
spaghetti of docs and tech notes) and that there is no simple way to log
and debug what is happening. Then there are the ridiculous lists of which
files offline sync considers "unsafe" to synchronize--the time for a
serious update there was something like a couple of years ago. So far
we've been lucky--but it does feel too much like a matter of blind luck.
SyncToy is not much better--a toy. For manual sync, we have had good
results with SyncBackSE, although it sometimes asks for a little too much
of the user's participation in the process. For our critical stuff, we use
offline backup through an Internet service, straight off the workstations.
At least that way we can go back and retrieve deleted or trashed stuff.
The Microsoft file recovery method is just too hard to set up and explain
to normal human beings.

-- C_O

"Macker" <Macker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:0E0B38D7-C8E3-48F8-B697-4BC13F4ACA4C@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I spoke too soon. It would appear we've lost our client. Thanks Offline
Files!

Macker. I am going to be talking with Peter (guy who does Macs) about
going
totally Mac if such a move will give me more security with KNOWING that
when
I leave town, I will have all my files. I have to admit that this last
episode really spooked me.. Let's discuss pros and cons. --- Joe.

"Macker" wrote:

Dave - you might be onto something here:

On consideration, I agree with you: It is complete overkill to reinstall
the
server, and there is no guarantee of a fix. What if there were fifty
users?
So, obviously the problem must be diagnosed/discovered, or else I have
to go
another path, such as Second Copy. Sounds like that might be the way to
go.

As I intimated, you've switched on a bit of a "lightbulb" though:

The one common event is THIS LAPTOP. The user previously had a different
laptop, and he did not have this problem. When the video card went out
on his
old laptop (an Inspiron 8500), we gave him a the "standby" laptop - this
one
- a D600 Latitude.

A week or so after he got the D600, this problem happened. When it
happened
the second time, that was when I re-imaged the D600 and the problem
"seemed"
to go away - I thought the re-image (and the other steps outlined in my
post)
did the trick. About a week after that, the Inspiron 8500 was repaired,
and
we gave it back to him, and the D600 then went "on ice" for a while...

He had no problems on his Inspiron 8500...until the LCD screen went out!
That was when I switched him back to the D600 again (what he is using
now).
He was on the D600 for about a month, when the problem came back.

So, maybe it's something to do with the D600? A NIC issue? I don't know?
Sounds like we might be onto something though...

Incidentally, there is another post in the forum, "My Documents
Redirection"
(8/17/06 also). I have added a question to that, as a poster (Owen)
suggested
the possiblilty that the Folder Redirection policy of "Subfolders always
available offline" be enabled on the server. It is not enabled is SBS by
default. See below:

I wrote in another forum: "Owen - As you stated, the "Subfolders always
available offline" policy is DISABLED on SBS by default. That is
correct.
However, I have never enabled this policy for any of my clients - yet
their
subfolders ARE always available offline. What is the purpose of this
policy
then? Is it a way of forcing the
issue, and kind of "making sure"? I'm wondering if it could have
anything to
do with the problem I'm having?"


"Dave Nickason [SBS MVP]" wrote:

Probably a poor choice of words on my part - when I referred to
"administratively cached" I meant those that were set for caching in
the
properties of the share on the server, as opposed to those set for
caching
manually by the user. IOW I was trying to say the same thing the KB
says.

FWIW, I would not even consider an undertaking like reinstalling a
server as
an attempt to resolve an undiagnosed problem. I don't agree that you
know
that a reinstall will fix it - I had an instance where we had an
undiagnosed
problem that was so bad we considered replacing the server. Turned
out to
be a really obscure issue with a 3rd party driver that would have been
reinstalled on the new box.

I've used both Second Copy and SyncToy. IMO Second Copy is a lot more
elegant a solution for this, especially the newest version. It's only
something like $30 and it's much easier to automate and much more
configurable than SyncToy.

I'm not clear on how the permissions could be to blame for this -
aren't you
saying the files disappear from the CSC but not the server? You
should be
able to rule out permissions just by looking in Advanced to make sure
nothing strange got left behind.

Have you seen this KB?

How to re-initialize the offline files cache and database
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/230738/en-us


"Macker" <Macker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:7CD5DDE4-5766-4609-B03F-296481E37861@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I greatly appreciate everyone's input here, but I'm afraid I am no
closer
to
solving this

(maddening) mystery.

Looking at each contributor's advice, one by one:

Dave Nickason:
-------------

Dave - one thing you said in your first paragraph:

"XP will limit the number of files to the size specified in Windows
Explorer
Tools ->
Folder Options -> Offline Files."

I believe this is untrue. This refers to 'temporary' caching, and
not to
files manually or administratively cached. See:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=904676

Also, when (My Documents) folder redirection is administratively set
in
SBS
2003, it WILL make all sub-folders available offline.

On user error: I have considered this, but I have ruled it out. The
user
has
an excellent understanding of Offline Files, and is ultra-careful
and well
instructed! He is certainly not deleting all his folders.
Additionally, I
have enabled the Group Policy "Remove 'Make Available Offline' " so
he is
unable to pick and choose what to synchronize - everything in My
Docs is
set
to be available offline, and he cannot change that.

Quotas, free space, disk errors - all ruled out.

The one thing I haven't been able to look at this time (because he
is
away)
are the client event logs...something may lie there. I'm really
UN-hopeful
at
this stage though.

Lanwench:
--------

You helped me before with something - thanks. Point taken on Offline
Files.
I'm starting to feel the same way.

My client *seems* to be taking this okay. However, he wants to "talk
about
it" when he gets back. He will want answers though, and will want to
be
CERTAIN that this never happens again. At this stage, short of
hosing the
entire server and every machine - literally building the domain from
scratch
- which I may do - I can't think of a way around this one, and
nobody
seems
to have an answer.

I think I will take your advice and give SecondCopy a second look.
Also,
I'm
thinking about SyncToy in the XP PowerToys kit. There is a guy from
Microsoft
- Jonathan Hardwick - who has a blog dedicated to Offline Files
(http://blogs.msdn.com/jonathanh/archive/category/6957.aspx), and I
got
the
recommendation from there.

kj:
--

There are no related entries in the server event log, because he is
never
connected to the server when this happens! This always occurs when
he is
away
from the office, and not connected to the server. As I noted above
though,
I
have not yet seen the event logs on the laptop itself.

Ethan:
-----

We can rule out Window Washer. There are no other unusual
third-party apps
on the machine, just the standard faire of Office 2003, Acrobat
Reader,
etc.
Thanks for your suggestion though - you never know with these
things -
anything is possible!

So What Now?
-----------

Well, that's where I'm at. Perhaps the event logs on the laptop
itself
will
shed some light. Perhaps not.

As I mentioned in my first post, the one thing at the "back of my
mind"
that
I have doubts about, is the fact that "Mary" at one point had access
to
his
User share on the server. This access has since been removed and
permissions
replaced back to normal, and also all the machines have been
re-imaged.
However, knowing how finicky Windows Permissions can be sometimes,
I'm
wondering if *something* is holding over somehow? I really don't
think so
though...everything looks exactly as it should.

I'm now grasping at straws, and wondering if it's a particular file?
Something corrupted somewhere? I'm really at my wits end.

The one thing I pretty much know will fix it, will be a total
reinstall of
the server from scratch (along with all the workstations). That is a
monumental task, and a pretty brute-force "fix" even for a small
office
such
as this. I may be left with no choice though...


"Macker" wrote:

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,



.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: EMERGENCY! Offline Files Disappearing / Vanishing
    ... My Documents made "Available Offline" ... Client laptop: ... files were all there under his appropriate user folder on the server. ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs)
  • RE: EMERGENCY! Offline Files Disappearing / Vanishing
    ... Folder Options -> Offline Files." ... when folder redirection is administratively set in SBS ... There are no related entries in the server event log, ... have not yet seen the event logs on the laptop itself. ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs)
  • Re: EMERGENCY! Offline Files Disappearing / Vanishing
    ... My Documents made "Available Offline" ... Client laptop: ... were all there under his appropriate user folder on the server. ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs)
  • Re: Redirection of Offline Sync Behavior
    ... That's normal for a domain server and why they're always going to/from the server. ... Could you have the 'normal path' to be their local PC and the SYNC path to point to the server. ... they could turn off their WAN / "work offline" all day - turn it on again. ... for unshared files could you use "My Briefcase" to have it sync to 'their mapped network folder' only at logon/off.? ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)
  • Re: [RFC][Resend] Make NFS-Client readahead tunable
    ... Sun/Solaris-10 NFS server when the underlying filesystem is of type SAM-FS. ... old or infrequently used data to "offline" media like e.g. tape. ... client tries to read such an offline file, ...
    (Linux-Kernel)
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