Re: EMERGENCY! Offline Files Disappearing / Vanishing

In news:1156170494.069717.60710@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx,
ALeghart <aleghart@xxxxxxxxx> typed:
Basic statistics here:

What are the chances of a hard drive failing versus the daily
frustrations of staying "online" with the domain on a laptops, and
keeping files and folder available?

Both as the admin and the user, Folder Redirection, Desktop sync,
Offline files...not ready for prime time.

I don't use offline files, but I do redirect My Documents. Not the desktop;
I just warn users not to store anything on their desktops or I will smack
them silly.



I'm tired of deleting profiles.

I would be, too, but I've been using roaming profiles for years and have had
very few problems with them.

I'm tired of watching all of my
desktop icons disappear, then pushing F5 to redraw the desktop. I'm
tired of disabling the empty QuickLaunch from the taskbar and
re-enabling it to get icons back.

I'm tired of locking and sleeping my portable and losing the
connection in the morning. Only printers and cached files are
available, unless I explicity browse to \\server\d$\folder.

Microsoft is at least 5-10 years behind user needs when it comes to
roaming of any sort, and the need to hot desk and/or log in at
multiple physical or remote sessions.

Use terminal services and all that goes away. :)



One advantage to going to a Mac portable: no pretense of roaming
actually working. You know that you have to take it all with you, and
you can decline from logging in at someone else's Windows workstation.

If I have to perform a morning ritual voodoo dance to join the network
and find my icons, I'd rather do it with a machine that runs OSX and
WindowsXP.


Dave Nickason [SBS MVP] wrote:
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
    ... I would not even consider an undertaking like reinstalling a server as ... Folder Options -> Offline Files." ... have not yet seen the event logs on the laptop itself. ...
    (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
    ... PeerSync to synchronize data to his laptop. ... it always happend when being OFFLINE, so it does not seem to have anything ... were all there under his appropriate user folder on the server. ... WITHOUT the blue synchronization arrows next to them. ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs)
  • 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
    ... it always happend when being OFFLINE, so it does not seem to have anything to ... I increased the harddisk of the laptop because it only had about 10 GB free ... were all there under his appropriate user folder on the server. ... WITHOUT the blue synchronization arrows next to them. ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs)