On 01 Aug 2015, Lobster grunted:
On 06 Aug 2015, John Rumm grunted:
Well, whether that specific instance was a phantom Word process I can't say, but the problem has certainly persisting in its original random form. Clutching at straws I tried swapping in a new router over the weekend which hasn't helped. The only remaining thing I can think of is to reinstall Windows of the laptop but without a clear reason that will help, and I suspect it will be a lot more aggro for no gain.
On 05 Aug 2015, Johnny B Good grunted:
Hmm, even my deepest folder paths really aren't that long though - 5 or
6 levels max? Surely a long way off a problem length? (Actual folder names are all pretty short too; two or three words say.) And as mentioned, I only every have this problem when accessing the NAS from one specific machine.But if that's really a plausible scenario, how would I rule it out for a particular 5-deep folder path, at a time when my problem decides to occur?
If its not consistently happening its not a path length problem.
My guess is that it's a file locking problem.
I've had that before on cheap NAS boxes.
AND busy samba servers.
Basically if the client dies, or requests a new connection, it may leave a stale lock hanging around indefinitely.
If you can access the server via ssh or telnet, and it is running samba, I strongly advise you to disable all locking altogether.
It is frankly a nightmare with wifi.
Don't forget that the folder path length includes the filename length as well. The new or temporary file created by the editing process might exceed the limit by one or two characters thus creating the seeming inconsistency.
You could always either move or copy the files into a temporary folder closer to the FS root and see whether working on them still produces those symptoms.
That's just a guess but I'm not saying it's any less valid than *my* guess. :-)
Ever since I've been forced to relegate windows 2k and XP to VMs in a Linux Mint 17 host due to a hardware upgrade that made win2k untenable as a host OS, I'm now seeing odd transient symptoms like this with the NAS4Free box, symptoms virtually unheard of when the client machine was win2k.
It usually manifests itself as a problem trying to copy or move files to the server. Clicking on the skip button to carry on copying the rest of the selected files lets me complete the majority of the copying/moving job so I can revisit the problematic files and try again.
Unfortunately, it's not quite as simple as repeating the copying/moving request since the file manager, Dolphin, creates a *.*.part file with permissions it then can't over-ride leaving me the task of using the NAS4Free webmin interface in order to fire up a quixplorer session on the NAS box to track down and delete these unwanted left-overs.
Fortunately, this isn't a very frequent problem but it does point to an issue with the NAS box since it tends to involve the second 4TB disk volume (an HGST Deskstar) which is also implicated by occasional unconscionable delays in letting a copy/move request start writing to the NAS when using win2k or winXP (real or virtual machines). Rarer still (thankfully!), these delayed writes can turn into a total failure requiring a similar level of remedial action.
It's tempting to think this may be nothing more than our 'old friend' the SATA data connector 'shittyness' issue but I do harbour doubts about it being as simple as that (there aren't any hints of dma errors in the SMART logs to suggest this possibility). However, the next time I have reason to pop the lid on the NAS box, I'll try another cable on this drive and see whether or not it changes the symptoms.
What I do is mount my NAS stuff on the linux and then remount that into windows VM.
Mind you its my own brew NAS and uses NFS..
How much access to the NAS have you got? will it run NFS?
Can you edit its samba conf to get rid of all locking?
locking.html
Yes, if I care to enable it from the webmin interface (it's NAS4Free, aka FreeNAS before the name was hijacked as a trademark). The trouble is, when I've enabled this service, I've not been able to figure out how to get a Linux client machine to make use of it. :-(
Furthermore, it seems it may not be quite the panacea it's made out to be in a *nix only environment (which the LAN isn't). There's a mix of MSFT and *nix client machines on the lan and smb/cifs appears to be the lingua franca so I didn't pursue the art of NFS any further.
Probably. There's an Auxiliary parameters text input box described thusly:
"These parameters are added to [Global] section of smb.conf. Please check the documentation." where I can add additional lines to the script... If I knew what I was doing.
The last time I looked to editing an smb.conf script file must be a decade ago by now. I'm rather thankful that NAS4Free has largely rendered the need virtually superfluous. :-)
My problem which may or may not be related to the OP's problem only really materialised after the 4TB Hitachi Deskstar drive got to around
99% full. Strangely, the WD 4TB RED, also 99% full, hasn't exhibited this symptom (nor has the 3TB Hitachi CoolSpin, also 99% full, nor the 2TB Samsung Spinpoint, only 93% full). I've run fsck a few times on the drives to eliminate any FS errors that may have crept in due to these write failure events just to be on the safe side.The problem might be a file locking issue but since I've never messed about with these more esoteric settings, I'm rather loth to experiment and risk trampling over the smb.conf script settings. For the moment, I'm letting discretion be the better part of valour, especially as it isn't a problem so much as a puzzling irritation that crops up infrequently (better the Devil you know and all that).
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.