Very strange problem...

[Maxell]

Hello,

This is my first post, and unfortunetly it is a very strange problem that I need advice on if possible?

The problem is a folder copy / rename issue and I don't know where to start with explaining this, but I will give it a go....

Like most people, we have a shared drive for our students to access and when the students try to copy certain folders from there into their personal areas, the workstation either ignores them or stops responding. The workstations also stop responding if they try to rename folders that they have either just created / copied into their personal areas.

This doesn't happen all the time, or for every student / workstation, but it seemed to start by only affecting a handful of users but now it is becoming much more widespread. I have been struggling to identify a pattern unfortunetly.

We are running Server 2003 with XP Pro SP2 clients and all updates are applied and virus checker (Sophos) is up-to-date.

Any ideas would be gratefuly received....

Mark.

[mattx]

Have you checked NTFS Permissions ? Home drive Space allocations ?
If all is ok there, logon as a user and on a different PC logon as a supervisor / admin - remote manage the PC you have logged on as a user and stop the Sophos AV service running, then do the copy. See if that makes a differenc. Also may be worth opening up Task Manager on the PC to see whats maxing out the CPU when you say it locks up.
Also check the CPU load on the server as again it may be Sophos maxing out the cpu...
Are there any large EXE files or MSIs in the file copy ? Also may be worth checking any event logs.....Some more PD really needs to be done first.

[NetworkGeezer]

Is offline file caching enabled?

[bishopsgarthstockton]

you don't happen to have Viglen classlink 7 running by any small chance do you?

[Maxell]

Hello,

Thanks for the replies.

@mattx - the permissions seem fine and we currently have no limits on file space available. Forgive my ignorance, but when you say remote manage, I assume you mean different to a remote desktop connection? How do I about doing that? The CPU on the server is fine and the folders being copied are only small in size - just a few word / excel files.

@NetworkGeezer - yes, I believe offline file caching is enabled - the students are blocked from changing the settings, but in the student GPO the Synchronize all offline files before logging off option is enabled....

@bishopsgarthstockton - No, sorry we are not running that...

I should say that this problem only started about a month back - it seemed fine before Christmas. Since then I have tried a de-frag on the server and also turning off the on-access virus scanning on the server, but neither of those things have made any difference.

It is very frustrating as I logged in as one of the students that had the problem earlier and it seems fine for them now - makes it very difficult to tie down! :?

Mark.

[ChrisC]

How long is the machine hanging for?

If you're copying from a busy share on a busy network, can take a while for dialogues etc to appear.

Have you tried loging onto a machine as a student, copying the folder and leaving it a while?

Chris

[ChrisC]

If it's happened to a student once, does it happen all the time? or randomly with users?

Any pattern of it happening at certain times (when theres a heavy load on the server(s))?

Chris

[Maxell]

Hi Chris,

I have been trying to see a pattern, but I am struggling. It seems to happen completely randomly with users - I don't think it is directly related to the user accounts - I have tried deleting one of the users it happened to and completely recreating them, and it still went wrong for them next time.

I will try and monitor it much more closely, and I will try starting a file copy and leaving it a long time next time it happens like you suggested.

Thanks for your help...

Mark.