Slow opening of Office files on Server 2012R2

[CraigM]

Hi everyone

 

Been sometime since I was last here, job keeps a person busy

 

Last week, I performed a large internal migration of servers at my school. I added a brand new Intel server to act as the new DC and file share. Removed Citrix Xen from our VM server and have switched to Hyper-V without issues. Removed some 2008R2 virtual servers and replaced them with 2012R2 virtual servers.

 

The 2012R2 server is an Intel S2600GZ server. 32GB RAM, Dual Xeon, 6TB hard drive space, quad port Intel network card. Server is hooked up via Cat5E into HP ProCurve 2900-24G switch, all ports running at 1Gb. I teamed all 4 ports together on server and switch. Data deduplication is enabled on D:\. Server fully patched, ESET File Security v 4.5.120 is the AV on the server. Client computers are all Windows 7 SP1, with Office 2010 SP2.

 

Now the problem we are having is that Office files are not opening very well on the new server. To use an example, we have a daily morning notice system that is a PowerPoint PPSX file. When the file share was hosted on Server 2008, all staff could access the file concurrently without issues. Now on 2012, we are getting the Office download dialog box, where it can take from 30 seconds up to 5 or more minutes to open the file. Other times, opening the file is instantaneous. There's also been far more of the slow green bar crawling across Explorer than ever before, which we almost never had before.

 

I've already tried disabling SMB signing on the domain controllers OU, tried the Windows 7 hotfix pack on a test client, disabled Data Deduplication on that share, added to AV exclusion list. All shares are indexed. Not sure if Office File Validation will make a difference?

 

I'm at my wits end here, and may end up moving this share back to the 2008 file server until we can rectify this problem. Does anyone have any ideas I could try?

 

Many thanks!

[network41]

Have you disabled file validation it can slow down the opening of files.

 

Office 2010 File Validation - Microsoft Office 2010 Engineering - Site Home - TechNet Blogs

[laserblazer]

Is it just Office files that are slow. http://www.edugeek.net/forums/windows-server-2012/126721-server-2012-file-server-suddenly-stops-serving-requests-but-otherwise-looks-fine.html is a thread on a similar subject but the problem seems to be more intermittent with most of the people who are seeing it.

[CraigM]

Thanks for the replies so far everyone.

@laserblazer It's just Office files. Running software installs from the drive is fine, as is playing media files. I can only start playing around later, so I will try disabling Office File Verification. Then I will take another look at that thread you mentioned. Read it before, but will pay closer attention this time.

[Sam_Brown]

Had this issue before when the default printer has issues and it spent about 60 seconds trying to connect to it before failing. Long shot but might be the issue. Try setting default printer to one of the built in ones.

[CraigM]

Thanks Sam_Brown, but it looks like this issue is the dreaded 2012 file serve issue. This morning the server suddenly stopped serving files completely, though ping and RDP worked as per normal. Only a restart brought the file sharing back. Looks like I'll be moving some or all of my file shares back to my Server 2008 R1 server this Friday when no one is around. Everything I've read indicates that this is a problem Microsoft hasn't yet fixed - see here

 

Ah well, I'll leave the 2012R2 box doing AD, DHCP and DNS for the time being, until Microsoft can fully patch this issue with SMB.

[psydii]

There are smb3 fixes in this months 8.1 update.

 

For windows 8 see here: KB2928360

 

The advice is to install this everywhere.

[CraigM]

A bit of feedback on this issue. Unfortunately it's still present, even after all the patches since April. Also rolled out the big hotfix roll up for Windows 7 clients. Spent a lot of time in Wireshark this morning, looking at network captures as we opened files on 2012 and then on 2008 from a Windows 7 client. There are lots of SMB status messages when accessing the files on 2012, but next to nothing on 2008. Tested on my client Windows 8 machine and I'm not seeing the huge amount of Status messages either. Even tried sharing files off a 2012 VM with no anti-virus installed, just the basic Hyper-V drivers.

 

This leads me to believe that somehow 2012's SMB server doesn't like Windows 7 clients, especially when they try to access files concurrently. It's not even specific to Office files - tested with a video clip, pure text file, photo and other Office docs.

 

Sigh