New FS, Folder redirection logged as ok, Documents point to wrong location.

[DCUK6]

Hi All,

 

Just turned off the old file server and its caused us a few issues with folder redirection.

 

The event log is reporting that it has redirected folders to the new fileserver when i login but the user is getting the error that Documents cant be found and its trying to point to the old file server.

 

Any ideas?

 

Checked permissions for their home drives.

Looks like new users work ok, its just not updating the location for documents for old users.

Edited September 11, 2017 by DCUK6

[3s-gtech]

You've changed the users' Documents location in AD - have you also changed their redirection paths in GP? Sorry if it's a dumb question, but it's easy to miss especially if you have the policies spread over several GPOs.

[DCUK6]

Thanks 3s-gtech.

 

Found the answer after alot of searching.

 

When changing the Folder Redirection, if you have the check box marked that tell it it to move documents to new location then the old server must be accessible.

 

If you dont have the old FS available it will try accessing the old FS and fail and wont update the users documents to the new location.

 

Re-shared the old file server folder and it all moves accross and then updates the location.

[3s-gtech]

That makes sense. Never used that setting myself, but I've migrated user home folders many times and found redirection often adds little caveats. Glad it's sorted.

[Cw2k]

That makes sense. Never used that setting myself, but I've migrated user home folders many times and found redirection often adds little caveats. Glad it's sorted.

 

 

Also watch out for 'Verify old and new Folder Redirection targets point to the same share before redirecting' as it is not enabled by default and will purge the destination if not enabled.

[mullet_man]

I was in exactly the same situation DCUK6 this summer and turns out you just need to do a GPupdate /force

 

Log user out then back in and documents folder should point to new file server.

 

Fortunately I’ve only had this effect a handful of users but was rather confusing at the time as no matter how many restarts or log offs I did it didn’t fix it. The gpupdate force sorted it.

[mullet_man]

Ah didn’t see you’d sorted it.

[DCUK6]

Thanks all,

 

For some reason the gpupdate didnt seem to fix it.

 

Reading about the issue now theres alot of horror stories where the old file server has been destroyed and people having to create new server with the old name just to get the new server to work or running login scripts to change registry settings etc.

 

Think i would just untick the move files from the redirection setting, if youve restored from backup you dont need to move from the old server. Now i know this happens, i should have done it.

[mcoyne]

For us the target folder location is to "Redirect to the user's home directory" with "Move the contents of Documents to the new location", so for us I think we can migrate the data to the new server, update the AD Home drive location and then I'm guessing that's job done - fingers crossed!

[mullet_man]

Am glad ours hasn't gone too bad as it's only seemed to have affected admin users and about 10 at most.

 

Had two more today and the gp update force fixed it both times