Users getting backed out of network share area

[Gusto_r53]

Hello everyone,

 

Hope someone can help, i'm new to the IT Technician role and so lacking some knowledge when it comes to diagnosing there weird issues.

 

This issues has been present for quite some time even before i started working here from what staff have told me, but we have a Shared Network location where all staff members have their own storage drive/home folder.

So this storage location is obviously set in AD as their Home Folder and from what I've checked all the permission to the share are as they should be and look correct.

However very often when navigation their home folders users will be backed out of the network share and placed in for example the My Computer folder where you would see all your other network drives etc.

 

It only happens on this network location which is a separate storage server from other network shares we have. If i navigate this share across the network it will also occasionally return me to the folder outside the shared home folder location.

Navigating these folders on the server directly does not present this issues tho! So it seems to be a issue with how the share could be set up?

 

Anyone can provide me some insight on what to check and what could be causing the issue?

 

Many thanks!

[bald_pig]

This normally happens when the pc loses connection to the share.

 

as a wild stab in the dark, make sure the concurrent user limit is set high enough?

[Gusto_r53]

Just checked the concurrent user limit and its set to something ridiculously high, like over 16 million simultaneous users.

I'd assume that's probably set way too high and may be confusing it?

[BKGarry]

Welcome @Gusto_r53

 

Sounds like they are all in the same network share, the staff and the students. Can you confirm that?

 

When they navigate to where they see these folders, can they open the other folders that are not their own? I ask this, as if they cannot, it isn't really an issue, If they can, I believe that someone has set the navigate/read permission on the share to solve problems that you get with publisher and some other office apps, if the cannot navigate the root of the share and it has been inherited to the others.

 

Here we have setup different shares for diffrent year groups, so our current year 7s are 2019folders$ year 8 2018folder$ etc etc staff are stafffolders$ The route share folder has read and execute permissions on that folder only, then the permission to write are on the sub folders for each user

 

 

With it setup this way, the staff share has deny permission to students set up on it, which makes sure they can never access it. This is done in the NTFS permissions on the folders.

Occasionally staff may get to the root share and see other staff members listed, but they cannot open the folders

 

I hope this makes some sense to you, let me know if you need clarification, as this method, although would require some work and copying for you to do now (you can use robocopy for that) will stop this happening in the future

[bald_pig]

That's the default, it's like 16777***

 

Is it the same whether you're browsing the share via ip or hostname?

[BKGarry]

Oops, I may have read your issue incorrectly sorry.

[Gusto_r53]

@BKGarry No problem! So this share only contains staff home folders, all other data( student work/profiles etc) is on a separate servers.

They cannot access the root folders of this share, the permission are only allowing them to access their own Home Folder area. Nor can they access or view other people home folders.

 

 

So the issue is, they will open their Home Folders (S: Drive) as we have it set, and they will navigate into a folder and file explorer will occasionally just return them to Computer where the different storage options are visible (such a C: and other network locations)

It doesn't happened every time and its very temperamental.

@bald_pig It still happens when navigating over share name not tried over ip though.

[LeMarchand]

Has someone left a renamed shortcut to "My PC" or similar in there?

[Gusto_r53]

@LeMarchand Nope! Users could be navigating any folder and it will let them in and then kick them out immediately or after a few seconds. Its as if it loses connection to the share for a split second and then drops you back at My Computer.

Even when going into any application and hitting save and navigating them folders it will boot them back out to My Computer.

[Jcx500]

maybe check Folder Redirection settings? Edited September 5, 2019 by Jcx500

[Bedders]

If drives are mapped via Group Policy Drive Map Preferences, are they set to the "Replace" action? This can cause period disconnects when GPO refreshes itself. Not sure if it's applicable on Home drives though, if they're set in the user's properties within AD.

[Gusto_r53]

@Jcx500 Appears that this place has no redirection for staff! kind off defeats the purpose of a home drive, since they'll be saving stuff to documents too which will just make their Roaming profile bigger than needed :/ that'll be something to fix when we make the push to win10.

 

@Bedders Yeah the home drivers are just set within the properties field in AD.

 

Appreciate all your input guys!

[steveg]

It does sound like this one storage location is occasionally dropping it's network connection for whatever reason. Could try something simple like a recurring ping (ping servername -t) and see if you get sporadic packet drops. On most networks you should see almost zero packet loss.

[Davit2005]

Home drive is different from redirection, I've worked in orgs where nothing was re-directed.

 

Redirection is simply re-directing Pictures, Documents etc to an alternative location, that normally being a home drive. You can have a home drive without any re-direction, it does not defeat the purpose.

 

Personally I'm not a fan of roaming profiles since RM experiences many years back i.e. CC3 but have had better results from folder redirection.

[Gusto_r53]

@steveg Tried this and left it running for a few minutes and didn't have any packets drop at all. Only the response time would differ from <1ms to =1ms which should be normal.

Also tried navigating the share while running the ping to test and see if it would back me out which it did. So i'm pretty confused as what could be causing it.

 

Will go back and check all permission and compare to the other File Servers and see if theres anything that could be different.

[bald_pig]

@steveg Tried this and left it running for a few minutes and didn't have any packets drop at all. Only the response time would differ from <1ms to =1ms which should be normal.

Also tried navigating the share while running the ping to test and see if it would back me out which it did. So i'm pretty confused as what could be causing it.

 

Will go back and check all permission and compare to the other File Servers and see if theres anything that could be different.

 

Did you get kicked out while you was doing this test though?

[Gusto_r53]

Yes it did! it backed me out while ping test was running