Another offline files problem.

[maniac]

Just when you think you've seen everything off-line files can possibly do, yet another weird one I've not seen before raises its head.

 

All Staff members my documents area (N:\ on our system) is automatically made available off-line on laptops, exactly the same as it was on the old system. I've got some staff however that are experiencing a very weird problem. When using the files off line they all open as blank documents - every single one of them. if put the laptop on-line it's all OK again. The strange thing is if you create a new file in off-line mode, that file is then OK both off-line and on-line.

 

I've tried resetting the off-line files cache and re-synchronising the laptop without any luck, it still does the same thing, and I've checked permissions on various things and can't see anything wrong. I've set this up exactly the same as I've done many times before on networks, and I've never seen this behaviour before, has anyone else?

 

Mike.

[leco]

Just when you think you've seen everything off-line files can possibly do, yet another weird one I've not seen before raises its head.

 

All Staff members my documents area (N:\ on our system) is automatically made available off-line on laptops, exactly the same as it was on the old system. I've got some staff however that are experiencing a very weird problem. When using the files off line they all open as blank documents - every single one of them. if put the laptop on-line it's all OK again. The strange thing is if you create a new file in off-line mode, that file is then OK both off-line and on-line.

 

I've tried resetting the off-line files cache and re-synchronising the laptop without any luck, it still does the same thing, and I've checked permissions on various things and can't see anything wrong. I've set this up exactly the same as I've done many times before on networks, and I've never seen this behaviour before, has anyone else?

 

Mike.

 

Are these Office 2007 files? I often have what appear to be blank docs - but click on the Office button and hey presto the doc displays.

[maniac]

This is actually affecting all staff at my school, I had no idea it was so wide spread until I went round today and looked at most of the laptops, and sure enough in offline mode, every single document is just a blank file. Windows knows the size of it, it's just they open up as blank documents.

 

The only solution I've found so far is to copy the users files onto a portable HDD, remove them from the server then copy them back to their home share through the laptop - then they work properly. Obviously this isn't really a solution more of a work around.

 

I've tried:

Resetting the offline file cache - no change

Unticking the encrypt offline file cache option that we had switched on, then resetting the offline files cache - no change

Putting the user in the generic 'users' group incase it was a GPO messing things up - No change

Resetting the users profile - no change

Putting the laptop into the generic computers container and updating group policies - no change

creating a brand new user with no roaming profile, just a re-direction on my documents - no change

 

It leads me to thinking that it's a server configuration problem, but the permissions are exactly the same as I've used before when setting up offline files. Staff have read only access to the root of the share, and full rights to their user area. This should work, I know it should because I've done it before.

 

Can anyone suggest anything else I can try before I lose what little amount of hair I have left through pulling it out in frustration, as this problem really has got me well and truly stumped at the moment.

 

Thanks in anticipation

 

Mike.

[leco]

If it's any consolation I have two laptops showing the same symptoms now I had thought that one of them was because I'd changed the user from a local to a network user and that user had tried to access files held on the C drive. But it's not that. The files have the synchronised swirly thing on the icon in their home directory but the files are not available offline at all. Like yours they display as blanks.

 

I haven't as yet had an opportunity to investigate further, but I intend to as the files in question are "vital" to the user.

 

Will report back if I find anything useful.

[PiqueABoo]

The only solution I've found so far is to copy the users files onto a portable HDD, remove them from the server then copy them back to their home share through the laptop

 

Which ensures CSC on the laptop has seen/cached every bit of the files. It could be they're "sparsely-cached" i.e. CSC has some of the file, but not all of it.

 

I'd copy a blank to a penstick, take it somewhere else and compare it against a copy from a server (binary compare, difference in SysInternals strings.exe output etc.) If the blank is a fraction of it's server copy then the CSC "fill" isn't working for some reason.

 

PS: Except I thought CSC wasn't supposed to show you sparsely-cached files when you're offline - still, it's probably worth checking/eliminating.

Edited September 10, 2009 by PiqueABoo
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