Mac on Windows Domain freezing due to home drive

[avequips]

Hi fellow members,

 

We have a windows domain running server 2008 r2 with windows 7 client pc's.

All was well till we introduced IMACS.

 

1. After binding the imacs to the windows domain the first problem faced was "the domain isnt responding" since our FQDN ended with a .local.

Ended up fixing this, which fixed the login issues.

 

Everything was alright, till this other issue occurred

 

2. Now for some bizzare reason when a domain user logs on, and starts an application i.e. Safari or Microsoft word or powerpoint 2011, everything freezes with a spinning wheel.

This only happens when the UNC path box is ticked (with SMB) so that the users home drive gets mapped/mounted

 

When I untick the UNC path option and select force local home directory, everything works fine.

 

I thought it could be a NTFS permission problem, but then everything works fine when logging in from a Windows PC.

 

Any ideas or tips to get around this will be highly appreciated

[rbelson]

Are you using network home directories (ie is the user working off the network drive at all times)?

 

If so you could look into whether these apps are writing out cache files to across the network. If so you could have a look at Network Home Redirector (NHR). It redirects certain cache and temp folders to the local drive which speeds things up no end.

[avequips]

Thanks for the quick reply, I'll give it a go.

 

"Are you using network home directories (ie is the user working off the network drive at all times)?"

 

I just want the user to save their documents on the home drive, but it seems like other cache's are getting saved there as well, and after going through the NHR website, I had the same problem of Office 2011 saying that the user doesn't have permission to save the file to the destination.

Still not sure why Safari freezes, when it will be the only application that I will try to run, but hopefully the Network Home Redirector fixes it.

 

To make the matter worse, they are connected wirelessly which I guess doesnt help with all that caches, but this is just temporary till next week.

[rbelson]

The other option is to look at Portable Home Directories (similar to roaming profiles) - very useful for wireless devices and essential for use on and off the domain.

[avequips]

The MAC Server hasnt arrived yet so I have to do without it for the moment.

 

Installed the NHR app, which seems to have fixed the office side of things, but Safari kept on freezing and crashing the whole system as soon as it was excuted. Installed the latest version of Safari but still had the same issue.

 

I then installed Firefox to use as an alternate browser and everything is good so far, as long no one starts Safari.

[rbelson]

Does Safari work for a local or admin user?

 

One thing I can think of is that Firefox uses its own proxy settings rather that those in System Preferences. Otherwise have a look in the logs within Console and search for "Safari"; this may shed some light on what is failing.

[avequips]

Safari works alright for the local user.

 

"One thing I can think of is that Firefox uses its own proxy settings rather that those in System Preferences. "

 

I didnt set proxy settings on Firefox, but it still uses it, I am guessing it obtained it from the system preference. I was in the middle of implementing WPAD, when this issue arised, so its not getting it from that as well.

 

It wont be till next week, when I get a chance to get back to the macs, fingers crossed everything works alright till then.