Really strange problem Folder Redirection possible DNS/DHCP

[Davit2005]

We have 2 DC's one 2008 R2 and the schema master is a 2003 SP1 where all the shares (including the redirected data) are held, the schema has been updated and I ran thru all the checks pre and post upgrade to makesure no issues.

 

We have folder direction for Application Data, Start Menu, Pictures, My Documents and desktops.

 

When we log on as staff we allways sometimes have either AppData, Documents or Desktop not working I have found that doing a IPCONFIG /Release /Renew brings back the documents or Desktop but the App data seems more problematic with it seeming to go back to the root of the HomeShare not the Application Data folder.

 

Any one got any ideas.

 

This is really bugging me, it doesn't seem to matter which DC we logon to either as I can do the echo %LogonServer% which indicates even when logon by the 2008r2 DC it will not allways work.

[TheMan100]

What does it say in the event viewer?

[Davit2005]

Thanks for reply

 

The event viewer reads

'Failed to apply policy and redirect folder "Documents" to "\\[servername]\[shareName]\[userName]\My Documents"

 

I've just spotted if you scrol down it says

The following error occured: "Folder can not move because there is non redirectable folder at the same path"

 

This is weird because students have the same policy (I'll check all redirections to make sure, but I know appdata is the same for staff and students), also why does some times it works and sometimes it doesn't even if you login by different logon servers.

[TheMan100]

Does deleting the profiles locally, and then logging back in fix the issue? Edited October 10, 2011 by TheMan100

[Michael]

This is how I do it and it does work.

 

The difference appears that I redirect everything under \\SERVERNAME\SHARE$ whereas you're redirecting everything as: \\SERVERNAME\SHARE\%Username%\My Documents

 

Although you can do it your way, it means the system itself manages permissions and I suspect this is where the problem may be.

[Davit2005]

We haven't shared each home area individually. Also can't understand why no students are having the issue, only staff. Tested with an actual student account and a test account, the application data is used everytime when apps create their own folders. When a staff member logs on thats when I seem to have intermittent issues.

[soveryapt]

One thing I've just noticed on my servers is that 2008R2 now list "My Documents" in the Windows 7 format of "Documents" and the other sections individually.

 

Now, you can set the Videos, Music, etc, to "Follow Documents" which will essentially map them to the right places, but if you're running shares you may find that they are all being set up as a "wrong" folder. I'm currently working through my user folders to change all the "My Documents" to being just "Documents" having updated my drive maps to be the same, so fingers cross that will resolve it for me, and hopefully give you a heads up for your problem.

 

EDIT:

When running some tests, I found that new groups I was adding in came up as My Documents whilst the old stayed Documents, so if I renamed, applied, renamed back and applied they all became My Documents .. that's annoying! But hey, it might still be something to do with that somewhere ..

Edited October 11, 2011 by soveryapt

[Davit2005]

I have found I was consistently getting 'My Pictures' folder failing redirect so I changed to IP address of server in the redirect settings of My Pictures only which stopped that, cleared local profile (which I had done before many times anyway). I have now logged on to many machines and cleared my local profile and problem seems to be solved.

 

I had a few times when I'd done a IPCONFIG /Release /Renew when a few people including me hadn't got my directed desktop and documents which then brought my desktop back. We have a DHCP server here setup for infinite lease which I've never seen before it got me woundering a bit as some people say it does not update any changes made and as I'd changed DNS server settings I woundered wether this might be causing an issue.

 

I had been making lots of changes initially to Staff GPO as people were getting duplicate My Documents folders since move to Windows 7. I never really made any changes to student GPO apart from Start Menu redirection to a Network share instead of the NETLOGON folder.

[soveryapt]

I had been making lots of changes initially to Staff GPO as people were getting duplicate My Documents folders since move to Windows 7. I never really made any changes to student GPO apart from Start Menu redirection to a Network share instead of the NETLOGON folder.

 

I'm getting this at the moment .. when people log on, the server creates a new My Documents folder for them, but doesn't move in their files from the old My Documents folder, and it's doing my nut! lol ..