[Samba] Existing files don't show up in share, new files do

[Pepijn Schmitz]

I found out this bizarre problem also occurs when I mount the share from 
another Linux system, so it does not appear to be related to Windows.

To recap: one of my Samba shares suddenly mysteriously hides all 
existing files, while still working completely normally with any newly 
created files.

The shared directory (/mnt/data/multimedia) looks like this:

drwxrwxrwx 11 pepijn pepijn   4096 2008-05-17 14:08 .
drwxr-xr-x 10 root   root     4096 2008-05-16 19:58 ..
drwxr-xr-x  6 pepijn pepijn   4096 2006-07-02 15:49 Audio
lrwxrwxrwx  1 pepijn pepijn      6 2005-01-17 22:13 Fotos -> Foto's
drwxrwxr-x 41 pepijn pepijn   4096 2008-03-15 23:27 Foto's
drwxrwxr-x  4 pepijn pepijn   4096 2002-07-01 02:32 Martijn
drwxrwxr-x  2 pepijn pepijn   4096 2002-03-31 04:48 recycled
drwxrwxr-x  2 pepijn pepijn   4096 2004-11-28 17:00 temp
-rwxr--r--  1 pepijn pepijn      6 2008-05-17 14:08 test.txt
drwx------  4 pepijn pepijn   4096 2005-07-02 16:17 .Trash-500
drwx------  2 pepijn pepijn   4096 2005-04-02 13:54 .Trash-pepijn
drwxrwxr-x 10 pepijn pepijn   4096 2008-03-15 23:31 Video
-r-xr--r--  1 pepijn pepijn     80 2005-07-10 19:07 volumeid.zbx
drwxr-xr-x  4 pepijn pepijn   4096 2007-12-07 22:15 XXX

When I mount the share on another Linux system using mount -t cifs, the 
contents look like this:

drwxrwxrwx 11  500  500    0 2008-05-17 14:08 .
drwxr-xr-x  4 root root 4096 2008-05-17 14:06 ..
-rwxr--r--  1  500  500    6 2008-05-17 14:08 test.txt

The test.txt is a file I created since this problem started and as you 
can see it's the only one visible. I can change its contents on the file 
server and see the changes on the client. I can manipulate the file on 
the client, even create new files, it all works perfectly. But I can't 
see any of the existing files or directories. It's utterly bizarre to me.

I tried using smbclient, and it displays the same behaviour, so it 
really looks like the problem is on the server side. I tried "touch"ing 
the existing directories but that made no difference either.

Does anyone know what might cause this strange behaviour?

Kind regards,
Pepijn Schmitz

Pepijn Schmitz wrote:
> I am suddenly no longer able to see any existing files on one of my
> shares, from my Windows clients.
>
> I have a Linux server (Fedora Core 8) which used to be my firewall and
> router as well as file and print server. There are two Samba shares on
> it I have mounted on various Windows clients: my home directory and a
> multimedia directory with my music and videos, etc. I mount the former
> as H: on all my Windows machines and the latter as M:.
>
> Recently I installed a new server to be router and firewall. I kept the
> existing server as file server though, only it now no longer has a fixed
> IP address, and it is no longer configured to be be the master browser.
>
> Since this change, my Windows clients no longer see the existing files
> on the multimedia share! Some strange features of the problem are:
>
> * It occurs on my Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit machine, as well as
> on my Windows XP SP2 machine, in exactly the same way.
> * My home directory share doesn't have the problem, I can still see all
> the existing files there.
> * There are no errors connecting to the share from the Windows side, nor
> do I see strange things in the logs on the file server.
> * I can still create new files on the share from Windows! The new file
> will show up locally on the file server (as verified by logging in with
> SSH and checking the shared directory), and my other Windows client will
> see the new file as well.
> * I can also create new files locally on the file server, and these will
> also show up on the Windows clients.
> * I can see no difference between the existing files and any new files
> created locally or through a Windows client. The file permissions are
> all the same.
> * The only difference between the two shares is that my home directory
> is on the root filesystem (ext3) and the multimedia share
> (/mnt/data/multimedia) is on a mounted ext3 file system (/mnt/data). But
> this hasn't changed!
> * While googling the problem I found some references to a "directory
> name cache size" option which might be related, so I added a "directory
> name cache size = 0" to my smb.conf, but that made no difference.
>
> I've attached my smb.conf (I've removed all the comments for brevity).
> I'll provide any log, trace or debug info if someone tells me how to.
> Hopefully somebody here can help me!
>
> Kind regards,
> Pepijn Schmitz
>