[Samba] 2nd POSTING: Samba PDC shares causing errors in MS Word 97 SR2

[Joel Hammer]

No answers yet so I will just offer some ideas gleaned from other similar
problems reported on this list.
This may be a network problem.
So, going through my mail.read file, here is one I found from an old post:

===================old post==================================
Hi folks,
I posted weeks ago reporting my problems with Samba on Redhat 7.3 with
Win98SE. I got very few replies, it were about 2 or 3, and just one stated it
could be a networking problem. So it was.
 
Problm description:
When copying to a samba share windows breaks with an error message that the
share is no longer available. Although you can see file parts from both
systems in the share folder. When you "ok" the message the part vanishes.
 
Solution:
The problem is a discrepacy in networking settings for TCP between Win98se and
Samba or Linux.
Settings are adjustable in smb.conf for Linux. For windows you can change
setting with eg. "Dr.TCP" (small executable that does registry updates for
you).
 
Targets are to Parameters:
MTU and RecieveWindow
 
First check what's currently set via "tcpdump -i eth0 >somelogfile". Change
eth0 for you networking card if necessary. Search for "mss". Looks like this:
 
23:20:32.306499 celvin.dentalmail.de.1029 > imap.dentalmail.de.netbios-ssn: S
133773:133773(0) win 32768 <mss 1460,nop,nop,sackOK> (DF)
23:20:32.306587 imap.dentalmail.de.netbios-ssn > celvin.dentalmail.de.1029: S
821427727:821427727(0) ack 133774 win 5840 <mss 1460,nop,nop,sackOK> (DF)       


For short:
windows > linux win 32768 <mss 1460,nop,nop,sackOK> (DF)
linux > windows win 5840 <mss 1460,nop,nop,sackOK> (DF)
 
As you can see the Recieve window differs a lot but mss is the same. This was
just so by accident, I played long time with the settings. But didn't work of
course.
The aim should be to make those values identical.
 
For linux I am not sure where to change the recievewindow so I did it on
windows. I thought the parameter so_rcvbuf for Samba should work but it had no
effect.
 
Now what took me long to understand. MSS is MTU - 40. Thats just per
definition since the 40 is the lengs of the TCP packet header.
So to get the right value for windows just add 40 to your mss value, in my
case 1500 would be correct.
 
Now it works fine.
Ok I should increase the recieve window for perfomance, but low traffic is
better than no traffic ;-)
                                   
=========================end of old post=====================

This might give you something to get you thinking while you solve this
problem.

We also frequently see locking problems reported on this list. I assume word
is locking the document. Why don't you fool around with a nonlocking
application, such as notepad. Not quite sure what that will tell you but it
might give some insight.

oplocks are often a problem when a network is bad. Are you using them?

I would look in the samba log and see if any clues turn up there.

Don't hold your breath waiting for a guru to pinpoint your problem for you.

Joel





On Mon, Nov 18, 2002 at 09:02:17AM +1100, Tom Pride wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> I support around 15 Windows 2000 Clients who log into and have home 
> directories on a  Samba PDC running under RedHat 7.3.  The version of 
> samba I am using is 2.5.5.  All the clients use Word97 SR2 and they all 
> get the following error while working on documents stored on their home 
> directories on the PDC:
> 
> Word failed reading from this file (filename.doc). Please restore the 
> network connection or replace the floppy disc and retry.
> 
> This error will simply pop up while the user is typing or if the 
> document is just left open for a while.  If a user works on a document 
> stored on thier PC's local hard drive then the error will not occur. The 
> network is not dropping out at any stage.  Is their a setting in the 
> smb.conf that might fix this problem and has anyone else come accross 
> this before?  Please help.
> 
> Thanks in advance.
> 
> -- 
> Thomas Pride
> Computer Systems Officer
> Corporate Information Technology (CIT)
> Dept. of Primary Industries, Water & Environment
> 8th Floor 134 Macquarie Street
> Hobart, Tasmania 7000
> 
> Phone: (03) 6233 3942
> Fax: (03) 6224 1388
> Email: Thomas.Pride at dpiwe.tas.gov.au
> 
> 
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