[Samba] Roaming Profiles -- Problem Rapidly Switching Users

[AndyLiebman at aol.com]

Does anybody have any insight into what could be causing this strange 
problem? I have Samba 3.02 (sorry, can't upgrade right now). My Linux box is running 
Mandrake 10 Official. I have Samba configured as a PDC. 

I can successfully add machines to my Domain -- and log on as ANY user from 
ANY machine. However on a SINGLE MACHINE, when I log on as USER_1 and access 
that user's roaming profile, if I then log off and immediately try to log on 
again (AS USER_1 or ANOTHER USER), Windows XP gives me a message saying that it 
can't access the user's roaming profile and that maybe there's a problem with 
permissions. 

If I just wait about 3 or 4 minutes, however, I can log on again as any user 
and access the roaming profile. 

Looking at the "profile" directory on my Linux Box, and can see that the 
roaming profile is updated when I succeed in accessing the roaming profile. When I 
get that message, Windows just uses the last information that was stored 
locally on the computer. 

The cause doesn' t seem to be a problem with permissions. As I log on and log 
off, I am watching the permissions on the "profiles" directory and they are 
not being altered. 

And I don't see anything in /var/log/samba/[machine_name].log that looks 
suspicious, except an occasional message: "[machine_name] (192.168.1.101) couldn't 
find service [user who was trying to log on]". 

BTW, I have my profiles directory in the following path:
/home/bigboss/profile/

The home directory on this machine is actually on its own very large 
partition -- so it's a good place to put the profiles. Whereas the root partition "/" 
has much less space -- certainly not adequate for 200 users with roaming 
profiles. 

I tried putting the profiles in /home/profile -- but every time I rebooted 
the permissions of the permissions of the "profile" directory would get changed 
to read-only for the group that needs to access the directory. 

Any ideas or solutions? 

Andy Liebman