[Samba] smb_proc_readdir_long - ls not showing files

[Paul Warner]

Hello,

We are getting a baffling problem with a samba mounted drive on Redhat, mounted
from a windows box.  We cannot always see files in the mounted directory with ls
or perl.  The directory has 237 files in it.  We sometimes see 197 files with
ls.  Sometimes we see nothing.  This can happen from one try to the next (i.e.
run ls, see the files, immediately run ls again and see nothing).  We have
searched the web, and searched the samba lists, but have not found an answer
(although we have found postings about the same problem).  We have tried adding
a new file to the windows directory - then we can see the files!  But delete the
file in windows and suddenly we cannot see anything in the linux mount.  We have
found files that can break it as well, i.e., add the file in windows and you
suddenly see no files at all in the linux mount.  But it is not a specific file,
since the same file with a different name will not cause a problem, or if you
load the files in a different order the behavior can change as well.

The directory contains files with very long names, such as:
"Bullying and Harassment- Fostering dignity at work and managing complaints.doc"

We are running Redhat Linux 9, and Redhat Enterprise Linux 3.  We have the same
problem on both systems, and in fact one of our colleagues observes the same
problem on Suse 9.3 (with the 2.6 kernel).  The windows box is running Windows
2003 Server.  Our samba is version 3.0.14a.

dmesg output when we have the problem:
smb_proc_readdir_long: name=, result=-2, rcls=1, err=123

samba mount command:
mount -t smbfs -o
username=user,password=xxxx,gid=501,dmask=775,workgroup=internal
//windowsserver/doc /mnt/doc

This problem has broken an important perl script for us.  Hopefully someone on
the list can provide the answer, or point us to the place to get the answer.

Thanks,
Paul