[Samba] XP client only uploads roaming profile to server after client is restarted

[Mark Lake]

I have a number of XP clients which are configured to use roaming 
profiles stored on a samba server (samba v. 3.0.24, Debian etch).

One client works perfectly, in that the roaming profile is always 
downloaded at login and uploaded immediately at logout. This is true for 
all users logging in on that client. Consequently I've no reason to 
suspect the samba configuration or permissions.

Several clients, however, exhibit a problem in that roaming profile is 
downloaded at login but is only sometimes uploaded at logout. 
Specifically, if the  client is restarted and a user logs in then the 
profile is correctly uploaded when that user logs out.  If that user 
subsequently logs in again without restarting the machine then the 
profile is downloaded, but now when they log out it is not uploaded back 
to the server.  It seems that the  only way to have the profile uploaded 
is to have the user restart the client before they log in.  The problem 
occurs for all users logging in on those particular clients.

Given that the clients are all - to the best of my knowledge - 
configured identically from a fresh install of XP, I'm stumped.  The 
samba logs reveal that in all cases the problematic clients do connect 
to the Profiles share, just that, except after reboot, they don't 
actually write any files back to it.

I'd be grateful if anyone knows what the problem is or has any ideas how 
I should set about debugging this.

Thanks,

Mark
-- 
Dr Mark Lake

Institute of Archaeology
31-34 Gordon Square
London WC1H 0PY
UK

Tel: +44 (0)207 679 7495
Fax: +44 (0)207 383 2572