[Samba] Peculiar issue when loading images via samba/cifs

[David Brewer]

I am using Enterprise Samba 3.0.30 on RHEL 4 to share a directory of
images between two servers. I'm using CIFS to mount the share.  Both
servers expose the images over the web via Apache2.

On the server with the mounted share, when I load a page with many
images embedded, some of the images load only partially -- some part
of the image draws normally, and then the rest is just blank.  On the
server with the images directly on it, this problem does not occur.

Some details about the images that don't finish loading on the server
using the share:
 * The problem occurs in Firefox 2 and in Opera 9, but the images load
normally in IE.
 * The problem only occurs the first time you load the image.  If you
then hit reload on the page to get the images from the cache, the
images load fine.  However, if you "shift-reload" to force a reload
from the server, the problem occurs again.
 * The same images always fail in exactly the same place.

I had a very similar setup working using Ubuntu Gutsy, but of course
that was a different version of the kernel (2.6.22-14-server vs
2.6.9-67.ELsmp) and of Samba (3.0.26a vs 3.0.30).

I've been experimenting with increasingly more esoteric settings in
the smb.conf and in the options I am using to mount the share via
cifs, but without any luck.  Does anyone have some insight into why
the combination of a certain browser + the fact that the files are
coming over a cifs share might lead to this kind of behavior?  And,
more importantly, what can I try to resolve it?

Thanks in advance for any help,

David Brewer