[Samba] Windows 7 Offline Files (CSC) not syncing from Samba 3.4.0 PDC

[Jonathan]

Hi All,
	I've been running a Samba 3.4.0 on Ubuntu 9.10 for over a year at a  
friend's office and it has been extremely stable. But I've suddenly hit a  
scenario where Windows 7 clients can no longer properly sync the main  
share as 'Offline Files'

I found it highly unreliable under Vista Business, then Win7Pro seemed to  
work much better; but suddenly I am finding that the sync is succeeding  
but the files are not actually available offline.

Here are the scenarios I am seeing:
1) A user updates an offline copy of an Open Office document or  
presentation. When the user sync's, the updated copy is sent to the  
server, but the local copy gets trashed and ceases to be available offline  
regardless of how many time it 'successfully' syncs.

2) I reformatted the offline files cache on a Win7Pro host today and  
started a fresh sync relationship with the folder. The first attempt to  
sync failed ~6600 out of ~6900 files claiming they were in use by another  
user/process - this was nonsense and smbstatus showed only one file open  
which was correct. I restarted smbd and then the sync completed with *NO  
ERRORS* - However as soon as the host was taken away from the network,  
almost all the offline files had crosses through them to indicate that  
they weren't available.

Until 2-3 weeks ago, offline files appeared to be working reasonably well  
so I'm struggling to understand what has changed. I can find little  
information about the combination of Windows 7 Offline Files with a Samba  
PDC - Has anyone ever made this work reliably (or at least seen the same  
problem)??

Can anyone offer me any assistance with diagnosing the offline files cache  
on the windows side, or advise on what logging to set up on the Samba side  
to analyse this problem (or an alternative product that just works  
better!)? I've attached my smb.conf
I do understand that this is the Samba list and not a Windows support  
list, but M$ aren't interested in helping Samba users ;-)

Notes:
- I've updated the registry to round up write times as documented on  
http://blogs.technet.com/b/filecab/archive/2007/03/16/using-offline-files-with-samba-emc-servers-nas-devices.aspx
- I follows the Samba wiki to enable Domain Compatibility Mode to join  
Windows 7 to the domain.
- There are two users on Windows XP Home which access the Shared files  
without being domain members. No users Domain/Non-Domain have any problems  
accessing files while online in the office.

Any help/advice/suggestions would be much appreciated :-)

Regards
Jonathan





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