[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





-- 
Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/