samba - Dec 1999 - Windoze workstation hangs accessing certain files on the Samba Share.

I'm configuring Samba 2.0.3 for win95/98 clients (~20 workstations) and
everything was going great for the first 10 or 12. Now when I access
certain subdirectories of my share from the Win machine, everything
nearly hangs. I say nearly because the mouse will still move sort of. It
creeps along at about a pixel a second. It continues to get worse until
I just have to cold boot the workstation.

I've dug through the archives and see suggestions on speed and
performance, but no mention and anything this crazy.

I have noticed that if I can get the mouse over to a different
subdirectory and actually click it off of the offending subdirectory,
the workstation will suddenly go back to normal. 

It seemed at first to be related to a certain group of workstations, but
then each workstation I went to after that suffered the same problem. 

Logging in as a different user didn't help. I copied the files in that
directory to a new space and the new space was affected too. I copied
those files to a space that was working and then /it/ started suffering
the same fate until I got those files out of there!!!

Have I somehow left these files open and locked? If so, how do I unlock
them ... would a server reboot even help? And why would copies of these
files be affected if the problem is open/locked files??

If anyone has seen this before or has any ideas, please let me know.
I've beat my head against it and have come up empty. My fear is that
this sort of thing will propigate onto other more critical directories,
then I'd have to throw it all away and start over.

Thanks in advance.
 
___________________________________
Ethan Vaughn
vaughne@home.com

You've almost solved the problem. Either the shear number of files creates
the problem, or certain of the files create the problem. Repeatedly move
half the remaining files until the problem goes away. When it does, take
the files just moved as a group and repeat the procedure. Sooner or later
you'll isolate the offending file, or prove that the problem is the shear
number of files.

You're almost done.

When you find the offending file(s), you can report to the list what the
problem was with the file(s) so we can be prepared for the same problem.

Steve Litt

Steve Litt

At 10:30 AM 12/13/1999 +1100, Ethan Vaughn wrote:
>I'm configuring Samba 2.0.3 for win95/98 clients (~20 workstations) and
>everything was going great for the first 10 or 12. Now when I access
>certain subdirectories of my share from the Win machine, everything
>nearly hangs. I say nearly because the mouse will still move sort of. It
>creeps along at about a pixel a second. It continues to get worse until
>I just have to cold boot the workstation.
>
>I've dug through the archives and see suggestions on speed and
>performance, but no mention and anything this crazy.
>
>I have noticed that if I can get the mouse over to a different
>subdirectory and actually click it off of the offending subdirectory,
>the workstation will suddenly go back to normal. 
>
>It seemed at first to be related to a certain group of workstations, but
>then each workstation I went to after that suffered the same problem. 
>
>Logging in as a different user didn't help. I copied the files in that
>directory to a new space and the new space was affected too. I copied
>those files to a space that was working and then /it/ started suffering
>the same fate until I got those files out of there!!!
>
>Have I somehow left these files open and locked? If so, how do I unlock
>them ... would a server reboot even help? And why would copies of these
>files be affected if the problem is open/locked files??
>
>If anyone has seen this before or has any ideas, please let me know.
>I've beat my head against it and have come up empty. My fear is that
>this sort of thing will propigate onto other more critical directories,
>then I'd have to throw it all away and start over.
>
>Thanks in advance.
> 
>___________________________________
>Ethan Vaughn
>vaughne@home.com
>