samba - May 2007 - Writing files > 2GB from Windows

Can anybody explain why SOME Windows XP applications have trouble 
writing files larger than 2 GB (or sometimes larger than 4 GB) to Linux 
Samba shares, when OTHER Windows applications on the same machine do not 
have  difficulty writing large files to the same Samba share? And when 
the underlying Linux filesystem supports very large files?

I have sometimes even found that a SINGLE Windows application can write 
files larger than 4 GBs while performing SOME operations, but while 
performing OTHER operations, when a file gets to 2GB or 4GB, you get 
back a message saying "reached file size limit" or something similar. 
And those same operations don't cause any trouble when writing > 4GB 
files to a local hard drive.

Is there a setting in smb.conf that can communicate better to Windows 
applications that large file sizes are supported?

Likewise, is there a Windows XP registry setting that can make sure that 
applications know they can write large files to a Samba share?

Help and insight would be appreciated.

Andy Liebman

andrew@bramp.freeserve.co.uk wrote:
> Can these applications write large files to the local disk? It could 
> be the fault of the application and not of samba.
>
Yes, you might have missed that I mentioned this below.  The 
applications have no trouble writing big files (> 4 GB) to a local disk.

I will also reiterate, I have a case in which the very same application 
only has trouble under specific circumstances. I am talking about a 
Video Editing application. The application can capture most "formats"
of
video to the Samba share and produce single files that are 20, 40, 80 
GBs in size. But when capturing in a couple of specific formats, the 
capture stops when the file reaches 2 GBs with the message "maximum file 
size reached". There is no such limit when capturing to a local drive.

Similarly, when "importing" certain formats of video, we see that the 
import stops at 4 GBs with a similar error.
> Andrew
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "AndyLiebman"
<AndyLiebman@aol.com>
> To: "samba" <samba@lists.samba.org>
> Sent: Friday, May 11, 2007 12:21 PM
> Subject: [Samba] Writing files > 2GB from Windows
>
>
>> Can anybody explain why SOME Windows XP applications have trouble 
>> writing files larger than 2 GB (or sometimes larger than 4 GB) to 
>> Linux Samba shares, when OTHER Windows applications on the same 
>> machine do not have difficulty writing large files to the same Samba 
>> share? And when the underlying Linux filesystem supports very large 
>> files?
>>
>> I have sometimes even found that a SINGLE Windows application can 
>> write files larger than 4 GBs while performing SOME operations, but 
>> while performing OTHER operations, when a file gets to 2GB or 4GB, 
>> you get back a message saying "reached file size limit" or
something
>> similar. And those same operations don't cause any trouble when 
>> writing > 4GB files to a local hard drive.
>>
>> Is there a setting in smb.conf that can communicate better to Windows 
>> applications that large file sizes are supported?
>>
>> Likewise, is there a Windows XP registry setting that can make sure 
>> that applications know they can write large files to a Samba share?
>>
>> Help and insight would be appreciated.
>>
>> Andy Liebman
>