samba - Jun 2012 - freebsd - duplicate folders but one is not accessible

Hello List,

I got called by a colleague last Friday to take a look at samba on an
existing
 unix box, which turned out to be freebsd.  Somehow I have managed to
make it past a decade of computing without seeing freebsd.  while it is
different, it is not significantly so...

This box was built by a gentleman who is not longer with the company
that owns it.  As best as I can tell, the windows workstations on the
network create a new "job", which in turn triggers something on the
freebsd box.  That something in turn creates a folder structure in the
samba share (on the same box) and populates the folders with certain
files.  Then, the workstations launch an application which is supposed
to let them open one of the files that gets placed in the automatically
created folder structure.

The problem is that when they try to open that file from the workstation
application, they get an error that looks like a memory access
violation.

If I do a cp -Ra to replicate the folder, the windows application can
open the file from the replicated folder.  I can in fact copy the folder
to the same directory in the same share, a different directory in the
same share, a different share on the same box, or a different share on a
different computer, the application on the workstations can open the
file without error.

So it seems there is something about the originally created folder
structure that is causing the windows application to error out.  I have
compared the replicated directory in every detail I could think of to
the original one.  Both paths are well under 200 characters, so I don't
think it is a path length problem.  They both have the same owner/group,
permissions, size, etc....  Windows shows no permissions on either the
original or the replicated directory.  The only difference I can find
between the replicated directory and the original is that the windows
application won't open the file if it is in the original directory.  I
have also checked the smb.conf file, the only thing I see in there that
I haven't used before is some kind of recycle-bin setup, but based on
the path configured for that, it should have nothing to do with what is
happening in this one share.

Everything points to a permissions issue, and all of my googling agrees.
But none of my investigating brings up even one bit of evidence to
support the hypothesis.  Does anyone have any suggestions about what
might be going on here?

If you are still reading, thank you for taking the time :)


-- 
Bob Miller
867-334-7117 / 867-633-3760
http://computerisms.ca
bob at computerisms.ca
Network, Internet, Server,
and Open Source Solutions