Re: Existing files don't show up in share, new files do

Pepijn Schmitz <samba@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> · Sat, 17 May 2008 14:18:50 +0200

I found out this bizarre problem also occurs when I mount the share from 

another Linux system, so it does not appear to be related to Windows.

To recap: one of my Samba shares suddenly mysteriously hides all 

existing files, while still working completely normally with any newly 

created files.

The shared directory (/mnt/data/multimedia) looks like this:

drwxrwxrwx 11 pepijn pepijn   4096 2008-05-17 14:08 .
drwxr-xr-x 10 root   root     4096 2008-05-16 19:58 ..
drwxr-xr-x  6 pepijn pepijn   4096 2006-07-02 15:49 Audio
lrwxrwxrwx  1 pepijn pepijn      6 2005-01-17 22:13 Fotos -> Foto's
drwxrwxr-x 41 pepijn pepijn   4096 2008-03-15 23:27 Foto's
drwxrwxr-x  4 pepijn pepijn   4096 2002-07-01 02:32 Martijn
drwxrwxr-x  2 pepijn pepijn   4096 2002-03-31 04:48 recycled
drwxrwxr-x  2 pepijn pepijn   4096 2004-11-28 17:00 temp
-rwxr--r--  1 pepijn pepijn      6 2008-05-17 14:08 test.txt
drwx------  4 pepijn pepijn   4096 2005-07-02 16:17 .Trash-500
drwx------  2 pepijn pepijn   4096 2005-04-02 13:54 .Trash-pepijn
drwxrwxr-x 10 pepijn pepijn   4096 2008-03-15 23:31 Video
-r-xr--r--  1 pepijn pepijn     80 2005-07-10 19:07 volumeid.zbx
drwxr-xr-x  4 pepijn pepijn   4096 2007-12-07 22:15 XXX

When I mount the share on another Linux system using mount -t cifs, the 

contents look like this:

drwxrwxrwx 11  500  500    0 2008-05-17 14:08 .
drwxr-xr-x  4 root root 4096 2008-05-17 14:06 ..
-rwxr--r--  1  500  500    6 2008-05-17 14:08 test.txt

The test.txt is a file I created since this problem started and as you 

can see it's the only one visible. I can change its contents on the file 

server and see the changes on the client. I can manipulate the file on 

the client, even create new files, it all works perfectly. But I can't 

see any of the existing files or directories. It's utterly bizarre to me.

I tried using smbclient, and it displays the same behaviour, so it 

really looks like the problem is on the server side. I tried "touch"ing 

the existing directories but that made no difference either.

Does anyone know what might cause this strange behaviour?

Kind regards,
Pepijn Schmitz

Pepijn Schmitz wrote:

I am suddenly no longer able to see any existing files on one of my
shares, from my Windows clients.

I have a Linux server (Fedora Core 8) which used to be my firewall and
router as well as file and print server. There are two Samba shares on
it I have mounted on various Windows clients: my home directory and a
multimedia directory with my music and videos, etc. I mount the former
as H: on all my Windows machines and the latter as M:.

Recently I installed a new server to be router and firewall. I kept the
existing server as file server though, only it now no longer has a fixed
IP address, and it is no longer configured to be be the master browser.

Since this change, my Windows clients no longer see the existing files
on the multimedia share! Some strange features of the problem are:

* It occurs on my Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit machine, as well as
on my Windows XP SP2 machine, in exactly the same way.
* My home directory share doesn't have the problem, I can still see all
the existing files there.
* There are no errors connecting to the share from the Windows side, nor
do I see strange things in the logs on the file server.
* I can still create new files on the share from Windows! The new file
will show up locally on the file server (as verified by logging in with
SSH and checking the shared directory), and my other Windows client will
see the new file as well.
* I can also create new files locally on the file server, and these will
also show up on the Windows clients.
* I can see no difference between the existing files and any new files
created locally or through a Windows client. The file permissions are
all the same.
* The only difference between the two shares is that my home directory
is on the root filesystem (ext3) and the multimedia share
(/mnt/data/multimedia) is on a mounted ext3 file system (/mnt/data). But
this hasn't changed!
* While googling the problem I found some references to a "directory
name cache size" option which might be related, so I added a "directory
name cache size = 0" to my smb.conf, but that made no difference.

I've attached my smb.conf (I've removed all the comments for brevity).
I'll provide any log, trace or debug info if someone tells me how to.
Hopefully somebody here can help me!

Kind regards,
Pepijn Schmitz

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