Problems accessing unRAID from windows 7 x64 machine(s)

I've read every thread I could find that seemed related, and I still have a few things left to try, but thought I should post this now, since I'm not expecting any of the ideas to work   I also think/hope this might help someone in the future, so I'm trying to get all the information in one place.

 

I installed unRAID 5B12a about a month ago.  I’ve had constant access issues, mostly latency/slowness/lost connections to unRAID since the beginning.  I’ve tried lots of stuff, and nothing has ever fully resolved it for more than a few hours/overnight.

 

I have 2 windows 7 x64 machines on the network, along with the unRAID, and a couple of laptops that connect occasionally.  Often times, when I click on any network location, my computer ‘hangs’ anywhere from a few seconds up to 3 minutes.  Totally unresponsive to anything network related.  I can alt-tab to open programs, and use them fine, but all network related traffic just hangs up.  This happens on either windows machine.  Some of the testing has led to one computer being WAY more responsive than the other.  This tells me that it’s a windows issue, not an unRAID issue, per se.  However, since it happens with attempting to access the unRAID box, it’s still part of the issue, somehow.

 

One day it will be responsive for hours on end, all very good, and I’m happy.  Then, next use, it’s all laggy and super frustrating.  I had read that windows Homegroups often cause this kind of problem, so I removed the HTPC from the Homegroup to see if it helped.  It didn’t.  Not only did it not help, it made the situation much worse!  Now, I get asked for a user/password every time I click on any folder on the unRAID box!!  I have the workgroup set to “Home” and when I get the dialog asking me to log in, it shows the DOMAIN: HTPC.  What?!?!  I’m not using a domain.  I’m not using passwords on any of the windows boxes.  I’ve read for the last several days everything I could find related to this problem, and it seems to be related to the Homegroup setting of ‘password protect access’ to the homegroup shares.

Okay, fine, I’ll put it back in the homegroup.  Too bad, still cannot access the drives, or the unRAID box (called media) under “Network” in windows explorer.  Clicking on ‘media’ just tells me it cannot access.  If I click for details, it says

 

Windows Network Diagnostics

Verify that you typed the name correctly, and then try again

Windows can’t find \\MEDIA\IPC$. The name might be misspelled.

 

This led to some search results that seem to indicate that Linux is not happy about something.

Now, the really weird part, if I click on a drive in Windows mapped to the unRAID box, it will give me a login prompt, and if I type “root” into that box with no password, I can connect to the folder just fine.  I still cannot connect to ‘media’ under any circumstances.

 

Okay, I’m just super frustrated now, and since this issue didn’t exist until I remove the computer from the homegroup, and nothing I tried will fix it, including putting it back in the homegroup.  I figured I could keep spending hours trying to figure out what got messed up, and hope I can fix it; or I could just nuke/pave with a fresh install of Windows.  I figured that it would be better to go for the “sure thing” of installing Windows again, and not risk any of the other stuff I tweaked while trying to fix this creeping back in and causing issues later.  Plus, eventually I was trying whatever I could find posted anywhere, and I’m sure that has not helped.

 

So, I wiped the machine and reinstalled windows 7 last night.  I realized that I didn’t have a driver on the thumb drive I use to install, so I went back to the desktop to access the unRAID and get the driver and much to my dismay, now the desktop is doing the same thing!!!!  It worked fine 2 hours earlier, and suddenly, removing that desktop from the network altogether caused the issue to spread to another machine!!!  I can no longer access “media” from any windows 7 machines.

 

I HATE MICROSOFT TODAY, and it’s not likely to change any time soon!!!

 

Okay, that sucks, but whatever, I’ll reinstall windows on that machine again too. I just need this to all work.  I finally got the HTPC up and running again on a fresh install, and it’s still got the same problem!! They both have the problem now.  It takes minutes to get windows to respond to almost any attempt to access the network.

 

I really just want to throw it all in the trash, and buy an abacus and some books.  Unfortunately, I’m not a quitter, so I have to fix this.  I’m seriously very stressed out now, and really just want 2 windows machines to access my media and stop fighting me.  :'(

 

Does anyone have any ideas on what’s causing this, or suggestions on what to try?

 

I’ll post my syslog when I get home tonight, but I don’t think it’s too relevant to this problem.

 

Any chance b13, which uses an updated SMB system will help?  I've seen some reports of it working perfectly for some, and big problems from others, so I'm not excited to throw another variable into the mix, but if that variable is the key to fixing it, I'll do it tonight (after I figure out how to "upgrade")

 

samba - the 3.6 series includes support for Microsofts "SMB2" protocol.  It does seem a bit "snappier" to me and overall faster transfer, though not dramatic.

http://www.samba.org/samba/history/samba-3.6.1.html

 

This is the latest stable release of Samba 3.6.

 

Major enhancements in Samba 3.6.1 include:

o  Fix smbd crashes triggered by Windows XP clients (bug #8384).
o  Fix a Winbind race leading to 100% CPU load (bug #8409).
o  Several SMB2 fixes.
o  The VFS ACL modules are no longer experimental but production-ready.


Changes since 3.6.0:
--------------------


o   Michael Adam <[email protected]>
    * BUG 8368: Fix the fallback to the deprecated spelling idmap:script.


o   Jeremy Allison <[email protected]>
    * BUG 7509: smb_acl_to_posix: ACL is invalid for set (Invalid argument).
    * BUG 8229: Fix 'widelinks' regression.
    * BUG 8370: Fix vfs_chown_fsp.
    * BUG 8412: Fix "saving as" of MS Office 2007 (Word) documents on Samba
      shares with SMB2.
    * BUG 8422: Fix infinite loop in ACL module code.
    * BUG 8429: Compound SMB2 requests on an IPC connection can corrupt the
      reply stream.
    * BUG 8443: Be smarter about setting default permissions when a ACL_USER_OBJ
      isn't given.
    * BUG 8453: Fix smbclient segfaults when dialect option -m is used for
      legacy dialects.
    * BUG 8458: IE9 on Windows 7 cannot download files to samba 3.5.11 share.
    * BUG 8473: smb2_find uses a hard coded max reply size of 0x10000 instead of
      smb2_max_trans.
    * BUG 8474: SMB2 create doesn't cope with an Apple client using NULL blob in
      create.
    * BUG 8476: Samba asserts when SMB2 client breaks the crediting rules.
    * BUG 8477: Map to guest can return uninitialized blob of data.
    * BUG 8493: DFS breaks zip file extracting unless "follow symlinks = no"
      set.
    * BUG 8494: Remove "experimental" label on VFS ACL modules.
    * BUG 8507: smbd doesn't correctly honor the "force create mode" bits from a
      cifsfs create.
    * BUG 8509: Read-only handles on SAMR allow SAMR_DOMAIN_ACCESS_CREATE_USER.
    * BUG 8521: Winbind cache timeout expiry test was reversed.


o   Christian Ambach <[email protected]>
    * BUG 8428: Fix wrong reply to DHnC (durable handle reconnect).
    * BUG 8518: SMB2 create call returns incorrect file allocation size.


o   Björn Baumbach <[email protected]>
    * BUG 8364: Fix the build of gpfs.c on RHEL 6.0 with gpfs 3.4.0-4.


o   Bram <[email protected]>
    * BUG 7551: Return error of cli_push when 'put - /some/file' is used.


o   Ira Cooper <[email protected]>
    * BUG 8395: Optimize serverid_exists() for Solaris.
    * BUG 8442: NFSv4 DENY ACLs always include SYNCHRONIZE flag - blocking
      renames.


o   Günther Deschner <[email protected]>
    * BUG 8401: registry/reg_format.c must include includes.h.
    * BUG 7465: Fix 'net ads join -k' when KRB5CCNAME is not set.


o   David Disseldorp <[email protected]>
    * BUG 8480: acl_xattr can free an invalid pointer if no blob is loaded.
    * BUG 8520: Fix SMB2 SMB2_OP_GETINFO and SMB2_OP_IOCTL parsing requirements.


o   Wilco Baan Hofman <[email protected]>
    * BUG 8455: Fix uninitialized memory problem in group_sids_to_info3.


o   Björn Jacke <[email protected]>
    * BUG 8256: Add man vfs_aio_fork.
    * BUG 8363: Fix build of vfs_prealloc on SLES8.


o   Volodymyr Khomenko <[email protected]>
    * BUG 8515: Disallow "." in can_set_delete_on_close().


o   Volker Lendecke <[email protected]>
    * BUG 7864: Fix usage of cli_errstr().
    * BUG 8334: smb2: smbd logs "Invalid SMB packet: first request: 0x0008" and crashes.
    * BUG 8338: Add a fallback for missing open&x support in MAC OS/X Lion.
    * BUG 8360: OS/2 sends an unexpected write&x/read&x chain.
    * BUG 8385: Fix smbclient access to NT4 shares.
    * BUG 8409: Fix a Winbind race leading to 100% CPU load.
    * BUG 8420: Fix 'getent group' if trusted domains are not reachable.
    * BUG 8433: Fix segfault in iconv.c.
    * BUG 8455: Samba PDC is looking up only primary user group.


o   Herb Lewis <[email protected]>
    * BUG 8365: Fix warning messages on Freebsd 4.6.2.


o   Stefan Metzmacher <[email protected]>
    * BUG 8407: SMB2 server can return requests out-of-order when processing
      a compound request.
    * BUG 8452: Check the wct of the incoming SMBnegprot responses.
    * BUG 8473: smb2_find uses a hard coded max reply size of 0x10000 instead of
      smb2_max_trans.
    * BUG 8476: Don't call smbd_terminate_connection in
      smb2_validate_message_id().
    * BUG 8503: SMB2_OP_CANCEL requests don't have to be signed.
    * BUG 8520: Fix SMB2 SMB2_OP_GETINFO and SMB2_OP_IOCTL parsing requirements.


o   SATOH Fumiyasu <[email protected]>
    * BUG 8390: Fix the build of vfs_aixacl2.c.


o   Andreas Schneider <[email protected]>
    * BUG 8236: Empty notify servername.
    * BUG 8351: While migrating forms, don't fail if the form already exists.


o   Andrew Tridgell <[email protected]>
    * BUG 8384: Fix smbd crashes triggered by Windows XP clients.

Let me first of say, I feel your pain bro. Now for some advice that may help. I learned the hard way to stay away from certain labels words that may inadvertently cause problems. Some names are reserved and thus I call my home group nothing that would include the words home or group. With home group I am not sure if you have to run IPv.6 and I do run both IPv.4 & IPv.6 and IPv.6 is just another variable. When you add something in the MS world you are never guaranteed that when having removed it that trash is not left behind that bites you later.

 

In your case I would almost be tempted to run a VM session with Linux as the OS and just see if that helps with the access problems. Also I had difficulties with the home groups and my Internet Security suites. Have you tried to turn  off all AV related processes or apps, Firewall and what have you.

 

If nothing helps do what many have done that have had it with HTPC and get a NMT. Go to http://www.mpcclub.com/forum/ and check out their  recommendations for Network Media players. No more futzing around with OS hassles, drivers, decoders and all the other headaches that come with running a HTPC. Believe me people have had it with computers and HD video playback it is a constant pain. Just one question do you have a car so that you can fix it and tinker with it or do you just want to drive it? I want a playback device for my HD content not something that shortens my lifespan by giving me grief.

 

There will be a HTPC in my Home theater room but believe me as soon as the Sigma 8910 chip is out in a device there will also be a network media player in it. Just as you have different software players on the HTPC why not get a different hardware player and see which gets the job done. Check out the Dune and PCH players.

 

All the est for the weekend.

O2G

Going for the obvious here, malware or a virus. I have multiple Windows 7 (32 and 64) connected together with my unraid box and really don't have any hesitation issue unless the folder is holding many GB's of data.

Going for the obvious here, malware or a virus. I have multiple Windows 7 (32 and 64) connected together with my unraid box and really don't have any hesitation issue unless the folder is holding many GB's of data.

 

I wish I could say that 

 

no virus, or walware.  I reinstalled windows 7 last night.  nothing is installed.  I can only assume it's the homegroup, and am about to nuke the whole homegroup, then the workgroup, then start over with new ones.

 

fingers crossed this at least gets me access to //media under windows networking

 

fun stuff 

putting

max protocol = SMB2  

in flash\config\smb-extra.conf  resolved the issue for me with the latest beta (13)

Sounds to me like your root problem is caused by an incompatible network card in the unRAID box and the problems have been compounded by you trying to fix it with bad advice.

 

W7 x64 and unRAID 4.7 play together perfectly fine for me and I find it hard to believe the newer Samba would break W7 compatibility.

 

Sounds to me like your root problem is caused by an incompatible network card in the unRAID box and the problems have been compounded by you trying to fix it with bad advice.

 

W7 x64 and unRAID 4.7 play together perfectly fine for me and I find it hard to believe the newer Samba would break W7 compatibility.

 

I agree.  I have unRAID 4.6 and 4 Win7 x64 boxes connecting just fine.  3 are SageTV servers and one is my laptop.  Also have another SageTV server on WHSv1, desktop on Vista 32bit and another on XP.  All access the unRAID server just fine.  No problems at all accessing unRAID.

I too have Windows 7 and unRAID 4.7 and 5.0b13 running with no problems. It is safe to say that there is no inherent incompatibility between Windows and unRAID.

 

What is the servers HW config? Post a syslog.

Just to put everyone in a better picture, 1st off I am not running Beta versions, 2nd look at this thread http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=15845.30 and the screenshots. It is not a matter of connecting it is a matter of a long delay before connecting and on rare occasions loosing the connection during a transfer to the UnRaid shares ONLY when using Windows explorer. It just sits there and waits and waits before it starts copying or even displaying sub folders. Drives have spun up, directories have been cached. Note this comment from the above sited thread:

 

I am running 4.7 I have never updated to the Beta version. I have an Intel PCI-e NIC that installed in the Unraid box without a hitch, and is immediately recognized. Everything works just fine, 1080p BDs being streamed to WMC7 x32 HTPC, cat6 & Gigabit switches, the jumbo frames I believe have nothing to do with Windows explorer and its funny behavior as this happened before I used jumbo frames, I was looking into jumbo frames to get rid of the problem with Windows explorer. I am copying from a QNAP NAS using TeraCopy 43Gigs at a steady 30MB/s straight to the array, no slow down here. I am copying from my local machine straight to the array between 42MB/s and 50MB/s the network is fine. I have a 64bit Win7 machine as workstation & a 32bit Win7 HTPC. The connectivity is fine and the speed is more then acceptable. The problem is Win Explorer GUI reading the shares and its folders. In rare occasions it stops in the middle of copying and gives the error "Destination no longer exists", horse pucky. I open another explorer window and have to egg the machine on to reach the destination. At times a new explorer instance displays the directories but the old explorer window that had the error message does not. I am thoroughly convinced that this is a Windows issue that was introduced in Vista and never fixed in Win7. All these people complaining about slow moving and copying using Win7 explorer can't be wrong. If I had an XP machine I would research it but it is too time consuming to get to the bottom of what is a Windows issue.

 

No problem with the NIC as that one is listed as supported. Look at the screen shots when the 1st file being read is a large file the following ones display the error "The system can not move the file to a different disc". B.S. it did it shortly there after.

 

I have almost given up on this issue and am trying to use a different GUI for copying moving content from the Windows machine to the UnRaid server. I tried WinSCP using the credentials of "root" is sees the Disk shares but not the user shares and in the disc shares it does not see any other folders. WinSCP uses FTP protocol.

 

It could be that it is a permissions issue but I would expect that with the user root I have all the permissions I need. If there is a different application that allows from a Windows machine to copy to the UnRaid box without these annoying idiosyncrasies or how to use WinSCP for it please assist me with it.

 

Thanks

O2G

syslog-20111125-004513.zip

Here's the problem I had and how I solved it. I had a really slow connection with Windows 7 and now it seems to work pretty well.

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=13358.0

Ok...

 

This sounds odd. but have you checked your clients?

Latest chipset and nic drivers? updated bios? have you tried swapping out network cables? Try something other then teracopy? (maybe try beyond compare). did you set anything odd in your networking? an unsupported frame size or maybe an incorrect DNS server.. sometimes the smallest thing can cause a headache.

It seems odd that some boxes work for you and some don't. I would start looking at the ones that don't work and consider it could be outside the unraid.

 

I'll admit we had many network copy errors at work with vista. especially when coping several hundred 1MB files at once. there was an official patch that didnt do jack.

 

Windows 7 on the other hand, no issues at all. We also see a much faster network copy speed due to the SMB2 with 7.

 

In my home use, I literally push a minimum of TB a day through my unraid box. all from win 7 (64 mostly but some 32).

I have only had 2 issues copying. once I had a cache drive  go bad and corrupted a bunch of stuff.. and once I had all sorts of network copy errors and drops.. it turned out that was my linksys router (that i was not even passing through) was all gummed up. a reboot fixed that.

 

When we tested unraid at work. we pushed a TB a day easy. never saw a hiccup..

Here's the problem I had and how I solved it. I had a really slow connection with Windows 7 and now it seems to work pretty well.

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=13358.0

The Remote Differential Compression is already turned OFF. I saw that thread and also noticed the idiot that was suggesting changes in the USB controller. So this did not help me.

Ok...

 

This sounds odd. but have you checked your clients?

Latest chipset and nic drivers? updated bios? have you tried swapping out network cables? Try something other then teracopy? (maybe try beyond compare). did you set anything odd in your networking? an unsupported frame size or maybe an incorrect DNS server.. sometimes the smallest thing can cause a headache.

It seems odd that some boxes work for you and some don't. I would start looking at the ones that don't work and consider it could be outside the unraid.

 

I'll admit we had many network copy errors at work with vista. especially when coping several hundred 1MB files at once. there was an official patch that didnt do jack.

 

Windows 7 on the other hand, no issues at all. We also see a much faster network copy speed due to the SMB2 with 7.

 

In my home use, I literally push a minimum of TB a day through my unraid box. all from win 7 (64 mostly but some 32).

I have only had 2 issues copying. once I had a cache drive  go bad and corrupted a bunch of stuff.. and once I had all sorts of network copy errors and drops.. it turned out that was my linksys router (that i was not even passing through) was all gummed up. a reboot fixed that.

 

When we tested unraid at work. we pushed a TB a day easy. never saw a hiccup..

As stated in my previous comments, once the copying starts there is very rarely an issue, it is the start of the copying and the finding/displaying of the directories. Cables have been swapped, bought a Trendnet 8 port Giga switch into which the units plug in, have a 3COM Giga switch same issue no difference. I will try from 2 other PCs and then finally I will dust off my XP laptop and see if that makes a difference. I fully agree that the problem is outside UnRaid and I want to try a different GUI for copying content, because I feel I already wasted too much time with this annoying behavior.

 

Thanks for your advise & I will follow up after the weekend.

 

I had similar problems to the ones you describe and solved it by disabling pnp os in the bios settings on my Win7 machine.

 

No more delays in opening folders and the transfer speed was sustained through the whole transfer.

I'd love an answer to this dilemma as I'm suffering the exact same issue with both Vista x64 and Windows 7 x64.  I've never had anything else to compare to though since my UnRAID server is only a couple years old.  Exact same issue with accessing drives and "initial" copy requests.  I often find that if I initiate a drag and drop copy from the Win 7 machine to the UnRAID server then I also have to browse the location in another window to get the copy started; otherwise, it times out and the second try NEVER fails.  I did seem to experience what others are saying about not having as many issues with a newer (i.e. more space available) drive.

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=11521

this might be worth a look..

 

while you are not crashing, it might be a setting that helps you http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=16547.0

read Joe's post close to the end.

I would suggest:

• Disconnect your "fresh install" PC from the LAN
  
• Disconnect your unRAID server from the LAN
  
• Connect your unRAID box directly to your "fresh" XP machine with crossover cable or if you don't have a crossover cable, via a switch with nothing else connected but those two machines.
  
• Set the IP addresses manually, e.g. 192.168.1.1 & 192.168.1.2
  
• Disconnect any other adapters your desktop has, e.g. wireless cards
  
• Disable any unRAID addons you are running
  
• Test your WebUI & copies with just these boxes connected directly together and report the results
  

Gig-E does not require a crossover cable.

this might be worth a look..

 

while you are not crashing, it might be a setting that helps you http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=16547.0

read Joe's post close to the end.

Interesting & thanks for the find I have implemented the registry changes as well as Joe's suggestion to change the command line in the go script file that starts SMB. Once the weekend is over and I had time to test it I hope that the problem is solved.

 

Thanks

O2G

It is time to shed some new light on this weird problem from my most recent experience.

 

Nothing has changed on my UnRaid server running version 4.7 and the strange behavior of waiting and timing out before it starts copying is still there even after trying different suggestions from the different links in this thread and other threads here in the forum. However I believe with my most recent experience and with some help from the community here, this idiosyncrasy may actually get solved.

 

Because I was running out of space on my v4.7 server and had four (Pre Thailand Flood pricing) 3TB Hitachi drives, begging to be used, I decided to build a new server around the HP N40L micro server (the $245 deal) and run the latest Beta software v5b14. After putting the server together with 4 Gig of memory and connecting the four 3TB Hitachi drives to the bays in the HP server I was busy for the past few days trying to get the array setup and configure the server. Here is where I am standing now:

 

Successful precleared all the drives with no errors, successful parity check having 9TB of free space, server log indicates only 2 minor issues, drives spin down automatically and spin up manually using the Web GUI. Writing speed to the array of the HP server with v5b14 from my UnRaid server version 4.7 is between 20 to 32 MB/s. Copying of 1TB using TeraCopy takes quite a bit of time. I read where some complained about the Parity Sync speed & writing to the array speed for the b13 & b14 versions while the older Beta versions did excellent. So I know this will eventually be sorted.

 

Now here is the good news all the weird problems accessing v4.7 from Win 7 64bit machines I do not experience with the HP Micro Server running the latest beta. Solid accessing User as well as disk shares, no problems with copy delays and other delays, just not lightning fast.

 

This makes me tend to believe that it is not network hardware but could be v4.7 server hardware but more likely setup & configuration differences. For example the user root on v4.7 server has a password, on the v5b14 server root has no password. (Easier credentials used by Windows?) Also I do not recollect that there was for v4.7 an exporting of SMB Security Settings with security = Public which is the setting on the HP server running v5b14. In addition I just noticed that the permission for the disk shares on v4.7 server is 700 while on the v5b14 HP server it is 770.

 

Could it be that not having permissions for the group on v4.7 server could be causing the weird problems? How do I safely change the permissions on the v4.7 server and include group permissions if this is needed? The server has 8 disks (2TB Samsung drives) with about 12TB of content.

 

I have a gut feeling that I am getting closer to a solution with some help from the community.

 

Thanks

O2G

Try filling up one of the 3TB drives until it's nearly full and repeat your testing.  Most users that have reported this issue have noticed that when installing a new drive the phenomenon is much less frequent (if at all) as compared to older drives in the array that are typically over 90% full.

What Betaman said could be the issue.

 

The permissions and some related share settings were changed in the beta series because the security model was very much changed. Don't expect them to appear to be the same.

 

Didn't see it - did you ever post specs on the troublesome server, specifically the make and model of network adapter in use?

 

Peter

 

 

This the build of the troubled server:

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=5102.0

 

I added an Intel NIC and disabled the on board Network connection. This is the intel NIC:

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=33-106-033

 

Thanks for your help

O2G

Here's another thread on the issue related to the fill % of drives in the array:

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=17310.0

 

The problem I seem to experience most often though is that the disk becomes unavailable in Windows 7 x64 (was the same in Vista x64 as well).  A copy will fail to initialize and will timeout.  Immediately trying to repeat the copy works 99% of the time.  As I mentioned previously, trying to access the disk with a separate process (e.g. through another Windows Explorer window) can also help initiate the copy as I notice once the drive is accessed by Windows Explorer the copy starts immediately (most often the command bar fills up before the disk becomes available...even though it is already spun up).  I have 6 2TB drives in my array and since I've created more free space on each disk the problem is far less frequent but still occurs on disks that are less than 90% full.

WTF, the problem I am experiencing may be because of filled discs, didn't see that coming. Your description is mirroring my experience, opening another explorer window, doing an immediate copy after the failure works so far every time. I have 8 2TB drives in the v4.7 server and all but 2 were filled to 90+ capacity. Now on my HP N40L server v5.b14 the 3 3TB drives have plenty of space and I have yet to experience the problem that I have with the v4.7 server.