We have identified a couple of repeatable, demonstrable scenarios with unexplained rejected folder access on our servers for Mac users. Hopefully, this can be presented to Novell for a solution.
What we did to demonstrate scenario 1;
1. setup a PC and Mac side-by-side
2. login to our server and open up to a central location on both Mac and PC
3. on the PC in that central location create a folder
4. on the Mac in that central location drag the created folder to the Mac desktop, this should work fine, no problem
5. on the PC rename that folder
6. on the Mac drag a file to that renamed folder, this should error with the following message;
a. You cannot copy some of these items to the destination because their names are too long for the destination. Do you want to skip copying these items and continue copying the other items?
b. Select skip, response is the filename is copied to the location with zero or small byte size. Try opening it and you get file is corrupted error message.
What we did to demonstrate scenario 2;
1. setup a PC and Mac side-by-side
2. login to our server and open up to a central location on both Mac and PC
3. on the PC in that central location create a folder then create a subfolder
4. copy some content into the subfolder
5. on the Mac in that central location drag the created top level folder to the Mac desktop, this should work fine, no problem
6. on the PC rename that subfolder
7. on the Mac drag that top level folder to the Mac desktop, this should error on the Mac with the following;
a. The operation cannot be completed because you do not have sufficient privileges for
b. The operation cannot be completed because you do not have sufficient privileges for
8. on the Mac, if you open that subfolder you can see the file copied in step 4 above but, you can not open that file, you get the following message if you try;
a. There was an error opening this document. You do not have permission to open this file.
9. on the PC drag some content into the top level folder
10. on the Mac you can open that file directly from the server or copy it locally, no problem, however-the subfolder is still corrupted or locked, whichever
11. on the PC rename the top level folder
12. on the Mac that same file just opened in step 10 above is now not accessible, get the following message;
a. The document could not be opened.
I have observed some variances in the above. For instance, a change on the PC side may take a moment before you can observer or act on the Mac side - kind of like the server is slow to respond. Also, the error message may vary. However, the key is once a folder, or subfolder, gets renamed by a PC, Mac problems commence.
The solution is to create a new folder from a PC and copy the contents of the corrupted folder to the new folder and not rename the folder name. This has to be done on a PC because the corrupted folder is not accessible by a Mac user.
Another problem that dovetails with the above is that we know certain characters are not allowed for PC folder or filenames. If a Mac user creates a folder with a slash in the file name, from the PC the user does not see that slash in the name. As soon as the PC user copies a file to that folder, the Mac user is locked from that folder. Will get the following error message;
- Sorry, the operation could not be completed because an unexpected error occurred.
- (Error code - 50)
In addition to the above mentioned character issue with folders, the problem is more evil with filenames. If, for example, you create a file with a slash in the filename on a Mac and copy it to the server you will get the following error message;
- You cannot copy some of these items to the destination because their names are too long for the destination. Do you want to skip copying these items and continue copying the other items? Select either Stop or Skip buttons.
It does not matter which button is selected. The file name gets copied to the destination location at a reduced size. Depending on the file type, the icon associated with the file may or may not be present. Furthermore, if you open that file on the server you will get the following message;
- Couldnt open the file. It may be corrupt or a file format that doesnt recognize.
From the users perspective, if they are not observant of the icon or file size, they may disregard the error message and think their file has copied as intended. Only later do they discover the file is corrupt if they open that file.
I want to make a note on this problem. It is the PC causing the issue. You can change folder and file names all day on a MAC and you don't have a problem as long as a character is not the issue. Once you change the file name or folder name from a PC the entire folder structure from that level down is corrupted. But it has to be resolved from a PC by creating a new folder and copying the contents to the new folder like stated above.
Is something not configured correctly?
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 (x86_64)
VERSION = 10
PATCHLEVEL = 2
LSB_VERSION="core-2.0-noarch:core-3.0-noarch:core-2.0-x86_64:core-3.0-x86_64"
Novell Open Enterprise Server 2.0.1 (x86_64)
VERSION = 2.0.1
PATCHLEVEL = 1
BUILD
Note: We use Novell clients on all windows systems to connect to the servers for file access and network storage. We use AFP to allow OSx systems to connect to servers.
