Forum Discussion

Osama_Salah's avatar
Osama_Salah
Level 4
19 years ago

0KB Placeholders don't open archived items

Hi,
we are doing FSA archiving to a Win2003 based NAS box.
I do have a problem now where clicking placeholder gives an error but I can open the archived items from the Archive Explorer or by doing a search.

Using FSutil I found that the files do contain data pointing to the archive.
The NAS OS partitions had recently crashed and we restored it. The Data partitions are the same. I'm not sure when this problem started to occur since archiving is not enabled for everyone and user rarely need to open archived items. It might have been messed up before the NAS OS crash.

I also disabled Symantec AV but that didn't have any effect (we always had Symantec installed on the NAS and it was working fine in the past).

Is there a way to rebuild placeholders? I can't even delete them.

Any ideas?
Enterprise Vault
Information Governance
  • Kopfjager's avatar
    Kopfjager
    19 years ago
    A couple thoughts. You may want to re-install the Placeholder service. If the files are showing as 0k but FSUtil shows good data, then it sounds like the filter driver is not running or intercepting the request when you attempt to open an item.
    A re-install may fix any possible issues with the driver if it was having problems after the restore.

    You also want to check the registry for the Placeholder server and ensure that under HKLM\Software\KVS\Enterprise Vault\FSA\PlaceholderService that the key EnabledVolumes exists and has a value.

    You can check to see if the Placeholder driver is running by going to Accessories, System Tools, System Information, Software Environment, System drivers and looking for evfsf. If that is running and enablevolumes looks ok, you probably do have another filter that is interfering. Try a new archive and see if the same behavior still occurs for new items.
  • Micah_Wyenn_2's avatar
    Micah_Wyenn_2
    Level 6
    19 years ago
    With FSA, are you configured to use shortcuts, or URLs? I think with nas you can only use urls...but don't quote me on that (since you can't run the placeholder service on the nas).

    micah
  • Osama_Salah's avatar
    Osama_Salah
    Level 4
    19 years ago
    It's a Win2003 based NAS and it was working fine for quite some time, only now we noticed this problem. The Placeholder service is installed.
    The file size shown is always 0kb no matter how you configure the placeholder reg settings that change the behaviour of what size to show.

    I don't have much hope that this can be fixed. It would be great if there is a tool that can scan the archive and create shortcuts accordingly.
    I also would have to figure out how to delete these "corrupted" shortcuts.

    I'll wait and see what Symantec have to say about this.
  • Osama_Salah's avatar
    Osama_Salah
    Level 4
    19 years ago
    using ArchiveExplorerui.asp works, I can access and open the files.
    The options move and copy to filesystem in the context menu are however dimmed. Not sure if that's how it's supposed to be.

    rgds
    Osama Salah
  • Kopfjager's avatar
    Kopfjager
    Level 5
    19 years ago
    A couple thoughts. You may want to re-install the Placeholder service. If the files are showing as 0k but FSUtil shows good data, then it sounds like the filter driver is not running or intercepting the request when you attempt to open an item.
    A re-install may fix any possible issues with the driver if it was having problems after the restore.

    You also want to check the registry for the Placeholder server and ensure that under HKLM\Software\KVS\Enterprise Vault\FSA\PlaceholderService that the key EnabledVolumes exists and has a value.

    You can check to see if the Placeholder driver is running by going to Accessories, System Tools, System Information, Software Environment, System drivers and looking for evfsf. If that is running and enablevolumes looks ok, you probably do have another filter that is interfering. Try a new archive and see if the same behavior still occurs for new items.
  • Osama_Salah's avatar
    Osama_Salah
    Level 4
    19 years ago
    I will check your suggestions.
    Just another question. If the placeholder service is not working you can't do anything with the placeholder files like copy or delete them?
    regards
    Osama
  • Osama_Salah's avatar
    Osama_Salah
    Level 4
    19 years ago
    Great, it was the EnabledVolumes key that was missing.
    Put it back and now most files open fine. A few still refuse but worst case I could live with that, but will still investigate it and raise a support call with Symantec as soon as I get my support contract number.

    I also noticed that when I open and close an archived item it looses the block icon thingy that marks it as archived. Any idea why that is?

    Thanks for your help.

    regards
    Osama Salah
  • TonySterling's avatar
    TonySterling
    Moderator
    19 years ago
    The black icon thingy is the placeholder icon. :)

    When you view an item it is temporarily restored, but eventually will be changed back to a placeholder.