β11-22-2009 02:08 PM
Since we've started using Filesystem Archiving back in 2006 i've noticed userfiles appear flagged offline but are in fact not offline. This can be seen, for example, using the (old) MS's RSDIR utility.
Files flagged offline that really are offline are shown bij RSDIR like:
C:\>rsdir P:\studsched.txt
Showing information for <studsched.txt>
Status Attributes Physical Logical Migrate Time File Name
------ ---------- -------- ------- ------------ ---------
non-HSM ------OP--Z 0 3149 NA studsched.txt
1 File(s) 0 bytes
0 Dir(s) 3149 bytes required to recall offline files
Not-offline files that are incorrectly flagged offline are shown like:
C:\>rsdir "h:\users\<a-user's-home-folder>\MY DOCUMENTS\Myfiles\PLATO\Vpb2007\vb2007d.cfg"
Showing information for <vb2007d.cfg>
Status Attributes Physical Logical Migrate Time File Name
------ ---------- -------- ------- ------------ ---------
non-HSM ------OPR-Z 118 118 NA vb2007d.cfg
1 File(s) 118 bytes
0 Dir(s) 0 bytes required to recall offline files
This is a problem because FSA will not (re-)archive such an incorrectly offline flagged file. Users however can still work normally with these files. This problem still exists in our current version: 8.0 SP2.
I know this problem is caused by incorrectly handling archived files by the user from the FSA perspective:
When a user copies a new version of a file without first opening, and thereby dearchiving the file, Windows will overwrite the archived file with the new version of the file, but leaving the offline flag.
To address this problem I've created a MS Access/VBA program: repairOffline.mdb. This program searches incorrect offline flagged files and clears the offline flag. I've used MS Access/VBA because it's an easy programming environment (to me).
In this program I use the kernel32.dll functions GetFileAttributes, GetCompressedFileSize and SetFileAttributes to find these files, double-check the fault-condition (filesize > 0) and correct this by removing the offline flag.
I attach this program hoping it may be of some use to other users of Enterprise Vault FSA.
Before using this program on user files, I urge you to thoroughly test the program on non-important files. I offer this program as-is, leaving possible problems that arise from using the program to the user. I have been using this program for some time now without problems, having over 10000 files repaired by clearing the offline flag.
Some note's on the program usage:
' ROOTFOLDER must contain the rootfolder path for files to check in all subfolders in ROOTFOLDER
' ROOTFOLDER may be a physical path with drive letter (e.g. H:\HomeFolders) or a UNC-path (e.g. \\fserver1\homes)
Const ROOTFOLDER = ""
The program will issue a message and will not run without a correctly specified ROOTFOLDER.
I hope this program will work as good for you as it have done for me and my users!
Kind regards, Paul
β11-23-2009 12:36 PM
Hi Paul.
Thanks for sharing and putting effort on this. I will give the software a try and let you know.
Nevertheless here at Symantec Technical Support we use a different tools for the same purpouse: RepairOffline.
Kind regards.
β04-26-2010 06:40 AM