I have a Debian 7.0 server running samba 3.6.6 (Debian's wheezy packages) that provides shares to a bunch of Windows 7 laptops in my household. I have a briefcase I maintain on several of the laptops that contains files (residing on the samba server) that I occasionally need to work with offline when the laptop and I are out of the house. This has been in place for many years, working smoothly, but starting at some point in March my briefcase broke (everywhere). The "Update All" action (or any other variation on updating the briefcase) fails with the message: "Some files in the Briefcase have sync copies that are inaccessible. These files will not be updated until the sync copies are accessible from this computer." Acknowledging this pulls up a list of every file in the briefcase, with action "Skip" and status "<directory location on server> Unavailable". This is bogus, because I can navigate to the allegedly inaccessible directory in the Windows explorer and open or otherwise manipulate any of the files I want. I just can't update the stupid briefcase. It seems to be a systemic problem, because if I create a new briefcase and try to create a sync copy of any file on my samba server in it, I get: "An unknown error has occurred. Some of your files were not copied." Copying local files into the briefcase works without problems. Unfortunately, it is hard for me to do more diagnosis, because I have just the one server and everything else is a Windows 7 laptop. The thing is, although it is outvoted by about 4 to 1 :), I am almost positive the fault was induced on the Windows 7 side; I reviewed my logs and I don't think any samba3 packages were updated during the period where I believe the problem commenced, whereas the Windows systems of course get updates all the time. ;-) I am happy to do network tracing or anything else to collect more data on this problem; I am just too ignorant to know what else would be useful to you. I waffled and settled on "normal" for severity; I can work around it by just copying files manually for offline use (although this is a PITA). Thanks, Scott Bailey
Weird. I have continued to test my configuration periodically, and this week my briefcases magically started working again. The updates on the Debian side have been pretty sparse in the run-up to the wheezy release date, and I did not see anything go by that seemed obviously samba-related. On the Windows side, there are always updates with such generic names I have no idea what they do. Anyway, I'm happy again and will mark this report as resolved. -Scott