Offline files fail to synchronize

[Bob]

I have my documents redirected to the server and therefore Vista has an
offline copy of these files.

I notice that some files are failing to synchronize automatically, but will
synchronize if I manually perform it.

For example:

An 767KB xls file changed in Vista requires a manual synchronization.
A 1KB txt file will synchronize immediately.

Both files are in the same folder.

I also notice that Sync Center rarely updates the Offline Files status. The
Last sync date could be days ago. It will update if I manually synchronize,
but it won't update automatically.

If the user logs off or on, the xls file still won't synchronize.

I notice this on both Vista RTM and SP1 beta machines.

XP machines will update the server share immediately.

What's wrong here?

[Morgan che]

Dear Bob,

Thanks for posting here. I am glad to work with you again.

After viewing this issue, I made a test environment to narrow down the
problem. Here is my test environment:

A Windows XP as file server
A Windows Vista Enterprise as client having an offline folder

No matter which format(.TXT or .XLS) and how much this file is, this file
can automatically synchronize with the Windows XP file server without any
problem. And also, it can display the correct status on Sync Center.

Therefore, I suspect this issue is not a bug of Windows Vista or Microsoft
Office Excel 2007. Maybe, some configurations or other factors lead to this
issue.

For the further troubleshooting:

1. Could you please firstly remove the temp cached files in Control Panel
of Windows Vista-> Offline Files -> Disk Usage tab-> Delete Temporary files?

2. Create a new .XLS file with the same to test the result. Please note we
should close this .XLS file to keep it available for synchronization.

More information:
============
Here is some other factors that possibly cause this issue:

1. Local cache size

For offline files in Windows Vista, you can specify a limit for the total
size of the local cache. This limit includes automatically cached files and
manually cached files. There is also a limit (within the total local cache
size limit) for the amount of disk space used by automatically cached files.

Files that were cached manually are never removed from the local cache.
When the total local cache size limit is reached and all files that were
cached automatically have already been removed, you cannot make files
available offline until you specify a new limit or delete files from the
local cache by using the Offline Files control panel item
These two local cache size limits can be specified in the Disk Usage tab of
the Offline Files in Control Panel item or with a Group Policy setting.

As for Group Policy setting regarding offline folder, we can reach them at :

All Group Policy settings for Offline Files can be found through two paths:

Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Network\Offline Files
User Configuration\Administrative Templates\Network\Offline Files

2. The configurations of target files on the file server

In order to remove this factor, please check if the permissions are
assigned correctly on the mapped files and if the disk quota is enable on
the disk including the mapped files on file server?

I hope this helps. If anything is unclear, please feel free to let me know.

Have a nice day!

[Morgan che]

Dear Bob,

How are you?

I am wondering if my suggestion is help. If anything is unclear, please
feel free to let me know.

Have a good day!

[Bob]

Hi Morgan and thanks for working with me on this.

It is interesting that you do not see this error, because this is a
consistent error with me.

Some more detail:

I've two independent forests unrelated to each other (expect that I built
both of them and the GPO's are essentially the same).

In both forests - regardless of which Vista workstation I use, or user
profile I log on to, Vista / Office 2007, always fails to synchronize any
Excel 2003 document that it opens.

So far, I've seen this fail on two separate servers (in the same domain) and
two separate Vista workstations (logged on to their respective DC) using
the user's profile that normally logs on to those workstations.

And then of course it also fails the same way in my forest too (using two
Vista workstations).

So to me, this it is not likely to be a corrupt CSC on four Vista
workstations tested using three different user profiles. But maybe a GPO is
somehow involved?

Here is my new test:

1) I deleted all cached user profiles on a Vista workstation. (Only the
local Administrator remains).

2) Reformat the Vista CSC and reboot (REG ADD
"HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\CSC\Parameters" /v FormatDatabase /t
REG_DWORD /d 1 /f)

3) Create a new user profile "Test User" on the domain.

4) Log on to "Test User" and off again so as to create the redirected
folders and roaming user profile on the Windows 2003 R2 server. I did this
on a Vista as well as and XP workstation as they have different profile
versions.

5) I log on to "Test User" on the Vista / Office 2007 machine. I open Sync
Center and notice status is "Ready for first sync". I right-click and
perform a "Sync All". The icon displays a check mark and status changes to
"Last sync on 1/11/2008 4:55 PM"

6) I log on to the same "Test User" on the XP / Office 2003 machine. (Test
User now has two log on's running at the same time).

7) On the Vista / Office 2007 machine, I open Windows Explorer, select
Documents, right-click and create three new documents. Excel, PowerPoint
and Word. (2007 XML format).

8) On the XP / Office 2003 machine, I open Windows Explorer, select My
Documents, right-click and create three new documents. Excel, PowerPoint
and Word. (2003 format).

10) On both machines, I turn on Windows Explorer columns "Offline
Availability" and "Offline Status" for Vista, and "Status" for XP.

11) On the XP / Office 2003 machine, I edit all three documents and file
them away.

12) On the Vista / Office 2007 machine, I refresh explorer (as Vista has a
problem with auto refresh, another issue to resolve some day), and see the
status remains "Always Available" and "Online".

13) I open the Excel 2003 document (created and edited by the XP / Office
2003 machine) and see the edit took place just fine.

14) I close this Excel 2003 document and notice the "Offline Status" has
changed from "Online" to "Offline (need to sync)". <<< HERE IS THE FIRST
SIGN OF THE PROBLEM

15) I look at Sync Center and the Offline Files Control Panel, but I see
nothing that indicates a potential problem.
btw, Disk Usage is:
All offline files = 752 KB in use (7.67 GB available)
Temporary offline files = 4.00 KB in use (7.67 GB available)
Disk is 39.0 GB or 19.6% used.
(Not much in use as this is a new user and a reinitialized cache).

16) I open the remaining two Office 2003 documents (in Vista), and see the
edits that the XP / Office 2003 machine made. I close Word and PowerPoint
and see the "Offline Status" remains "Online" for these two documents.

17) I work with all the remaining documents and edit them any which way I
can think off. In all cases, the documents are kept online and in sync.

18) I return to the suspect Excel 2003 document and see it remains offline
and needs to sync. At this point, if I edit the Excel 2003 document at the
XP / Office 2003 machine, changes will make it to the server share, but
never replicate to Vista. And likewise, any changes I make to the Excel
2003 document on Vista will not replicate back to the server. If they are
both edited offline, then of course there will be a sync error once I kick
off a manual sync using the Sync Center.

I find this problem to occur 100% of the time. Vista always fails to
synchronize an Excel 2003 document automatically (except of course when it
was first created and synced over). But once Excel 2007 opened it, Vista
throws the document offline.

I see nothing in the event or application logs.

It should be noted that both the redirected folders and roaming profiles are
kept on a Windows 2003 DC and these are replicated to another DC as they are
contained in a DFSR folder.

All maintenance is applied via WSUS.


So clearly, the Vista / Office 2007 combination is having a problem
replicating Excel 2003 formatted documents ONCE Vista / Excel 2007 opens it.

I have Office 2007 installed on the Windows 2003 server, but that Excel 2007
does not cause a problem. (But than again, the server doesn't have offline
cache either!)

I guess a good test would be to install Office 2007 on an XP machine to see
what happens, but I suspect it will work fine.


I hope this detail will help you find the problem!


--
Thanks,
Bob

[Morgan che]

Dear Bob,

Thanks for your time and dedication.

As for "Vista / Office 2007 combination is having a problem replicating
Excel 2003 formatted documents ONCE Vista / Excel 2007 opens it", firstly
many thanks for letting us know your test result.

When the automatic synchronization fails on the Excel 2003 file, could you
please try to disable the "offline" option and to see if this Excel 2003
file can synchronize? I appreciate for your reply.

As for the status display issue, because the offline file in Vista has a
different mechanism comparing with Window XP, I suspect that is why Windows
Vista displays the different status for Offline file. Please refer to the
below information.

More information:
================

Offline Files in Windows Vista offers seamless (no user intervention
required) transition from online to offline mode and from offline mode to
online mode.
In Windows XP, the transition from online to offline mode was seamless.
However, the transition from offline to online mode was very disruptive.
The user would be working offline and suddenly Offline Files would detect
that the server is available for reconnection and pop up a balloon to
notify the user. At that point the user would need to close all open
applications, and then initiate synchronization, and only then would he be
transitioned back to online mode. This was very disruptive.

In Windows Vista, the transition from online mode to offline mode is
seamless just like in Windows XP. However, in Windows Vista the transition
from offline mode to online mode is also seamless and non-disruptive.

When Offline Files detects that the share is available for reconnection,
all open handles are recreated on the server and the user is immediately
transitioned to online mode. The user can now see the server namespace and
open files online. Also, Offline Files will automatically initiate
synchronization in the background to push all offline changes to the server
and pull in any changes made on the server while the client was offline.

For the more update information about Offline file, please see:

What's New in Offline Files for Windows Vista
http://technet2.microsoft.com/Window...260-0fdc-4003-
bc23-04beac2108bd1033.mspx

I hope this helps. If anything is unclear, please feel free to let me know.

Have a nice day

[Bob]

Hi Morgan,

In an attempt to reduce the complexity, I created a new server share and
turn on "All files and programs that users open from the share will be
automatically available offline" and "Optimized for performance" is enabled.

This new share is not on DFS nor is it a redirected folder, so these
complexities are now removed.

The result with this new share is the same.

1) Using Windows Explorer on a Vista / Excel 2007 machine, I create a new
Excel Worksheet (in the default 2007 format) on the share located on Windows
2003 Server.

2) I open, edit, and close the new worksheet.

3) "Offline Availability" is "Available" and "Offine status" is "Online".

4) I again open the Excel 2007 worksheet and save it in 2003 (xls) format.

5) The Excel 2003 file syncs to the server just fine.

6) I open the Excel 2003 worksheet, edit and close it. (note this is the
first time the spreadsheet is opened in Excel 2003 format since its
creation).

7) "Offline status" changes from "Online" to "Offline (need to sync)".
(note, this never happens to an Excel 2007 sheet).

8) Checking back at the server, I see the Excel 2003 worksheet did not
synchronize.

9) Opening, editing, and closing the Excel 2007 worksheet has no problems
with sync.

10) Manual sync of the Excel 2003 does put things back in sync.

Now on to your requested test:

Using the Offline Files control panel, I disabled the offline files and
rebooted. This resulted in the following:

Windows Explorer indicates "Offline Availability" as "blank". "Offline
Status" as "blank".
Updates to Excel 2003 worksheet are updating directly on the server as CSC
is now disabled

[Morgan che]

Thanks for your sharing.

I performed further research and suspect that this maybe an known issue in
specific scenarios. Our related teams are currently investigating on this
issue and I hope a fix will be available soon.

Currently, we have two workarounds:

1. Use XLSX format instead.

2. Manually synchronize the XLS files after closing them.

btw, one thing I found is that XLS files will sync upon a log off/on. I
haven't done enough testing to see if this happens 100% of the time however.
But regardless, it supposed to sync right away nonetheless.

[Bob]

A known issue? That is fine that it is a known issue, but I've many users
who are working with Excel 2003 documents under Vista / Office 2007. I
can't put out a company directive to tell them all that they need to run a
manual sync every time they edit an Excel 2003 spreadsheet. Management
would just as soon stop any further Vista / Office 2007 deployments before
they do that and shutdown all the existing deployments as data corruption is
likely to occur.

How do I escalate this problem within Microsoft so that I know this problem
will be fixed ASAP and when it will be fixed?

Also, do you have an incident number that I can reference when I do escalate
this problem to Microsoft?

Thanks much for your help identifying this issue to me!

[Morgan che]

Dear Bob,

Thanks for the reply.

I appreciated for your previous dedication. If manual synchronization is
not tolerate, we can use XLSX format to avoid this issue after upgrading
Excel 2003 to Excel 2007.

Base on my research, this issue has been investigated by our related teams.
For more immediate assistance, I would like you suggest our Customer
Service and Support (CSS). For more information on available CSS services,
please click here:

http://support.microsoft.com/default...roPhone#faq607

Thanks, and I am glad to meet you in this newsgroup again.

[Morgan che]

How is everything going?

I am wondering if my suggestion is helpful. if anything is unclear, please
feel free to post back.

Based on the current situation that you have contacted with our service
incident, I would like to suggest you work with our engineers there. In the
same time, I will assist the service incident engineers on this issue.

The Customer Service and Support (CSS) engineers contacted me for this
issue, and also I have provided them the background. I hope this issue will
be resolved soon along with your satisfaction.

Have you found any solution to this problem? I have the same problem with
my new computers (Vista business and Office 2007) in a SBS 2003 domain. No
problems with with XP or 2000 computers.

[Bob]

Hi Morgan,

I opened a service incident with Microsoft so that I can learn the
following:

1. If this problem is going to be fixed and if so, when I can expect a fix.
2. How will I be notified when the fix is available.

The circumventions you have offered will not be acceptable at our
organization as most users are Excel 2003. Therefore, we save all our
documents in 2003 format so that they can easily be worked on by the
majority of users who are still at Excel 2003. Maybe in a year, we will
switch over to 2007 format once the majority of users are on that version.

[Cliff]

I, too, have this problem. I've replicated the problem and it seems
to be Excel 2007 (in compatibility mode) with Vista clients and
Windows 2003 servers. I've tested on various virtual machines and it
happens consistently. One thing that I noticed wasn't expressly
defined above by anybody, but may explain why it wasn't initially
replicated, is that it *ONLY* happens with roaming profiles. If you
use offline files and a local profile, it works great. So Excel 2007
does NOT like roaming profiles in compatibility mode.

Is there a hotfix for this yet? I desperately need a fix as we
already have started migration and can no longer roll back...

Have you found any solution to this problem? I have the same issue with
all new computers (Vista business and Office 2007) in a SBS 2003 domain.

Any news regarding to this problem?

The whole situation is described at
http://forums.techarena.in/vista-fil...ent/887452.htm

Hope that a solution exist.

[Jer]

Hello everybody

I check all information on the web about your problem but nothing...
I have the same problem and I can't find any information about it...
Have you somes news...
I tried to install the Vista'SP1 but the problem be continued...

Microsoft must know the problem !!!

Thanks for your help.

Jerôme from France

[MasterWim]

April 2009 now and I can not find any information on this problem being solved.

I appear to have a similar problem synchronising (shared !) Excel 2003 files under Vista. Everytime I make some edits and save the file (at least that is what I think) I find that it is no longer synchronised with the network and as other collegues make modification a conflict occurs and I can redo all my work.

It indeed does not appear to occur with (non-backwards compatible) .xlsx files but can't really use those in a collaborative environment as long as the whole world has not converted to Office 2007 ;-)

Help would be much appreciated.

Wim

[ChEBass]

I'm glad I finally stumbled on this site. I have been fighting this problem for a year now and nobody has been able to help. At least now I know it is a recognised problem.

Does anybody know if there has been movement on a solution?