DFS Problems

[scotthawks]

I have 2 2k3 domain controllers setup. i have a dfs root setup that is on a member server. i had some problems with replication last week due to full staging area. got that corrected by increasing size in registry. now, i had gone back and enabled replication on 2 of the links on the tree and they worked fine. however, when i enabled on the 3rd link, it went back to saying it was full again and hosed up. now, for some of the folders i have in this particular link, dfs has created new folders with the same name and an extension on the end. example would be a folder called stuff and the new folder created would be stuff_23e0adfh3adfa00776697as. what has happened is some files that were modified the day before and created the day before are in here, but the file previous file versions are now showing back up and the newly created files and missing from the original folder.

hope i've made enough sense for someone to help. if you have additional questions, let me know.

Thanks.

 

[scotthawks]

i think the appropriate term form my problem is morphed folders.

 

[confus9d]

there should be a hidden folder called Do_Not_Remove_Pre...... which should retain all of your documents that you're missing. I am not a fan of DFS but one of the good feature of dfs is that it does not delete anything after it has recovered from a replication problem. having morphed folders basically means you have had more than one server that has original contents on a particular folder hence dfs is smart enough (??) not to delete anything but create a distinguish name for you. For me if it's possible to recreate the dfs structure and not upset anyone, i would take down all the replication link except for one and i would fix all the folder structure/name on this. then i would simply rename the other shares and create new ones and put the new folders as replication partners. Eventhough it looks like you'll be creating new folders and replicating the contents from other partners, it'll actually copy contents for the new folders from local renamed folders and just compare with partners. At the end whole dfs structure will be created faster and without any morphed folders. Be sure to disable refferals to partners that are rebuilding and compare contents at the end to make sure nothing is missig. This way you'll have all users connecting to only one server which may be a bit slower but at least everyone will be able to access same data. Hope this long post helps.