Windows 7 Windows Explorer hangs on network file operations.

[jsteph]

Hi all,
I'm just throwing this out there to see if anyone else sees a commonality with Windows 7 and odd network file handling issues.

For example, when copying files from a network share, I very often get lockups--where the file-dialog status bar goes as if everything's fine and then it just stops--forever. "Cancel" button does nothing, hitting the red X finally aborts it after a long wait.

That's just one issue--there are numerous other issues--some similar, some not--but all relating to moving files from a network share on Windows 7--and it's on my work machine, my home machine, my brother's machine--I see this often and I'm wondering if people here have noticed a similar trend?

I've posted some things on this forum and others and I get back a lot of the non-answers like "reboot", "re-install windows", "fiddle with this-or-that bizarre and obscure network-related registry setting" and non of them have done anything at all. And the file operations are plain vanilla stuff--no huge files, no moving of a million tiny files--it could be the simple movement of a 3K .txt file that freezes win explorer.

I know for a fact that this is not isolated to just me because in my google searches I see a lot of chatter about this type of issue but following the chatter always seems to go down the same rat-holes of "reboot", "increment the mtu setting in the registry by one until it goes away" and other red herrings like that (to mix metaphors).

So I'm just curious who here has seen this and if there's any possible help?
--Jim

 

[stduc]

I've kind of seen this issue but have no solution. I think however it has something to do with one PC having a 1000/100/10 NIC and the other a 100/10 NIC - on a 100Mbps Network. I've tried a few things but nothing works consistently. One day it works, the next you get issues. The only consistency is the inconsistency! I too am hoping someone has a solution.

[navy]When I married "Miss Right" I didn't realise her first name was 'always'. LOL[/navy]

 

[linney]

Are you able to say anything about common pieces of hardware, software (security etc.), or networking setup (wireless etc.) between the three machines you mention that could tie them all together?

What about any hardware such as mobile phones etc. that you are moving between sites and placing near the machines that might be causing interference?

 

[jsteph]

linney,
In the cases i've seen so far it's a Windows 7 64-bit machine hardwired to a 32-bit Windows XP machine or a 32-bit Win 2K3 server.

In all cases the Win7 machines have gigabit cards, in the case at my work office the 2003 servers also have gigabit cards and I believe I'm connected via a gigabit router. At my home office the win7 has gigabit but the xp machines have 100mbps cards.

I'm less inclined to think it's pure network thing because this did *not* happen when I had XP-to-XP or XP-to-Server 2003 with the same network cards/speeds.

I actually am inclined to think it has to do with the dialog box itself--Win7 has that new file-transfer dialog box with more details, etc, and if I were a Microsoft debugging engineer (is there such a thing?) I would begin my investigation with that dialog box. Because in come cases I've seen that after I abend the dialog box the file exists in it's newly transferred place and is not corrupted, so in some cases it does seem like the only problem is that the box is stuck.

However there were times (I belive when I tried 'cancel' instead of just abending) that the file never made it to it's destination--even though it was a small file and the dialog was up for minutes.
--Jim

 

[linney]

Can you reproduce this problem easily (say at home for example)?

If it is easily reproducible have you tried any troubleshooting steps. Can you start any troubleshooting by first testing on a basic Network involving just a couple of machines and any connecting Router?

Test within "Safe Mode with Networking" on both machines and see if the problem is occurring then.

If it didn't then the next step would be further isolation of any cause via the clean boot procedure.

How to troubleshoot a problem by performing a clean boot in Windows Vista or in Windows 7

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/929135

950093 How to use the System Configuration utility to troubleshoot configuration errors in Windows Vista

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;950093

310353 - How to Perform a Clean Boot in Windows XP

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;310353&FR=1&PA=1&SD=HSCH

316434 - HOW TO: Perform Advanced Clean-Boot Troubleshooting in Windows XP

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;316434&FR=1&PA=1&SD=HSCH

310560 - How to Troubleshoot By Using the Msconfig Utility in Windows XP

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310560

 

[jsteph]

Thannks linney I will check those out.

The problem is reproducable but not consistent. If I recall it seems more likely to happen when there is a compound operation--for example, an existing destination file (overwrite) or when I do a Cut instead of Copy (copy then delete source). But I'll try those and post results,
--Jim

 

[flyboytim]

I have seen similar when trying to move a 2.2GB disk image file from a Windows 7 starter netbook to a windows 7 professional laptop over 54 Mbps wireless ethernet.

No overwrites, straightforward drag and drop copy, plenty of available disk space

Chunks of less than 10MB would be transferred, with long pauses. Several attempted transfers failed at between 150MB and 300MB.

Gave up and used a USB HDD. It is a crazy situation when I can download from the internet faster and more reliably than across my home network.

Considering how easily TCP/IP is implemented for Internet access, networking in Windows 7 is generally odd, compared with XP. Workgroups often are only partially visible, but not accessible. Homegroups incompatible. Networks within guest Virtual machines operate impeccably, traversing the host Windows 7 which cannot network with anything consistently, connecting to other VMs on Windows 7 without problems.

http://www.fxxxingcomputers.co.uk

 

[Freestone]

While I'm inclined to think this is a networking issue, NIC/switchport negotiation issue comes to mind, and not a dialog box issue, how about trying a different file copy interface?

http://www.codesector.com/teracopy.php

 

[jsteph]

Thanks Freestone.

I'll probably pass on that software...I think if it is a nic issue it's got to be based in a higher layer than hardware: This happens on every windows 7 machine I've been on that had mapped network shares, and all of these machines worked perfectly with XP. So there was no hardware change, it's the driver layer and above that changee with the win7 install.

If I get time, I'll try to narrow the specifics to reproduce this because I see patterns but it's still not consistent.
--Jim

 

[Turkbear]

Hi,
I have seen this behavior when the parity/duplex settings are not cooperating between the 2 machines- sometimes moving from Auto to an explicit setting like 100 Full ( or vice-versa) clears things up and greatly increases copy speed.






To Paraphrase:"The Help you get is proportional to the Help you give.."

 

[linney]

Is the 2003 Server fully updated, I guess Windows 7 was more suited to 2008 Server than the earlier model but if 2003 is updated then I would not expect there to be too many problems.

In any case speaking of Servers it might be a good idea to check out the Server Forums for and other suggestions.

http://www.tek-tips.com/threadminder.cfm?pid=1674

http://www.tek-tips.com/threadminder.cfm?pid=931

 

[jsteph]

Turkbear, et. al,
This has nothing to do with copy speed.

The file copies fine.

I most cases (exceptions explained below) I can open the file 2 seconds after I copy it.

The problem is this: The file dialog box hangs. I'm 99.99999% sure that a file dialog hanging after the file is physically copied fine is not a network hardware/config issue.

I can work all day long with the file that I copied but there's an annoying file dialog box that constantly say's "5 seconds" just sitting there that won't close unless I reboot, wipe the drive with defense department level security wipe and then re-install Windows (kidding, but that dialog does not kill easily--sometimes a dozen times killing the process in task manager won't even do it).


The exeptions when I've seen the file not all there seem to be when overwriting or doing a 'cut/paste' instead of a 'copy/paste'--it's as if there's a transaction that's rolled back if I am successful in killing the dialog box. But if it's a straight copy and it hangs I can open the file and it's all there and not corrupt.

The only place I think nic drivers would come into play is whatever acknowledgment communication happens between windows and the other computer. But I've got to stress that this is in most cases well after the last byte of the file has been successfully copied.
--Jim

 

[Freestone]

I mentioned using a different copy interface as you say the Windows 7 progress dialog seems broke. Trying another file transfer method and seeing if its progress hangs too would tell you something. I'm not suggesting a replacement, just another diagnostic approach.

Since you asked in your original post, I've moved quite a bit of files of varying quantity and length to/from network shares at work, and at home between PCs, without ever seeing this dialog box hang.

I am a bit unclear if all these file operations invlove the same second machine. You mentioned your work and home machines, and your brother's machine. Is the other machine involved with these three the same, i.e. a server? If so, then maybe it is the problem child despite the fact the dialog box is hanging on the other machines.

 

[jsteph]

Freestone,
On all the times I've seen it it's been different targets (non Windows 7 machines). For example, from home it's from my windows 7 machine to several different xp machines at home. At work it's from my office windows 7 machine to at least two Server 2003 machines. And my brothers it's his Windows 7 machine to his daughter's xp machine.

So there's really not a common denominator here except Windows 7. All these machines never had problems moving files around when they were XP machines--which they all were at one point, none were new out-of-box Windows 7 machines, but they were all install with a 'clean' install--not an upgrade.

Your point about using that tool as a diagnostic aid is a good idea, I will try that. At some point I'll find the cause of this...or maybe it will be quitely corrected in one of the Tuesday updates.
Thanks,
--Jim

 

[Freestone]

jsteph,
Thank you for taking the time to clarify things for me. Please keep up posted and good luck.

 

[linney]

Any thoughts about these?

Solution: Windows Vista Explorer Hangs while Copying Files from External Media

http://www.askvg.com/solution-windows-vista-explorer-hangs-while-copying-files-from-external-media/

When moving a file, Windows doesn't check if it's in use until the end of the operation

http://www.windows7taskforce.com/view/3523

Prompt to cancel file copy when right-clicking "Close all windows" on Library

http://www.windows7taskforce.com/view/3134

 

[jsteph]

Linney,
All of those links are very close to the issue, but not quite exact.

The first one is Vista (though it wouldn't surprise me if that issue made it's way into 7 as well), but that's external media--my issue is mapped drives but it is pretty similar. Though in my case the dialog never becomes available (or maybe I'm impatient--I've waited as much as 5 minutes for a 10k file and I finally killed the task).

The second one--I have seen the "Skip, Retry, etc" dialog but not in the case I'm deailing with. However--the fact that there is this new functionality--the ability to skip a file that's in-use--means they have done some major changes to all of the file copy code--and I still maintain that it's something in these chagnes that is at the root of this all.

But on a tangent for abit--that "Skip?" dialog is a very welcome change--In the past, one *might* have expected two choices when an in-use file was encounterd in a bulk-copy: Roll back the entire transaction or continue the copy but automatically skip the in-use file. But Microsoft chose a fun third option--just stop it right there so the user has no idea how many got copied and where the operations stopped (since they don't necessarily copy in the same order you happen to have them listed in Windows Explorer)--so one would basically have to copy the entire group again and choose 'overwrite/all'.

And the third I've never actually had happen becuase I never do 'group similar taskbar items'.

I will say I haven't had the problem happen in a couple of weeks, but partly it's because I just haven't been doing a lot of transfers.
Thanks,
--Jim

 

[RenedV]

Hi

I very much doubt all this talk. Let's face it. I have written an application program that uses filedialogs. I get a hanging filedialog the moment I have done an update command to a database. I tested this by moving my filedialog statement through my program until I found the place where it starts hanging. However it will not hang if I do a filedialog or printdialog before this database update command. So the conclusion must be that there is a bug in either the .Net filedialogs or in Windows 7.
It has nothing to do with network drives etc.

 

[kjv1611]

Not sure if it'll help in your case or not, but when we moved to Windows 7 on many of our machines at work, we had all SORTS of issues, such as:
1. File transfers over network hanging.
2. Excel files getting cut off randomly, forcing you to lose changes, b/c you'd have to kill the application and it wouldn't save changes.. then sometimes the original file would still be locked..
3. Access databases - same/similar issues to Excel... caused corruption like crazy.

The fix was really simple once found and tested.

I suppose you could put this in a batch file if you wanted, but all the IT guys had to do was run a couple of commands on each Windows 7 machine. I know I had found about the same thing when they made the changes, but I didn't do it myself, since was at work, and didn't want to risk hosing my work PC in case I was wrong.

Here's the 2 lines to run from a CMD prompt:

netsh interface tcp set global autotuninglevel=disabled
netsh interface tcp set global rss=disabled

Oh, another issue I had was with Outlook - all sorts of weird/odd issues with Outlook before that change. After the change was made, very little issues whatsoever, and what issues I have seen, probably were just various quirks that just sorta happen at times. In general, it's been smooth sailing ever since.

You can read more about what those commands do, and what they are affecting just by Googling around. I know I found a bunch on various forums.

 

[RenedV]

There are mayor problems with filedialog, it has all the hallmarks of buffer overflow. I posted a bug on microsoft connect, see

http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/657898/filedialog-errors

In this demo no hangups are demonstrated, they are in my main project, but that's hardware dependent and couldn't be sent. However the sequences leading up to this hangups cause other errors in the demos. So you will see all kind of errors depending on which statements are executed in which sequence and there are differences between x64 and x86 and framework 2 and 4. And yes there is connection with msjet databases (and maybe others) in my code because a database update acts as a trigger to generate these errors. But as you can conclude from my entry I am convinced the problem is caused my filedialog.