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I have a file server (windows 2008 R2) that is used to host website code for a web server.

It's worked great for years. Recently, when making changes to the files on the server sometimes it takes hours for them to be reflected.

Specifically, the problem happens like this:

I try to overwrite a file on the server, it gives me an error saying file is in use. After that I try a number of things. When it gives me that error the first thing I do is turn off the website by killing the app pool (I try to avoid this when possible to minimize downtime, most of the changes aren't actually code changes, rather content changes. For code changes I do kill the site or copy to a directory not in use), then I continue, usually I'm able to rename the file and then copy it up and then delete the renamed one. Several things can happen:

  • It works fine.
  • It doesn't let me rename it because it says I don't have permissions. I refresh the directory and it still has the old name. I check permissions and it say that I can't. I check the owner and it says it can't display the owner and I can't take ownership of it (even though I'm the admin). I try to delete it, the file goes away but then comes back on explorer refresh. Hours later the file disappears again.
  • It lets me rename the file, I try to copy the files up, it looks like it works, but on refresh the files don't show up. I try to delete the renamed files, they disappear, but reappear on refresh only to disappear hours later.

Has anyone encountered anything like this before?

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  • How are you copying the files to the server? Is it a mapped drive or UNC using SMB, or WebDav or FTP or something else? Mar 14, 2014 at 14:13
  • Mapped drive using SMB usually. Sometimes I'll do a two-step, copy it to a directory that's not in use, then I'll log into the server and copy it over. That's usually a second to last resort.
    – Snowburnt
    Mar 14, 2014 at 14:27
  • OK, so it's an SMB share. My first guess is that caching is enabled on the share you're connecting to. You can check that with "net share webcontent", assuming "webcontent" is the name of the share. Second guess would be that it's a DFS namespace, and taking time to replicate changes, although if it were DFS, I imagine you'd have mentioned that in your question. Mar 14, 2014 at 16:26
  • @AdamThompson Not a DFS, I'll check the caching though.
    – Snowburnt
    Mar 14, 2014 at 16:36
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    @AdamThompson seems like it's working!
    – Snowburnt
    Mar 14, 2014 at 18:42

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