Hi,

I'm running the latest kernal on FC 5 and Samba server 3.0.23b and managing it through SWAT.

I'm using the server as a file server in a small university office with about 10 -12 winxp workstations connecting to it. I've had it up and running successfully for two weeks now and thought everything was going fine. It is mostly imaging files in pdf formats.

3 days ago a coworker was trying to access a word document and an excel file located on the samba server. It took over 30 seconds for each of these files to open. Word and Excel both seemed to freeze for 25 or so seconds and then the document would finally open. I tried this on various other machines and got the exact same result. It doesn't matter how big the files are - they all take about 30 seconds to open. In excel it also happens when trying to open csv files. All of the workstations are using Office 2003 with the latest service packs and updates. Trying to save a new word or excel file takes even longer and both apps seem to freeze on saving - but the files are still eventually saved. I installed open office on my xp workstation and had no problems opening excel files.

All of my pdfs open up lightning quick so it does just seem to be an ms office application issue. Has anyone seen this before?

I have samba server setup at home running on FC 4 and have absolutely no issues with word or excel files.

I've been searching google groups for this and found some people with somewhat similar problems but no real fixes.

My smb.conf file is all at default settings right now with only one share active.

Any help, tips, or directions to go on this would be hugely appreciated. I sold the boss on a linux file server but if I can't make excel and word files more accessible it is a deal breaker.

Thanks in advance for your time and help with this.

The next thing I would do is check the samba logs.

Does the same thing happen when you open them on the local machine? I mean if you copy the word file to the desktop does it still take forever?

If that is the case then it is a MS Word issue that I've experienced with an end user before. The files she was having trouble with were ones that she was editting all the time. And of course MS Word saves metta data in the file when you make changes like she was doing. Deleting and adding and the such. The way that I had her fix it was to open the files in question, Ctrl-A to copy all and then paste it into a new document and save over it.

But if the files open normally from the local harddisk then that's not the issue at all.

Thanks for your responses.

I'm pretty new to linux - but I'm reading up on using the samba log files. Hopefully i'll be able to post something informative from the logs on Monday.

The files open fine when they are copied onto a local machine.

ok - I think another friend has put me on the right track.

Its seams to be some sort of name resolution/NetBIOS issue.

He had me add the server to my hosts file and set the Enable NetBIOS over TCP/IP in the WINS section of the tcpip properites tab.

I did that and the files are opening fine on this particular client. So is something happening where the server isn't broadcasting its name in a friendly way on our network?

This is working now on this client - but i'd feel more comfortable if I could get the server set up correctly so I don't need to make these changes on all of the clients.

Its nice to have a little bit of light at the end of this long tunnel.

Any and all suggestions appreciated and thanks in advance for your time.

If you have an internal DNS server you could simply add it to that.

Also in your smb.conf, do you have wins support and the IP address of the wins server entered?

We don't have an internal DNS server and I do not have WINS support enabled.

I'm getting out of my experience level here. I did read the help file via SWAT and is says, "Note that you should NEVER set this to yes on more than one machine in your network."

That scared me off of enabling it as there are many more offices connected to the same network as we are and I did not want to cause trouble for any of the other computers.

This is mainly meant to be accessed by around 10 or so computers of users in my immediate office.

I've never used swat so I don't know exactly what you are talking about. I assume it is saying don't say yes to that if there is already another wins server on the network.

But you say you don't have an internal dns server.... You _could_ have an internal DNS server. hint: fc5 comes with BIND, which is a dns server. Of course, by setting up that you'd have go around to each pc and also have a realtivly good idea on what you are doing.