rroot
01-13-2009, 10:36 AM
Just found PowerFolder last week and have been playing around with it. I selected Other for my poll as I have
ran into an issue with what I need to accomplish.
If at anytime I mention something that is incorrect, please speak up and straighten me out (bg). Still learning...
During my playing around this week I have done as much reading as possible & have tried to check everything out that PowerFolder does and how it accomplishes what it does.
One thing I have noticed, is that a few data files are written into the folder you select to sync.
Is there any way these files could be maintained elsewhere?
That would be why I selected Other for the poll.
Reasoning: I am running windows XP Pro with all sp installed. I have a folder which has Read Only and + Hidden attributes, +R +H. The folder is written to and maintained by a few running processes. Files within the Folder are constantly being opened, written to and closed. New files are created daily and about 50 meg of data is written daily to various files within the folder. The +H attribute can be manually set to view the folder/files from within one of the services. I can also change the FileName Extension and the Folders physical location. The +R Folder's attribute can not be changed at this moment in time. Also the Folder and all of the files contained within will have the exact same date/time stamp attribute, say July 14th 2004 or something.
From my aspect & just a week of messing around with PowerFolder, I am having the issue with the +R attribute of the Folder I wish to sync. PowerFolder will initially give me the Red error message about the folder can not be written to.
I may be doing something incorrect at the moment. But PowerFolder seems not to be able to sync the +R folder.
I am doing this on my home lan and have tried various combinations of setup invitations.
I get the red error message and there is always a 0 files being reported.
Any thoughts?
I have been messing around with a few tricky things to try and get PowerFolder to work smoothly on this +R folder without any (or very minimal) maintenance.
One thing I have tried is to create a NTFS Symbolic Link of the +R folder. Then point PowerFolder to the Symbolic Link instead of the real folder.
That seemed to work as the files reported was correct and I was able to pull them correctly. I added some more data to the files and created a few more files over the next 2 days and nothing would ever be picked up by PowerFolder.
IF the file which PowerFolder stores the changed information is contained within the +R folder,
AND
IF the initial process (which created and is maintaining the +R folder) is keeping PowerFolder from making any changes within that particular +R folder
THEN the ReadOnly file contents can not be changed by PowerFolder
I am trying to logically assuming this is what is happening.
Am I making any sense of what is happening? lol
It is about 03:30 in the AM here & I'm getting kind-of froggy atm.
I have another question about the services. But will post that in another thread
Thanks for any constructive criticism or recommendations. Remember I have only been messing around with this for about a week now. :-)
= = begin insert edit = =
Thought I'd give some feedback after trying a few more things.
I created a new "Symbolic Link" for the Read Only, Hidden directory I wished to sync.
Then I used LAN only settings and Manual Download.
Initially when creating the "symbolic link", the data which PowerFolder needed to write was automatically inserted into the Real +HR folder the symbolic link pointed to.
All well and good, basically the same as all the other trials.
I was able to pull the folders contents easily.
Then gave it about 15 minutes to change and create a few new files.
I observed PowerFolder changing the folders status as it should do.
I went to the other computer and saw it was being updated correctly, with the correct files ready to download. I pulled all the files and everything worked fine.
I then let everything alone for about 6 hours and checked again.
Everything looked fine and I was able to do a manual pull of the folders contents.
So far so good. Although I did not test this methodology of syncing when I initially ran through a lot of testing, I feel confident this may be a good workaround for instances where the folder is under the control of another process and will maintain a +R attribute.
I will have to give it a lot more testing & evaluation using the actual scenario I will be doing in real life. Hopefully a Internet, Push only folder with a daily Sync time. All automated.
Insert a pic of Fingers crossed here...
The "Symbolic Links" or Junction Points, are maintained for win2000 and above.
This may be something the coders should look into as workarounds or future implementation.
Here is a MS link concerning the Symbolic Links.
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=205524
I used another app to create the links, called Junction. Written by Mark Russinovich from the old sysinternals group. It is located at:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896768.aspx
Thinks look promising, but I have not had the system under a load as of yet. I am a little unsure about the individual file locking and releasing during a full blown trial. If this was a server and not xp pro, I am sure there would be no issues with the locking and releasing.
I know one failure was a singular file, which got out of sync with what was being reported for download by PowerFolder. PowerFolder reported a file size of 2?? k and the actual file had grown to over 3 meg. The file kept on growing and was not being updated. I lust initially attributed it to PowerFolder not being able to write to the +RH Folder. Could have been a locking/release issue. That trial was not under a heavy load. But it was set to auto at 10 min intervals. A good possibility I can set up a daily sync when most of the traffic is offline.
Will do more testing and report back
= = end insert edit = =
ran into an issue with what I need to accomplish.
If at anytime I mention something that is incorrect, please speak up and straighten me out (bg). Still learning...
During my playing around this week I have done as much reading as possible & have tried to check everything out that PowerFolder does and how it accomplishes what it does.
One thing I have noticed, is that a few data files are written into the folder you select to sync.
Is there any way these files could be maintained elsewhere?
That would be why I selected Other for the poll.
Reasoning: I am running windows XP Pro with all sp installed. I have a folder which has Read Only and + Hidden attributes, +R +H. The folder is written to and maintained by a few running processes. Files within the Folder are constantly being opened, written to and closed. New files are created daily and about 50 meg of data is written daily to various files within the folder. The +H attribute can be manually set to view the folder/files from within one of the services. I can also change the FileName Extension and the Folders physical location. The +R Folder's attribute can not be changed at this moment in time. Also the Folder and all of the files contained within will have the exact same date/time stamp attribute, say July 14th 2004 or something.
From my aspect & just a week of messing around with PowerFolder, I am having the issue with the +R attribute of the Folder I wish to sync. PowerFolder will initially give me the Red error message about the folder can not be written to.
I may be doing something incorrect at the moment. But PowerFolder seems not to be able to sync the +R folder.
I am doing this on my home lan and have tried various combinations of setup invitations.
I get the red error message and there is always a 0 files being reported.
Any thoughts?
I have been messing around with a few tricky things to try and get PowerFolder to work smoothly on this +R folder without any (or very minimal) maintenance.
One thing I have tried is to create a NTFS Symbolic Link of the +R folder. Then point PowerFolder to the Symbolic Link instead of the real folder.
That seemed to work as the files reported was correct and I was able to pull them correctly. I added some more data to the files and created a few more files over the next 2 days and nothing would ever be picked up by PowerFolder.
IF the file which PowerFolder stores the changed information is contained within the +R folder,
AND
IF the initial process (which created and is maintaining the +R folder) is keeping PowerFolder from making any changes within that particular +R folder
THEN the ReadOnly file contents can not be changed by PowerFolder
I am trying to logically assuming this is what is happening.
Am I making any sense of what is happening? lol
It is about 03:30 in the AM here & I'm getting kind-of froggy atm.
I have another question about the services. But will post that in another thread
Thanks for any constructive criticism or recommendations. Remember I have only been messing around with this for about a week now. :-)
= = begin insert edit = =
Thought I'd give some feedback after trying a few more things.
I created a new "Symbolic Link" for the Read Only, Hidden directory I wished to sync.
Then I used LAN only settings and Manual Download.
Initially when creating the "symbolic link", the data which PowerFolder needed to write was automatically inserted into the Real +HR folder the symbolic link pointed to.
All well and good, basically the same as all the other trials.
I was able to pull the folders contents easily.
Then gave it about 15 minutes to change and create a few new files.
I observed PowerFolder changing the folders status as it should do.
I went to the other computer and saw it was being updated correctly, with the correct files ready to download. I pulled all the files and everything worked fine.
I then let everything alone for about 6 hours and checked again.
Everything looked fine and I was able to do a manual pull of the folders contents.
So far so good. Although I did not test this methodology of syncing when I initially ran through a lot of testing, I feel confident this may be a good workaround for instances where the folder is under the control of another process and will maintain a +R attribute.
I will have to give it a lot more testing & evaluation using the actual scenario I will be doing in real life. Hopefully a Internet, Push only folder with a daily Sync time. All automated.
Insert a pic of Fingers crossed here...
The "Symbolic Links" or Junction Points, are maintained for win2000 and above.
This may be something the coders should look into as workarounds or future implementation.
Here is a MS link concerning the Symbolic Links.
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=205524
I used another app to create the links, called Junction. Written by Mark Russinovich from the old sysinternals group. It is located at:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896768.aspx
Thinks look promising, but I have not had the system under a load as of yet. I am a little unsure about the individual file locking and releasing during a full blown trial. If this was a server and not xp pro, I am sure there would be no issues with the locking and releasing.
I know one failure was a singular file, which got out of sync with what was being reported for download by PowerFolder. PowerFolder reported a file size of 2?? k and the actual file had grown to over 3 meg. The file kept on growing and was not being updated. I lust initially attributed it to PowerFolder not being able to write to the +RH Folder. Could have been a locking/release issue. That trial was not under a heavy load. But it was set to auto at 10 min intervals. A good possibility I can set up a daily sync when most of the traffic is offline.
Will do more testing and report back
= = end insert edit = =