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On slow connections, automatically work offline UNCHECK RRS feed

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    Hey there, how do i uncheck this box? (sync centre -> manage offline files -> network tab)

    I am trying to disable the slow link from triggering offline files on bootup. this has just started happening the last month, where people log in and they have no DFS shares available to them. I figured out it is because they are working "offline" at the time, and simply clicking easy access -> work offline restores it, but i think it has something to do with this checkbox so i want to clear it by any means possible.

    I have set many policies to do with offline files. in fact, offline files are completely disabled in this OU.

    administrator templates -> network -> offline files

    allow or disallow use of offline files feature = disabled

    action on server disconnect = enabled, never go offline

    remove "make available offline command" = enabled

    configure slow link mode = disabled

    configure slow link speed = disabled

    administrator templates -> system -> user profiles

    disable detection of slow network connections = enabled

    administrator templates -> system -> logon

    always wait for the network at computer startup and logon = enabled

    administrator templates -> system -> group policy

    configure group policy slow link detection = enabled, set to 0

    Is there a registry setting or another setting that will allow me to clear this checkbox?

    Monday, March 19, 2018 8:03 PM

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    Hi,

    Your problem is if you are using DFS and offline files, your users mau disconnect and lose access to all DFS shares.

    The reason for this is that the “Offline Files feature does not distinguish DFS paths from UNC paths. This can cause the Vista / Windows 7 client to interpret the entire namespace as unavailable if a target is down when a Vista / Windows 7 client attempts to access it”

    Try to use the FQDN/NetBIOS name for your DFS shares.

    For example, if your offline files drive is: \\domain.com\share\home

    Simply make all your other shares: \\domain\share\share1

    The reason this fixes it is because Windows sees \\domain and \\domain.com as two different paths completely so when your offline files share goes in to offline mode, the other shares still continue to work in online mode. Annoying but at least it’s an easy fix and as far as I can tell, there are no issues with using the NetBIOS name.

    As to the Slow Link policy, you can refer to OverDrive suggested:

    https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/1318592-offline-files-redirected-folders-unc-dfs-namespace-best-practices-setup

    Note: this is a 3rd party link, we don't have any warranties on this website. It's just for your convenience.

    And the Microsoft official reference he provided can also help to configure the policy.

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    Tuesday, March 20, 2018 3:11 AM
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    Hmm well that may be a work around yes. However the computer should not be going offline in the first place. We are talking about a computer as an example, that is turned on in the morning first thing, connected to ethernet, and has this problem. So its not a laptop or something with an unsteady connection. That is why i want to completely disable offline files as i said.

    We only do have one folder that is marked for "offline" (for laptops and tablets only), and so i could theoretically change the DFS map to it. But i dont understand. Wont that still present the //domain/ mapping (in this case its peoples home directory) as offline? that would be bad too. I think this is a bit of a hack, not exactly what i am looking for here. It may work to keep 95% of the drives online yes, however the home directory will still be offline unnecessarily (for 5 minutes or so till it re-evaluates its link).

    I want to stop it from going offline period. There is no reason it should be going slow link or offline. Most have gigabit to the desktop in this place. The backbone is 10gb fibre. This was never an issue even till recently.

    I will try your fix if i get desperate only.

    Tuesday, March 20, 2018 2:19 PM
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    Hi,

    After my research, seems that it is a know issue.

    This might be caused by the DFS root share to go offline (slow link) and the mapped network drives not being avaialble offline. As a result they aren't accessible because the DFS path can't be resolved.

    Imagine the following scenario:

    Users home drive (h:) is mapped to \\domain.com\dfsRoot\HomeDrives\%username%

    Users home drive is made avaialble offline.

    User also has another drive mapped (s:) to \\domain.com\dfsRoot\Apps

    You transfer some data to/ from the dfs root share \\domain.com\dfsRoot by either leaving exporer open and refreshing frequently or actually copying data to and from the root share while the share has a latency higher than the default 80ms (since Windows 7 offline avaialble scopes go offline (slow link) at 80ms latency)).

    After a while the root share \\domain.com\dfsRoot will go offline (slow link). Easiest way to see this is at the command prompt running 'dir \\domain.com\dfsRoot'. It will show the volume being offline.

    The mapped home drive h: is avaialble offline (slow link) as expected - however the drive s: although still mapped and without a red cross doesn't contain any data and is shown as Offline (slow connection) although the state is Avaialble (as opposed to always avaialble).

    A 'dir \\domain.com\dfsRoot\Apps' will again show the volume as offline.

    The pktinfo might or might not still contain the correct target (lets say \\server\apps) and a dir against \\server\apps will show the content ok.

    Resolution

    This is expected behaviour as all shares are treated in the same way by offline files and the dfs root share is no different. So when it goes offline and the user has mapped drives against the DFS root they won't be avaialble offline. As a workaround the customer can specify a very high latency on the dfs root share in the slow-link policy.

    \\domain.com\dfsRoot\HomeDrives Latency=20

    \\domain.com\dfsRoot\* Latency=9999

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    Wednesday, March 21, 2018 9:05 AM
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    I was going to tell you that you were crazy and there was no way that we have any latency, however i connected to the users machine who has this problem the most and watched teh pings. Sure enough, i was getting some pings as high as 500ms!!! to the file server. should not happen!

    the culprit was one drive syncing! which is why it shows up first thing in the morning when they log on.

    So windows is doing what it is designed to do and marking things offline because of high pings.

    Its unfortunate i do not seem to be able to turn off this behaviour. I will try your latency 9999 thing to modify the behaviour since i cant deactivate the feature completely it seems.

    will keep you posted. thanks.

    Wednesday, March 21, 2018 3:34 PM
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    If you have any problems, please let me know.

    Thanks for your time and understanding.

    Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help.
    If you have feedback for TechNet Subscriber Support, contact tnmff@microsoft.com.

    Friday, March 23, 2018 9:10 AM
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    Does not seem to be working right. I have now set the latency to 999999 and will see if that happens. but we still had the problem yesteday after putting just 4 9s.

    i have also throttled onedrive which was the root cause of the 100mb max out. i throttled it to only use 20% of the connection. will report back next week to see if the two extra 9 solved the problem. But i really think that this is broken still. 1) i cant turn it off completely and simply not use the feature. That is the point of this question, not having a work around 2) the work around does not prevent the drives for being marked as offline so far, as stated, with 4 9s.

    Friday, March 23, 2018 5:22 PM
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    Man i just dont get this BS. Still having people complain to me that their drives are all marked offline, and when i go to look in the log, it says stuff like:

    I decided to add \\DOMAIN\shares , with no asterisk and no trailing slash and will see if that makes a difference, but my god this sucks. clearly 37ms is FAR below 999999 ..... it should NEVER have transitioned! man i hate this "feature". I also tried enabling the registry key SilentForcedAutoReconnect = 1 , which hopefully will help?  this has got to be some sort of bug...

    Tuesday, April 3, 2018 6:51 PM
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    Hi,

    https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/askds/2011/12/14/slow-link-with-windows-7-and-dfs-namespaces/

    From the blog, we can see that it is ok that it will go offline, but the point is that it should be online. So check the event log ID 1004, seeing if it will go online.

    In addition, as to the UNC path, it is suggested that you can change it to \\Domian.com\*, and change the latency to 38000. Afraid that 99999 is too big to support.

    Hope it works for you.

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    Wednesday, April 4, 2018 10:11 AM
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    Yes i actually found that article yesterday and changed the latency to the recommended 32000. I know sometimes a number can be out of bounds and not create any error or anything but just silently fail. *sigh* ill monitor and see if it makes a difference. I have also added the root asterisk \\domain.ca\* as you recommended. will monitor.
    Wednesday, April 4, 2018 2:29 PM
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    still does not work. must be some other setting thats making it not apply. Perhaps turning offline files to on?

    RSOP:

    Wednesday, April 4, 2018 8:16 PM
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    I had another issue which i traced to a user having crap in their windows\CSC folder. They had a network drive that was simply not connecting. They received the error "the operation is supported only when you are connected to the server" and it made their drive over DFS just impossible to connect. The fix was to go into the CSC folder and delete all the contents. There was a file that did not show up in sync conflicts stuck in there. FUN. ( https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/696141-problem-accessing-shared-folder-operation-only-valid-when-connected-to-server )

    So seeing as that issue was somewhat related to my issue about people getting kicked offline randomly and for no reason, even though offline files should be disabled, the timeouts are set ridiculously high, etc..  i spent some more time looking into it today.

    I can now confidently say that offline files is broken in windows 10. There is an article  here by a microsoftie that says basically offline files was designed in 1998 and will not be updated. ( REF https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/filecab/2016/03/15/offline-files-and-continuous-availability-the-monstrous-union-you-should-not-consecrate/ )

    So with all that in mind, i am saying F U offline files and disabling the service for lan connected desktops. I tested this and finally after months, i have gotten offline files to be truly disabled. As in sync center tells me its disabled. AT LAST. unfortunately this wont work on laptops, but its a start. We will consider moving to work folders if it makes sense for us for remote users. Laptops will just have to live with being kicked offline sometimes, randomly and for no reason.

    Wednesday, May 2, 2018 8:24 PM