Folder created on FreeNAS share is invisible to Windows, but can navigate to it manually

[baodad]

Just finished setting up my first FreeNAS server on an Intel 1U rack server. Things seem to be going well. I have four drives split into two mirrored sets. I have created a Windows shared dataset and a windows share. I was able to successfully connect to and mount the share from my Windows 10 machine. This is a home network without a domain.

I began to transfer files from my hard drive to the FreeNAS share. I created a folder on the share called "Big Disk" (without the quotes), and then proceeded to robocopy everything from the drive to the share. It worked great. The files are all there. Except I can't see the "Big Disk" folder from Windows.

The FreeNAS path to this folder would be \\freenas\share\Big Disk. There are a lot of subdirectories and files below that that I robocopied over. I can browse to the folder from Windows explorer by manually typing the path Z:\Big Disk. When I do that, I can see all my files and subfolders just fine. I can also create and modify files as well. My only problem is that I cannot see the top-level folder "Big Disk"

To simplify access to and authentication with the share, I have created a user in FreeNAS that corresponds (username and password) to my Windows user that I am accessing the share from. In FreeNAS I checked the "Microsoft Account" checkbox for this user. I have tried making this (Windows/Microsoft) user the owner of the dataset. There is also a usergroup with ownership, and I have made sure my Windows user account belongs to that FreeNAS usergroup.

I have tried the windows utility takeown to try to take ownership of the "Big Disk" folder. But I get ERROR: The current logged on user does not have ownership privileges on the file (or folder) "Z:\Big Disk". I haven't had any luck with icacls either.

From Windows Explorer, I can check the security of the root of the share itself. Windows shows the share ownership belonging to freenas\<my Windows username>, but I'm not sure that this user account is the same as my corresponding local Windows account of the same name, i.e. they probably don't have the same SID? Perhaps if I could sync the SIDs my problem would resolve, or at least I could get access to see this invisible top-level folder...

I've tried to do my homework. Any troubleshooting tips or pointers would be greatly appreciated.

 

[baodad]

I continue to be frustrated with this. I've tried deleting all my files and copying them over again to a newly recreated folder. I think FreeNAS really must not play well with robocopy or something. I'm not sure how much DOS attributes in SAMBA have anything to do with this.

I think Robocopy freaks out if DOS and extended attributes are turned off. And if they are turned on, then robocopy is happy, but then proceeds to make the destination folder invisible to Windows Explorer.

Another random thought: is there a point at which a high-level folder contains so many subfolders and files that Windows or FreeNAS effectively freaks out and stops displaying that folder?

 

[Artion]

Hi, please correct me if i'm wrong. What you mean is that if you just go to the ip/hostname of your FN you don't see the share? Ex \\fnbox.... If that is the case, make sure you tik the 'Browsable from the network' option on the share.

 

[anodos]

I continue to be frustrated with this. I've tried deleting all my files and copying them over again to a newly recreated folder. I think FreeNAS really must not play well with robocopy or something. I'm not sure how much DOS attributes in SAMBA have anything to do with this.

I think Robocopy freaks out if DOS and extended attributes are turned off. And if they are turned on, then robocopy is happy, but then proceeds to make the destination folder invisible to Windows Explorer.

Another random thought: is there a point at which a high-level folder contains so many subfolders and files that Windows or FreeNAS effectively freaks out and stops displaying that folder?

What is the exact robocopy command you are using? FYI, if a user lacks the "read attributes" permission for a file or folder then it will be invisible to him.

 

[baodad]

Hi, please correct me if i'm wrong. What you mean is that if you just go to the ip/hostname of your FN you don't see the share? Ex \\fnbox.... If that is the case, make sure you tik the 'Browsable from the network' option on the share.

Thanks for your reply.
I can see and connect to the share from Windows. I can mount it as my Z: drive. I can create folders and files on it. But when I robocopy files to a folder I create on the share (for instance, "Big Disk") that top-level folder goes invisible to windows. I can no longer see it in Explorer. However, I can manually type in the path to it in the address bar ("Z:\Big Disk") and go there. So I know it exists. I know the folder has files in it. I can even create and modify the files inside it! But when I browse to the root of the share ("Z:\" in my case) I cannot see it.

It's really strange. And I think it has something to do with the interplay between Windows' robocopy and FreeNAS's Samba implementation of file attributes.

 

[baodad]

What is the exact robocopy command you are using? FYI, if a user lacks the "read attributes" permission for a file or folder then it will be invisible to him.

Thanks for your reply. Exact command is below:

Code:

robocopy d:\ "z:\Big Disk" /S /Z /COPY:DT /R:3 /W:1 /NP /UNILOG:20170902Robocopylog.txt /FP /XF pagefile.sys thumbs.db /XD d:\$RECYCLE.BIN d:\FileHistory /TEE

I've tried variations, based on my internet searches, like adding /FFT, adding and removing /Z or /B or /ZB. Nothing seems to make a difference. I definitely have read access to source D:, I can see the files copying, except when I add auxiliary parameters to SMB in FreeNAS to disable DOS and extended attributes, as has been suggested for performance. If I do that, Robocopy returns "access denied" errors.