Update on KB #946676 - Data Corruption Bug
This morning the Windows Home Server team updated the Knowledge Base article with additional information and created a blog post on the Windows Home Server Blog to update everyone on the status of resolving the data corruption issue.
Please take the time to read the updated KB article and the blog post.
Fixing this issue is the Windows Home Server team’s top priority. We understand the issue really well at this point - it is at an extremely low level of the operating system and it requires thorough testing to ensure that the fix addresses the issue. The team has been making good progress on an updated file system mini filter which is currently going through an extensive internal test pass. The development team is now working on updating portions of the migrator service to interact correctly with the file system mini filter.
Once the patch has passed internal quality bars, external participants will be asked to help test the fix. Our current plan is to release beta test versions of a fix over the next few months, with a final version currently estimated for June 2008, although that date could change as testing progresses. Thorough testing of the fix is critical and will take time.
All Replies
If you like things in a Q&A format, you can check out the post on the MSWHS blog. Thank you Mr. Churchill.
Thanks for the update, I dont want to sound cynical, but HP told me this news almost 2 weeks ago about the june 08 delivery, now that this is straightend out, I am now going to get a refund on my HP box because by june the same $600 box will probably be $250-$300 or there will be an upgrade in the box for $600, Im going to sound off on this issue by talking with my wallet because it my money.
Thanks Guys
June 2008 ? Who will wait that long ?
7 months (minimum) to fix such a bug on a server product ?
What a shame.
You just kill the product and the credibility of your team.
Sorry Mr. Headrick, but I've never seen such a disaster on a Microsoft product (including communication).
I'll format my machine and install WIndows server 2003 "original"...
And I recommend everybody to do it.
- Well this plain sucks. What is the point of this product if I have to worry about using it now until June of 2008????
Its nice that I am out of the period of time in which I could return my HP Mediasmart server and get something more dependable!!
How sad is it that WHS was so full of promise, and then something like his comes along and ruins it for everyone that took a leap of faith...
At least you people with OEM copies aren't screwed with proprietary hardware like some of us. - I've just bought an OEM copy of french WHS (after spending a month testing the 120 days trial) hoping that this Monday KB update will offer us a fix.. June 2008?! Come on! you're kidding me!
I'm really upset, i'll have to wait three months (at least) using a single HDD without duplicating my data. Great! I have to deal with 500Go of very precious (i mean emotional value) non duplicated family media!
WHS = Bakup your backups.. maybe using a "real" server solution (how about linux?)
I'm really thinking about returning my WHS dvd without even opening it and contact a consumer rights defense association. Thank you!
Ken
Quick question. I only have two drives in my server, and if I want to remove one so that I could just run on one drive for now, would that set me up for data corruption. If I remove the drive the correct way through the console, will my data that's on the secondary drive migrate over, or will I lose it?
Thank you.
SkandyInWonderland wrote: I've just bought an OEM copy of french WHS (after spending a month testing the 120 days trial) hoping that this Monday KB update will offer us a fix.. June 2008?! Come on! you're kidding me!
I'm really upset, i'll have to wait three months (at least) using a single HDD without duplicating my data. Great! I have to deal with 500Go of very precious (i mean emotional value) non duplicated family media!
WHS = Bakup your backups.. maybe using a "real" server solution (how about linux?)
I'm really thinking about returning my WHS dvd without even opening it and contact a consumer rights defense association.If you are going to return it without even opening it, exactly why are you going to contact a consumer rights defence association?
As for your data, keep a duplicate copy somewhere else in the meantime until the fix is released. If its that important to you, then dont trust the only copy to something you already know to have a problem!
Andrew
Feel free to slaughter the messenger. We are being forthright with our plan and sharing our best estimates on delivery date. There are other parts of the product that are not affected by this bug - Home Computer Backup & Restore, Remote Access, Health Monitoring, etc.
The bug is at the kernel level of the operating system, if you make mistakes there - then you end up with the infamous BSOD problem. We have been testing the fix and we will continue to do so ... releasing a fix that does not address the problem would be silly.
I have been getting a lot of positive and negative comments from both internal and external people. We are not asking you do anything except heed the guidance of the KB article. Some people are quite happy knowing that we are sharing this information, others have adverse reactions.
It is up to you to decide what to do ....
As for me, personally, I am backing up my home computers every night to my home server and editing all of my files directly on my home PCs. I continue to use Remote Access.
Gabev wrote: Quick question. I only have two drives in my server, and if I want to remove one so that I could just run on one drive for now, would that set me up for data corruption. If I remove the drive the correct way through the console, will my data that's on the secondary drive migrate over, or will I lose it?
Thank you.
I am not sure if anyone has been affected by removing the drive the proper way but I would recommend copying data from the network share, then removing the drive, then check your data. Backup copies are always a good thing!
Now that MS has kinda-sorta "promised" a fix a scant 7 months after the bug's discovery, let's lock all the related threads and just pretend all is well. Now I remember why I hate forums on vendors' sites: conflict of interest.
There are only 50-75 people who have had this problem, my {rear end}. If that were remotely true, the WHS developers wouldn't be making it their #1 priority.
Seriously, explain to your kids how simply playing files thru Windows Media Player would constitute "editing" because WMP changes the "underlying metadata". Want to rotate that picture of Aunt Sally? Just copy it to your desktop, open it up, rotate it, and then copy it back to the server. Sheesh. And these guys think a KB article nearly 3 months later suffices? Really? "Hey, kids, be sure to read this article, then initial here that shows you'll abide by these rules. It's called an 'Acceptable Use Policy' and it's kinda like one you may have to sign when you've got a job of your own!"
Anyway, enjoy this rant before it disappears like so many files on your Windows Home Shred, er, Server (WHS).
(I was asked to repost this here rather than in the new thread I created. Sorry for the double post.)Bgood2:
We chose to lock the related threads so people could all vent in one place. It is the #1 priority because it is a data corruption issue.
From the firmware change log of one of the top-selling NAS in Switzerland: "With firmware [xxx], we have received few feedback in concerning with file corruption occurrences when executing the shared files on the [xxx] Product. These applications includes: Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Access, Retrospect, Solidworks, and QuickBooks."
So, these things happen. No one likes them, not the vendor, not the customer. If it is Microsoft, the issue gets blown out of proportion, if it an apparently more used product from as lesser known vendor, most people don't even know that there was an issue.
I for one am thankful that the problem could be found, that we get instructions on how to avoid the issue in the meantime, and that we will eventually get a fix.
I did not lose any data (quite the contrary: WHS backup saved me twice so far), otherwise I might think differently.
Many regards, Martin
Regarding Outlook PST files - You cannot share or synchronize .pst files. However, you can use the steps in the "How to import .pst file data into Outlook" section to copy data from Outlook to a .pst file.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/287070/en-us
Some file are not designed to be stored on a file server for access from multiple computers. Microsoft has consistently given this guidance for years.
I'm doing the same. I've seen precisely two Excel spreadsheets corrupted, and I've been using the product since before general availability. I won't minimize the issue--any data corruption is bad--but I'm not at all uncomfortable with continuing to rely on the product for data storage, as well as backup and remote access.
Typically, I move a folder from the WHS to my desktop, work with the docs or pictures or spreadsheets, and then move the folder back to the WHS when I'm done.
Thanks for providing clear information about the dimensions of this issue. I certainly support getting this right before making the changes broadly available.
- Not surprising. I figured on this taking many months with the testing. As a basic NAS and remote access facility, WHS still has plenty of value.
I've been thinking of ways to work around the issue. If the corruption problem only affects multiple drive systems would this work?
1) Set WHS up as a single drive system using your largest drive.
2) Add additional drives to the server, but not add them to the WHS storage pool. Drives would be added through standard Windows 2003 disk management.
3) Run a scheduled batch process to copy important files from the WHS shared folders to the additional drives nightly.
Essentially, this is very similar to the procedure to be implemented in PowerPack 1. It is the feature that allows you to backup selected folders on the server to drives that are not a part of the storage pool.
With a sufficiently large primary drive this might be a decent workaround until the Drive Extender technology gets fixed.
Anyone know if this would work?
OK, Todd, thanks - I guess. Sheeeesh... Well, at least you've given us the timeline we've been looking for (even if it's much longer than we would have preferred). I'm working on the assumption that the WHS team now believes it has it sorted, otherwise it wouldn't be able to make this announcement with the confidence implicit in the message - in which case, well done, so far so good, keep at it.
I may be a fool but I'm going to stay the distance. When the issue first surfaced, I built significant redundancy for the household files into my network and followed the KB946676 advice, so I've not suffered corruption since then and won't lose anything irreplaceable even should the WHS box collapse. Moreover, I acknowledge that it has several features that my old XP-based server didn't: automatic full-drive backups; remote access and a family website - and they all work fine (although you'll note with chagrin that some of the additional functionality I value comes from third-party add-ins). And I'll continue to experiment carefully with additional functions, e.g. sharepoint services. Thanks heavens, as another poster ruefully noted, I haven't forked out for proprietory hardware, just the OEM.
Hey, I'm accentuating the positives here. I'm not going to step backwards or forwards to a full-scale server package; I'll stick with WHS (and continue to contribute to this forum). God help me - why? I still believe in the concept - even though I have another three months of nervousness ahead with a product that I've regarded for a while as fragile and pre-production. And I'll put major hours into ensuring our network remains solid and reliable (as I will for the various households to whom I'd recommended WHS and for whom I'm their amateur help-desk). Why? Because I've invested too much time and effort now to pull out - this has to work (eventually).
But I tell you what, mate. That fix had better be good; like 'version 2'-type good. You'd better deliver your bit on time and never again treat me and the thousands of others like me like I'm a mere impersonal 'customer'. We've become a little like your prototype testing team in the field, in effect, co-producers of your final product: even the familiar marketing concept of 'early adopters' doesn't adequately describe the relationship we now have to MS and its various software packages. I hope the company has finally recognised this. And, for heavens sake, include us in what sounds like a limited public testing phase that you plan.
I tell you; this whole business (plus the nonsense over Vista SP1 - which I've negotiated only because I'm a TechNet Plus subscriber) has come damn close to being a dealbreaker for this Windows (i.e. non-Linux) household. It may yet, but I hope not.
Bill
I'm thankful for the update. Working with software I understand these things take time to narrow down the root cause and fix especially at the kernel level. If it takes till June to get this fixed right, that is fine. There are far too many negative comments on this board. It's a software and hardware and both can fail. One should never put all their eggs in one basket. I installed the Beta a while back and still plan on installing the current version here in a few weeks with my tax money as I need new hardware. I'm not worried about data loss.
-Josh
bllr (aka Bill)
Thanks for the long post and honest feedback. We documented this issue in December as soon as we had confirmed the issue, at the time we originally wrote the KB article - we did not have a repro of the issue. It is hard to start working on a fix for something that you cannot reproduce in the test labs. We repro-ed the issue in late December and immediately started investigating ways to solve the bug. After many meetings and reviews, we came up with a plan. This is a really hard bug to fix based on where it is in the product.
Thanks for your patience and your support. The Windows Home Server team will get back to our old ways of updating the community forums as we have more information. We see all of the requests for giving updates, but up until today, we did not have enough confidence in the plan to commit to an estimated date for the release of this fix via Windows Update.
It is encouraging that MS seems to have a fix for the problem. It is disappointing that we must wait until June (Hopefully) for the fix to be released, but it is important to get it right the first time so I understand the delay.
I was aware of the bug before I bought the software, and have taken the recommended steps to avoid the data corruption bug. The remote access and PC backup was the main selling point for me, neither of which is affected by this. I have a copy of my important information (Music, Pictures, Documents etc...) stored on the server, but also have them stored on my main PC. I edit the ones on the PC and sync changes to the home server. That way I have 3 copies of the important files (including the PC backup). But the most important thing is keeping a copy of the important files off site, because I am not aware of a patch that can be released that will prevent fire or theft.
dbleagl21 wrote: But the most important thing is keeping a copy of the important files off site, because I am not aware of a patch that can be released that will prevent fire or theft.
I totally agree. Having an offsite backup copy of your important stuff is paramount to any plan to help protect against losing that "important stuff".
Today, I plug a USB hard drive into one of my home computers and copy data from my Shared Folders on my home server to this drive. I then take this hard drive to work with me. I have 2 external drives that I rotate on a weekly basis.
In the minor release of Windows Home Server announced at CES 2008, called "Power Pack 1" - there is a new feature called Server Data Backup where you will be able to plug an external hard drive into your home server and choose to add the drive as a "backup device" for your home server - similar to what I am doing today through my home computer. Power Pack 1 has not shipped yet.
psychopuppy wrote: Thanks for the update, I dont want to sound cynical, but HP told me this news almost 2 weeks ago about the june 08 delivery, now that this is straightend out, I am now going to get a refund on my HP box because by june the same $600 box will probably be $250-$300 or there will be an upgrade in the box for $600, Im going to sound off on this issue by talking with my wallet because it my money.
Thanks Guys
So you think that 10 weeks from now, the cost on the HP MediaSmart will drop by 60%? You are nuts, pure and simple.
T. Headrick wrote: Feel free to slaughter the messenger. We are being forthright with our plan and sharing our best estimates on delivery date. There are other parts of the product that are not affected by this bug - Home Computer Backup & Restore, Remote Access, Health Monitoring, etc.
I'm a bit surprised by all the negative reaction to the update. I'm just glad there WAS an update - going for months with no real news was not OK, but I wasn't expecting the fix to arrive today - just an update.
I can live with the restrictions for 10 weeks.
CalypsoCowboy wrote: [....] There are far too many negative comments on this board. [....] Some comments may seem 'negative', but most are just expressing people's exhasperation, bewilderment, frustration and growing impatience with what we all hope(d) and expected would be a safe and sound addition to a home system.
CalypsoCowboy wrote: [....] I'm not worried about data loss. -Josh
Not worried about data loss ... !
Really?
Clearly it is a bummer about this bug, but I have six workstations in my house that are being backup up by my WHS. I also have a lot of media shared out on my WHS as well, and I can live without directly editing files on the server for now. This product was a great idea and addresses real consumer needs, I am going to stick with it and work around the bug and invite you to do the same.
Kudos to the team for a great & clever product! (Bummer about the bug, get it fixed!)
~Bear
There are still to things that are unclear to me about the corruption bug:
-
Are only the files that are being edited at risk of corruption?
-
And, if I turn duplication on, am I still at risk?
-
- Yes, and yes. This issue has nothing to do with duplication, and only files that are changed while they are on the server are subject to corruption.
- Thanks for the update Mr. Headrick! Great news given the possible alternatives. WHS is a slick product and has earned a place in my house, backing up four machines daily, with one recovery already having saved data and lots of manual effort.
A three month wait till June is simply a small blip on the screen... test it well and come out firing!! :-)
Cliff Forum experts backup me up on this, but I think I understand this well enough now to answer this one:
Only files that are edited on a server that has more than one hard drive are at risk.
The complication is several programs "edit" a file, something as simple as WMP or itunes update your file and edit it with general use. So if your child listens to a file shared from the server, it can qualify as "editing". Things such as ID tags, album artwork, etc can change a file, things you wouldn't think twice about as editing.
This only applies to multi drive systems, regardless of duplication settings on the share. Once the tombstones are in play stating on which drive a file is kept, then the bug can corrupt edited files.
Avoidance can be achieved by setting things like music, pictures, movies to read-only, thus preventing editing.
Avoidance can be achieved by keeping the WHS storage pool to one drive. Shares outside of the storage pool can be created the old fashioned windows way, but have to managed outside of WHS and the console.
Ken
Damager9 wrote: psychopuppy wrote: Thanks for the update, I dont want to sound cynical, but HP told me this news almost 2 weeks ago about the june 08 delivery, now that this is straightend out, I am now going to get a refund on my HP box because by june the same $600 box will probably be $250-$300 or there will be an upgrade in the box for $600, Im going to sound off on this issue by talking with my wallet because it my money.
Thanks Guys
So you think that 10 weeks from now, the cost on the HP MediaSmart will drop by 60%? You are nuts, pure and simple.
Ya I am nuts, if you shop around you can get the box $40-$50 less the msrp, have you any clue on how hardware prices roll!
- Mr. Headrick ---
Thanks for the information, and for sticking around to deal with the reaction. By giving us some details on the problem and a tentative timeline you've taken an important step toward improving your relationship with your customers. However, there's more work to do. I would like to suggest a few actions that Microsoft needs to take:
1. Offer a refund of the software purchase price to any customer who wants to stop using WHS, either directly or through the original dealer. I'm sure you understand that while some users may be in a position to wait until June or beyond for this defect to be resolved, others of us are not, and we should not be paying for Microsoft's mistake. It's time for a voluntary recall.
2. Include language in all WHS marketing materials describing the limitations that are currently in effect so that others will not be unknowingly drawn into the situation.
3. Include a warning message that appears periodically on all WHS clients, telling users not to modify files and referring them to the KB article. This would be an easy and risk-free update to do, and could save your core constituency a lot of grief. Not everyone hangs out on technical forums or reads the trade press, and all your customers need to know about this. And, of course, WHS already has this facility: I'm constantly getting warnings about various problems that WHS has detected.
I recognize that a software development team probably lacks the authority to take the first two actions, but rather than simply tell us that, please refer these suggestions to the appropriate people and then let us know what their decision is. fierrpawz wrote: Forum experts backup me up on this, but I think I understand this well enough now to answer this one:
Only files that are edited on a server that has more than one hard drive are at risk.
The complication is several programs "edit" a file, something as simple as WMP or itunes update your file and edit it with general use. So if your child listens to a file shared from the server, it can qualify as "editing". Things such as ID tags, album artwork, etc can change a file, things you wouldn't think twice about as editing.
This only applies to multi drive systems, regardless of duplication settings on the share. Once the tombstones are in play stating on which drive a file is kept, then the bug can corrupt edited files.
Avoidance can be achieved by setting things like music, pictures, movies to read-only, thus preventing editing.
Avoidance can be achieved by keeping the WHS storage pool to one drive. Shares outside of the storage pool can be created the old fashioned windows way, but have to managed outside of WHS and the console.
Ken
True. There are quite a few programs, where the user does not know the file is being edited. One clarification, some people are loading programs / add-ins on their home servers that may create or edit files. The safest course is to do as you say and also to ensure that any programs/services running on a home server do not have the ability to edit/change any of the files stored in the Shared Folders.
The best solution is staying with a single hard drive for the Server Storage pool on your home server. If you can't do that then heed the advice of the KB article.
Lastly, I have a backup copy of the photos, music and documents that I store on my home server on an external hard drive that I store in my office. I copy the files from the Shared Folders on a weekly basis to an external hard drive and store it outside of my house. I have 2 drives that I rotate. I go that extra step in the event of fire, theft, flood, etc. Having a good disaster prevention (or as the call it now 'business continuity') plan should always inlclude off-site storage.
Colour me appreciative of the update and the notification of the expected timescale. I'll continue to use hardware RAID in the meantime.
Perhaps a crazy question, but is the bug present in Windows 2008 Server? Could you not 'simply' (hehe) apply the WHS layer on top of WS 2008?
- Are corrupted files completely broken or can they seem fine? Asking because I have edited my mp3 collection before I became aware of the bug. I haven't stumbled over any obviously corrupted files so far. But still I would like to know if it could introduce glitches into the stream ruining the files but you wouldn't know until you listen to it or run it through mp3val or a similar program?
Quentin Stephens wrote: Colour me appreciative of the update and the notification of the expected timescale. I'll continue to use hardware RAID in the meantime.
Perhaps a crazy question, but is the bug present in Windows 2008 Server? ...
As clearly stated in the KB article. This issue is specific to Windows Home Server and does not affect oether Windows Server-based products. You will not see this bug in Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2003, Windows Small Business Server, etc.
- My problem was never data corruption. It is data simply vanishing. I think it's related to removing a hard drive from the system using the "remove" command. I don't know if it's all related to that as I don't check every bit of my data all the time but I do recall some data missing around the time I removed a drive.
And just recently found some more data missing but don't know if it was related to that either.
Then I get issues with older data on my server not allowing me to copy it over to my desktop. I can execute it from the server but just can't copy it.
I had issues when deleting a ton of my ebooks from the server(I had already copied them all to my desktop) I kept getting errors during the deletion telling me the directory was empty. I'm not sure what that's about. fandibus wrote: My problem was never data corruption. It is data simply vanishing. I think it's related to removing a hard drive from the system using the "remove" command. I don't know if it's all related to that as I don't check every bit of my data all the time but I do recall some data missing around the time I removed a drive.
And just recently found some more data missing but don't know if it was related to that either.
Then I get issues with older data on my server not allowing me to copy it over to my desktop. I can execute it from the server but just can't copy it.
I had issues when deleting a ton of my ebooks from the server(I had already copied them all to my desktop) I kept getting errors during the deletion telling me the directory was empty. I'm not sure what that's about.The hard part for the Windows Home Server team is trying to figure out issues like yours - as the team needs to know the details about your home network, home server and computer hardware/software, the exact error messages, the logs from your home server and a detailed set of specific steps to reproduce your problem .... and when / where you encountered the problem...
The KB article was updated to include the following:
If users believe they have evidence that they are experiencing the issue, please send a detailed e-mail of their circumstances to whsforum@microsoft.com so that Microsoft can try to validate the cause and provide specific guidance.
If you believe you are experiencing a data corruption/loss issue, and you can reproduce the problem, then we would ask that you work with the Windows Home Server team so that we can understand your specific issue.
T. Headrick wrote: Feel free to slaughter the messenger. We are being forthright with our plan and sharing our best estimates on delivery date.
For what it's worth, I really appreciate the openness and honesty. All companies need it. Thanks for sharing your info and please continue to keep us updated on your status.
-Tom
Rob Graves wrote: Are corrupted files completely broken or can they seem fine? Asking because I have edited my mp3 collection before I became aware of the bug. I haven't stumbled over any obviously corrupted files so far. But still I would like to know if it could introduce glitches into the stream ruining the files but you wouldn't know until you listen to it or run it through mp3val or a similar program? I can't provide a definitive answer to this, as it can depend on how an application deals with "anomalies" (potential corruption) in the files. Some applications may have a self-healing process that try to repair their appliation files, while others may produce an error message when trying to open/edit the file.
I can recommend following the "Guidance" as outlined in the KB article.
T. Headrick wrote: fandibus wrote: My problem was never data corruption. It is data simply vanishing. I think it's related to removing a hard drive from the system using the "remove" command. I don't know if it's all related to that as I don't check every bit of my data all the time but I do recall some data missing around the time I removed a drive.
And just recently found some more data missing but don't know if it was related to that either.
Then I get issues with older data on my server not allowing me to copy it over to my desktop. I can execute it from the server but just can't copy it.
I had issues when deleting a ton of my ebooks from the server(I had already copied them all to my desktop) I kept getting errors during the deletion telling me the directory was empty. I'm not sure what that's about.The hard part for the Windows Home Server team is trying to figure out issues like yours - as the team needs to know the details about your home network, home server and computer hardware/software, the exact error messages, the logs from your home server and a detailed set of specific steps to reproduce your problem .... and when / where you encountered the problem...
The KB article was updated to include the following:
If users believe they have evidence that they are experiencing the issue, please send a detailed e-mail of their circumstances to whsforum@microsoft.com so that Microsoft can try to validate the cause and provide specific guidance.
If you believe you are experiencing a data corruption/loss issue, and you can reproduce the problem, then we would ask that you work with the Windows Home Server team so that we can understand your specific issue.
You're right, and I wish I documented all the details at that time. I had no errors at all. The data was there and then one day it wasen't. I don't know if it's directly related to me removing my 750gb USB WD mybook or not. I just recall noticing some data missing around that time.
If it happens again i'll certainly collect all the logs and document it for the WHS team.I appreciate the acknowledgement and the update on this issue. Although I would like the time frame increased...but I understand the difficulty. I'm sure most people have the same dilema...these systems are worthless until a resolution is found. But a solid solution is the desired result...and that will take time and much testing. Thanks again.
Ken,
This is not an edit issue. My case corrupted files that were not edited on two occasions now. So do not think that by not editing files you will be safe.
T. Headrick wrote: I have been getting a lot of positive and negative comments from both internal and external people. We are not asking you do anything except heed the guidance of the KB article. Some people are quite happy knowing that we are sharing this information, others have adverse reactions.
I think you are handling this situation rather honestly which is not so common in this business.
I was really glad to see the details in this update of the KB because I was really wondering what you were doing but now that I have some idea of the complexity involved, it makes more sense that you are really struggling with this bug.
Also since you are part of MS, I bet that there is a complex path with lots of QA from developing code to shipping it.
If you are able to provide a public "beta" of this patch soon, that would satisfy me enough.
Erik
I just deleted a post - as 2 users were starting to bicker with each other - please stay on topic.
thx
Thanks for the update; very refeshing.
Personally I am sticking with WHS until the fix; it's indespensible to me now. I have been using the workarounds for months now - personal files stay on my desktop - read-only access to media files on the WHS. I can happily continue this way until mid-year.
Everyone who sees my setup can see this is a brilliant concept - although for the moment I'm recommeding they wait for mid-year.
- I just want to confirm what files are affected ..
I have itunes and mediaportal connecting to WHS to pull the libraries/databases from a shared drive. Since they might be affected, I have added a new drive to WHS (not part of the pool) and put the share there. Then I marked the music/video folder (in the pool) as read-only so nothing is edited.
Would this prevent the data-corruption bug? What is going through my mind is this -
Once the fix is proven thru all the testing will it then be released in a Service Pack fashion as per Windows XP or Vista.
Is it worth waiting for the "SP" enhanced discs to become available prior to buying or will the fix be able to be simply downloaded and worked into the existing program even though the problem seems to be buried deep in the coding ?
I am still keen to try the WHS as it certainly addresses what my needs are expecially in terms of bringing some management / order to my network. However I do not want to be stuck with a program that is going to require a major fix thru a download wth all the inhernet risks which that contains.
Regards
Two questions for T. Headrick and/or others on "the team":
1) Is there any relationship between this problem and the "invalid file handle" failures of shadow copy "previous version" files? If not, is the "invalid file handle" failures of shadow files issue being worked?
2) Is there any relationship between this problem and the loss of data demonstrated from simple client-side .CMD script as demonstrated in thread "WHS Corruption - Easy as 1, 2, %&*#@" (http://forums.microsoft.com/WindowsHomeServer/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=2783922&SiteID=50)? If not, is that issue also being worked?
I will send a separate issue (PSE6 mass image date/time adjust results in occasional file name mangling) via the email link.
T. Headrick wrote: There are other parts of the product that are not affected by this bug - Home Computer Backup & Restore, Remote Access, Health Monitoring, etc.
I'm sure you understand that this is, for many WHS users, somewhat like saying that even though the steering on the car has some "issues", the engine, radio, power seats and heated mirrors continue to work quite well, thank you. I deployed WHS for storage and backup. Everything else is secondary or tertiary at best. Sure it's nice to have. In the absence of trustworthy storage, though, it's not much consolation
mishref wrote: I just want to confirm what files are affected ..
I have itunes and mediaportal connecting to WHS to pull the libraries/databases from a shared drive. Since they might be affected, I have added a new drive to WHS (not part of the pool) and put the share there. Then I marked the music/video folder (in the pool) as read-only so nothing is edited.
Would this prevent the data-corruption bug?Please follow the guidance outlined in the KB article to prevent the data corruption bug.
-
Employ Windows Explorer or a command line tool to copy files to and from the Windows Home Server
-
Do not use applications to directly edit or change files that are stored on Windows Home Server.
-
Do not use media management programs, such as Windows Media Player, to import files to the Windows Home Server.
-
Do not redirect applications to access files that are stored in the Shared Folders, as some applications may make changes to the metadata of a file without explicit user action.
The issue only affects Windows Home Server systems that have more than 1 hard drive added to the Server Storage on the Windows Home Server Console.
-
port50side wrote: (1) Once the fix is proven thru all the testing will it then be released in a Service Pack fashion as per Windows XP or Vista.
(2) Is it worth waiting for the "SP" enhanced discs to become available prior to buying or will the fix be able to be simply downloaded and worked into the existing program even though the problem seems to be buried deep in the coding ?
Added numbers to your questions:
(1) Once the fix for the issue outlined in KB #946676 is ready for deployment, it will be deployed to existing customers via Windows Update. There are generally 2 times each month, where Windows Updates are deployed to users. We will use the first Windows Update distribution available as soon as the fix is determined to be ready for deployment by our release management team. Existing customers will not need new media to get this fix installed on their home servers.
(2) Once this fix and the Power Pack 1 functionaltiy is signed off. We will be releasing new media that includes this fix and the functionality in Power Pack. The new media will be available to OEMs and System Builders to build future Windows Home Server systems - so they will not have to use Windows Update to get the fixes and new features that have deployed since the shipment of the original version of Windows Home Server.
Dick Watson wrote: 1) Is there any relationship between this problem and the "invalid file handle" failures of shadow copy "previous version" files? If not, is the "invalid file handle" failures of shadow files issue being worked?
2) Is there any relationship between this problem and the loss of data demonstrated from simple client-side .CMD script as demonstrated in thread "WHS Corruption - Easy as 1, 2, %&*#@" (http://forums.microsoft.com/WindowsHomeServer/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=2783922&SiteID=50)? If not, is that issue also being worked?
I will send a separate issue (PSE6 mass image date/time adjust results in occasional file name mangling) via the email link.
(1) The hard part for the Windows Home Server team is trying to figure out issues without the necessary data to fully understand the specific circumstances of your issue - the team needs to know the details about your home network, home server and computer hardware/software, the exact error messages, the logs from your home server and a detailed set of specific steps to reproduce your problem .... and when / where you encountered the problem...
The KB article was updated to include the following:
If users believe they have evidence that they are experiencing the issue, please send a detailed e-mail of their circumstances to whsforum@microsoft.com so that Microsoft can try to validate the cause and provide specific guidance.
If you believe you are experiencing a data corruption/loss issue, and you can reproduce the problem, then we would ask that you work with the Windows Home Server team so that we can understand your specific issue.
(2) The .CMD Script you reference has been added to the list of test cases for KB #946676.
tnslocum wrote: This is not an edit issue. My case corrupted files that were not edited on two occasions now. So do not think that by not editing files you will be safe.
If you can document this behavior (and especially if you can reproduce it), then you should send email to whsforum@microsoft.com with details. They are still actively soliciting people who are experiencing file corruption issues.T. Headrick wrote: The hard part for the Windows Home Server team is trying to figure out issues without the necessary data to fully understand the specific circumstances of your issue - the team needs to know the details about your home network, home server and computer hardware/software, the exact error messages, the logs from your home server and a detailed set of specific steps to reproduce your problem .... and when / where you encountered the problem... I appreciate why it's hard for the team to understand these issues absent the full environmental understanding, the complete testcase, and the full context of the failures. But I hope you have some sense why it is hard for us users to provide just the relevant details about our home network, home server and computer hardware/software, the exact error messages, the logs from our home server (it generates dozens of entries a day all by itself when it is apparently happy) and a detailed set of specific steps to reproduce our problem. The "Invalid File Handle" problem has been cited here by many users under many circumstances/environments, but always when trying to restore a "Previous Version" of a file stored on a WHS share.
You have one of these. Have you ever tried to restore a "previous version"? The one time I tried to--and needed to since WHS had irretrieveably mangled an .MDB--I got the "invalid file handle" error message. I've used server-stored .MDBs a lot and **never** had a problem till I tried it on WHS. Yes, I know it's generally recommended against because of problems with multiple clients getting at the file simultaneously and because of what happens if the network drops out and so on. But none of these things applied and still I had a corrupted file ona WHS share and a useless "backup" "supported" by WHS.
FWIW, my server hardware is cited about halfway down this page: http://forums.microsoft.com/windowshomeserver/showpost.aspx?pageindex=1&siteid=50&postid=1362497&sb=0&d=1&at=7&ft=11&tf=0&pageid=15. Details about my home network and computer hardware and software would take weeks to capture. (Five clients, two switches, a router, an access point, etc., enought software to float a boat. Oh, and error logs? This was a month ago.)
I personaly think MS might bail on V1 in favour of V2, what sets me off is the time line, after yesterdays anouncment, people here expressed outrage and anger, then came the offering question of pp1 which could be called a peace offering or pacifier, the V1 user is small enough for damage control in order for a stop development order without adverse effects and June would be a good time to pull it off, V1 has not been a good go and it would make economic sense to minimize support on V1 in favour of development of V2.
This is just my opinion but its the time lines of things that are making me wonder.
Ken Warren wrote: tnslocum wrote: This is not an edit issue. My case corrupted files that were not edited on two occasions now. So do not think that by not editing files you will be safe.
If you can document this behavior (and especially if you can reproduce it), then you should send email to whsforum@microsoft.com with details. They are still actively soliciting people who are experiencing file corruption issues.I've already completed the process and have not been contacted by the team since I posted my issues over a week ago.
T. Headrick Wrote:
"(2) Once this fix and the Power Pack 1 functionaltiy is signed off. We will be releasing new media that includes this fix and the functionality in Power Pack. The new media will be available to OEMs and System Builders to build future Windows Home Server systems - so they will not have to use Windows Update to get the fixes and new features that have deployed since the shipment of the original version of Windows Home Server."
I think it would also be nice if Microsoft made the new refreshed media available to the current users on Windows Home Server. I'd even be willing pay for the shipping.
T. Headrick wrote: (1) The hard part for the Windows Home Server team is trying to figure out issues without the necessary data to fully understand the specific circumstances of your issue - the team needs to know the details about your home network, home server and computer hardware/software, the exact error messages, the logs from your home server and a detailed set of specific steps to reproduce your problem .... and when / where you encountered the problem... The KB article was updated to include the following:
If users believe they have evidence that they are experiencing the issue, please send a detailed e-mail of their circumstances to whsforum@microsoft.com so that Microsoft can try to validate the cause and provide specific guidance.
If you believe you are experiencing a data corruption/loss issue, and you can reproduce the problem, then we would ask that you work with the Windows Home Server team so that we can understand your specific issue.
Todd,
I think you misunderstood what Dick is referring to. He is referring to the Previous Versions (aka Shadow Copies) issue that I first posted and reproduced here (and it was subsequently verified by other frequent posters on this board, including Ken Warren).
Thanks a lot for the update Todd!
Great to here that your Team is making progres and that finally a date is set for a possible fix.
Please keep us posted on any information on the issue that might help understanding.
Good Luck!
PS - For all of you people "shooting the messenger": please! I can understand that some of you are angry or at least dissapointed. But throwing mud does not help here? I'm quite sure the current problem will be fixed.
- No, I have not lost any data (thanks to the KB)
- Yes, I'm making my weekly backups. But this is not new as I have been making backups since I can spell the word 'harddisk'.
- Yes. I still think WHS is great!
- I am new to windows home server. I am running whs with a Highpoint rocketraid 1740 raid controller. Is this data corruption bug relevant to data stored on this raid set? Do I need to make the data on this set read only? Thanks
kariya21 wrote: I think you misunderstood what Dick is referring to. He is referring to the Previous Versions (aka Shadow Copies) issue that I first posted and reproduced here (and it was subsequently verified by other frequent posters on this board, including Ken Warren).
Thanks and exactly! That's the one. And it's not like this one hasn't been well known in this forum since long before the "other corruption bug" started getting traction.
Over to Todd for possible comments: Is there any relationship between this problem and the "invalid file handle" failures of shadow copy "previous version" files? If not, is the "invalid file handle" failures of shadow copy files issue being worked? Note that there are several reports of this having been reported, with repro cases, via Connect.
- I noticed that the article mentions Sync Toy 2.0 beta. Does this also show up with Sync Toy 1.4, which I'm still using? I'm just curious, because I have been syncing back and forth like that and have yet to experience a corruption, but I'm not sure if I'm just lucky, or if there's something different in the way it processes data. If anyone knows, I would love to hear either way!
Quentin Stephens wrote: Colour me appreciative of the update and the notification of the expected timescale. I'll continue to use hardware RAID in the meantime.
Thanks!
I was just about to ask if hardware RAID would get around this problem. I am also hoping to get a perf bump out of the deal too. I have 4 good 500gb sata3 drives and 2 slower legacy IDE drives which I am going to pull out of the machine. I ordered 2 more 500gb drives so when they get here, I flatten the box and start over with the 6-drive RAID setup.
~Bear
RONIEL wrote: Quentin Stephens wrote: Colour me appreciative of the update and the notification of the expected timescale. I'll continue to use hardware RAID in the meantime.
Thanks!
I was just about to ask if hardware RAID would get around this problem. I am also hoping to get a perf bump out of the deal too. I have 4 good 500gb sata3 drives and 2 slower legacy IDE drives which I am going to pull out of the machine. I ordered 2 more 500gb drives so when they get here, I flatten the box and start over with the 6-drive RAID setup.
~Bear
As long as the WHS partition thinks it is on one drive (RAID or not) you shouldn't have the corruption bug. It shouldn't matter if you're using software RAID or hardware RAID. Keep in mind that you'll probably have to provide the correct IO drivers when installing WHS on a RAID array.- May I have a response to my 3/10 post about refunds and warnings? Even if the answer is "no way" I would like to at least know that it's been read. I'll repeat it here not to be annoying but because the thread is getting long and hard to navigate:
Mr. Headrick ---
Thanks for the information, and for sticking around to deal with the reaction. By giving us some details on the problem and a tentative timeline you've taken an important step toward improving your relationship with your customers. However, there's more work to do. I would like to suggest a few actions that Microsoft needs to take:
1. Offer a refund of the software purchase price to any customer who wants to stop using WHS, either directly or through the original dealer. I'm sure you understand that while some users may be in a position to wait until June or beyond for this defect to be resolved, others of us are not, and we should not be paying for Microsoft's mistake. It's time for a voluntary recall.
2. Include language in all WHS marketing materials describing the limitations that are currently in effect so that others will not be unknowingly drawn into the situation.
3. Include a warning message that appears periodically on all WHS clients, telling users not to modify files and referring them to the KB article. This would be an easy and risk-free update to do, and could save your core constituency a lot of grief. Not everyone hangs out on technical forums or reads the trade press, and all your customers need to know about this. And, of course, WHS already has this facility: I'm constantly getting warnings about various problems that WHS has detected.
I recognize that a software development team probably lacks the authority to take the first two actions, but rather than simply tell us that, please refer these suggestions to the appropriate people and then let us know what their decision is. - To Tangible :
I totally agree with you! Hi,
I moved two files from my home PC to my WHS today
The original file sizes were 4.3gb but the files that ended up on my WHS after the move were considerably smaller. I thought that data coruption bug was specific to multi-drive configs yet my WHS only has one internal HDD.
Can someone confirm is this the data coruption bug? I'm soooo annoyed :-(
I'm sticking with WHS until the fix comes out, so went looking for a "hedge" against data corruption. Jungledisk has a WHS add-in that backs up your shared folders (photos, videos, etc) to Amazon S3 every night. It hangs on to older backups for as long as you set it (I think it's 30 days by default). So if the data corruption bug hits, I can still retrieve an older backup without corrupted files. Wish I didn't have to do it, but it's cheap and easy to setup, and I don't have to worry about losing all my photos or home videos. www.jungledisk.com/whs
Hi, something I'm not clear on. I haven't experienced any corruption issues, but I had been using my HP mediasmart box as the master repository of all my media files.
So, most of these are AVI or MP3. I haven't imported them as a library into iTunes or WMP -- basically I just double-click on whatever I want to watch/listen to and WMP launches & plays it.
My question is, would WMP typically be editing metadata (just by opening an individual file, that isn't part of a WMP library)? & if so, would this just be with MP3s, or would it be with AVIs too?
Also, I'm guessing there's no easy way that I could scan thousands of MP3s/AVIs to confirm whether any have been corrupted or not?
Tangible wrote: Mr. Headrick ---
Thanks for the information, and for sticking around to deal with the reaction. By giving us some details on the problem and a tentative timeline you've taken an important step toward improving your relationship with your customers. However, there's more work to do. I would like to suggest a few actions that Microsoft needs to take:
1. Offer a refund of the software purchase price to any customer who wants to stop using WHS, either directly or through the original dealer. I'm sure you understand that while some users may be in a position to wait until June or beyond for this defect to be resolved, others of us are not, and we should not be paying for Microsoft's mistake. It's time for a voluntary recall.
2. Include language in all WHS marketing materials describing the limitations that are currently in effect so that others will not be unknowingly drawn into the situation.
3. Include a warning message that appears periodically on all WHS clients, telling users not to modify files and referring them to the KB article. This would be an easy and risk-free update to do, and could save your core constituency a lot of grief. Not everyone hangs out on technical forums or reads the trade press, and all your customers need to know about this. And, of course, WHS already has this facility: I'm constantly getting warnings about various problems that WHS has detected.
I recognize that a software development team probably lacks the authority to take the first two actions, but rather than simply tell us that, please refer these suggestions to the appropriate people and then let us know what their decision is.Sorry to take so long in getting a response to this, but you said I should "refer these suggestions to the appropriate people" - and this took a little over a day. Here are the answers to your questions:
1. Although we are aware of only a very small percentage of users with confirmed instances of this issue and we believe that most users are unlikely to be affected, we are taking the situation very seriously. Windows Home Server software is available to OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) and System Builders; it is not a retail software product. We are frequently consulting with OEMs and System Builders and our operations teams about this issue. We currently have no plans for a voluntary return program. OEMs and System Builders have policies and procedures in place for handling product returns and giving refunds; these vary by country and company.
2. The Windows Home Server team has been very forthright in our communications and guidance about this issue.
a. We created a Knowledge Base (KB) article in December, before we could reproduce the issue that a few people were discussing in community forums. At the time we originally wrote the KB article – we could not even reproduce the bug in our test labs because there was insufficient information to work with. We reproduced the issue in our test labs in late December and immediately started working to solve the bug.
b. During this time and since, we have proactively and reactively engaged with press and analysts giving them the latest status on the bug.
c. We continue to update the Knowledge Base article (we have updated it four times already), and each time we provide updated information that generates more press/new stories about the issue.
d. If you search the “News” sections on live.com or google.com, this issue is the first thing listed when you enter a search for “Windows Home Server.” .
e. We also updated the support pages to include a “Product Support Alert” at the top of the page to inform people about this issue. (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/windowshomeserver/support.mspx )
f. Users can easily subscribe to an RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed so they are notified when any updated Knowledge Base article on Windows Home Server gets published – you can learn more about this option at the Windows Home Server Solution Center - http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/ph/12624
3. Thanks for your feedback. Currently, the Windows Home Server team is heads-down trying to solve the issue that causes this bug. Developing a fix for this bug is the highest priority for the team right now.
gerst wrote: I am new to windows home server. I am running whs with a Highpoint rocketraid 1740 raid controller. Is this data corruption bug relevant to data stored on this raid set? Do I need to make the data on this set read only? Thanks Until a software fix for Windows Home Server is available, users may choose to act to help limit the possibility of being affected by this issue. In the Knowledge Base article http://support.microsoft.com/kb/946676 we suggest some precautionary measures that users may choose to take.
· Employ Windows Explorer or a command line tool to copy files to and from the Windows Home Server
· Do not use applications to directly edit or change files that are stored on Windows Home Server.
· Do not use media management programs, such as Windows Media Player, to import files to the Windows Home Server.
· Do not redirect applications to access files that are stored in the Shared Folders, as some applications may make changes to the metadata of a file without explicit user action.
Single hard drive Windows Home Server systems are not affected by this issue.
Torpex wrote: I noticed that the article mentions Sync Toy 2.0 beta. Does this also show up with Sync Toy 1.4, which I'm still using? I'm just curious, because I have been syncing back and forth like that and have yet to experience a corruption, but I'm not sure if I'm just lucky, or if there's something different in the way it processes data. If anyone knows, I would love to hear either way! Not to sound like a broken record ...
Until a software fix for Windows Home Server is available, users may choose to act to help limit the possibility of being affected by this issue. In the Knowledge Base article http://support.microsoft.com/kb/946676 we suggest some precautionary measures that users may choose to take.
· Employ Windows Explorer or a command line tool to copy files to and from the Windows Home Server
· Do not use applications to directly edit or change files that are stored on Windows Home Server.
· Do not use media management programs, such as Windows Media Player, to import files to the Windows Home Server.
· Do not redirect applications to access files that are stored in the Shared Folders, as some applications may make changes to the metadata of a file without explicit user action.
kemik wrote: Hi,
I moved two files from my home PC to my WHS today
The original file sizes were 4.3gb but the files that ended up on my WHS after the move were considerably smaller. I thought that data coruption bug was specific to multi-drive configs yet my WHS only has one internal HDD.
Can someone confirm is this the data coruption bug? I'm soooo annoyed :-(
kemik - Thanks for contacting the team at whsforum@microsoft.com about this issue.
- Because the article mentioned SyncToy 2.0 beta by name, I just thought there might be a difference between that and SyncToy 1.4. Since evidently Robocopy doesn't cause problems, and it's based on sort of the same technology, I was just trying to understand the bug better. I don't really think that SyncToy was editing or changing the files directly -- just copying the file if it finds one is different. That is why I was surprised that SyncToy 2.0 beta is on the list.
You guys have a lot more information on how and why the bug happens. I thought you might be able to clarify. Has anyone formally acknowledged the corruption issue of file while using offline files? Several weeks ago there was a post, where i wrote a few posts, related to this problem. Is it possible the June fix will address these issues as well? Will this be part of the testing?
I also wanted to throw my 2-cents in on the performance issues... Like most I understand the process and why it may take a period of time to get a fix out. However, I'm also very disappointed. It doesn't make much sense getting all worked up. It is what it is.
On the other hand, it would be nice if Microsoft recognized our patience and perhaps it would be nice of them to consider a free upgrade on their next upgrade. I know Microsoft doesn't normally charge for service packs, but typically would charge for the next version. So if someone purchased the product before let's say.... April 2008 they qualify for the free upgrade?
Can we fly that up the flagpole?About SyncToy 1.4 ...
Torpex wrote: Because the article mentioned SyncToy 2.0 beta by name, I just thought there might be a difference between that and SyncToy 1.4. Since evidently Robocopy doesn't cause problems, and it's based on sort of the same technology, I was just trying to understand the bug better. I don't really think that SyncToy was editing or changing the files directly -- just copying the file if it finds one is different. That is why I was surprised that SyncToy 2.0 beta is on the list.
You guys have a lot more information on how and why the bug happens. I thought you might be able to clarify.I've used SyncToy 1.4 a lot, but I've never used SyncToy 2.0 beta, so my point below may not be relevant to the newer beta version. Hopefully someone who has used the version 2.0 beta can chip in here.
I'm curious that SyncToy 1.4 isn't mentioned explicitly in the KB Article, because I believe it's (SyncToy's) "normal" behaviour falls into the mode where the bug can bite it. Here's why ... (IMO):
The hazard with using SyncToy 1.4 (or earlier versions) I believe is due to the fact that it keeps track of which files & folders it has copied, by writing and updating a hidden file called SyncToyDirectoryId.txt which most folks will recognise.
It creates and writes and re-writes to this file in both the Source and Destination folders, so - although SyncToy will probably copy your selected files OK to a WHS-based Destination, the danger comes from the possibility of the SyncToyDirectoryId.txt file itself becoming corrupted by the bug, and therefore "confusing" SyncToy, and causing it to mis-copy or skip some of your intended files and folders.
I've never tried using it to make or maintain backups on WHS, so this is purely a hypothesis so far. But - if SyncToy 2.0 beta uses the same scheme to keep track of it's tasks, then perhaps this is the reason it features among the "don't use" programs on the KB list?
I'll happily defer to anyone who knows for sure ... although I admit it's a bit academic due to its "not recommended" status.
Colin P.
While this has upset my business plans considerably, it's only a few months and I'm confident Mr Headrick and his colleagues will resolve the issue.
This Anandtech article is a "must read" for anyone interested in the WHS data corruption "bug". According to the article, it is not a bug, but a Design Flaw in the WHS Drive Extender component.
http://www.anandtech.com/weblog/showpost.aspx?i=413
WHS will be a great product, so let's hope Microsoft gets the WHS Drive Extender component redesigned and tested in time to meet the projected June 2008 WHS release.
- RiskyBiz, Thanks for posting this very interesting article. It would be great to get confirmation from a Microsoft person about the technical details in the article, especially those identified by the author as speculative.
Tangible wrote: RiskyBiz, Thanks for posting this very interesting article. It would be great to get confirmation from a Microsoft person about the technical details in the article, especially those identified by the author as speculative. I will commit to sharing more details. I just need people to be patient, as I will need to get anything that is written up to go through a fairly extensive technical review pass, and I really don't want to interrupt the development team right now.
RiskyBiz wrote: This Anandtech article is a "must read" for anyone interested in the WHS data corruption "bug"...
Based on what I read in the Drive Extender White Paper and in the article you pointed out (thank you for the link!), I have a glimpse of understanding on why so few people get hit by the bug. I really wish we knew more about the nature of the bug: Us enthusiasts would be able to continue to use WHS with confidence, by not getting into circumstances triggering the bug.
My glimpse of understanding is this:
- The DE whitepaper states that files are whenever possible directly written to their final location, on whatever drive this might be.
- The DE whitepaper also states that related files (i.e. files in the same share, or at least in the same directory) are kept together, i.e. on the same physical disk.
- The above article hypothezises that files get corrupted if the are updated (editet or appended in-place), while they are being moved by DE to another location.
So, I can imagine a use-case which could trigger corruption:
1. Your "Pictures" share exists and contains a few files.
2. You copy 5 gigabytes worth of pictures to your server.
3. Immediately after copying you start browsing your collection with a program that under the hood also updates file metadata.
Why would this trigger the bug?
1. The first files go to the same physical drive where the existing files from "Pictures" are located.
2. At some point while copying, WHS decides that the share is becoming too big and must go onto another drive.
3. It starts moving the already copied files onto the new drive (I would assume the files still being copied from now on go directly to the new drive)
4. When your copy operation is finished, DE is still busy moving files.
5. While you are browsing, you will sooner or later hit the file just being moved.
How to avoid the circumstances? Quite simple: After any big copy operation wait a few hours until the balancing operation is finished.
Regards, Martin
Ok, here are my 2 cents - Luv the Windows Servers products - I've install over 100servers - and can say that they are rock solid! What the Hell happened with WHS!
Can we say simple Fix: get rid of DE until you can fix it! WHS is just a dumbed down version of server '03 (or am I wrong) !!
I for some reason trusted MS and HP and bought a MediaSmartServer looks perfect ! right - Sounded good until i install a second drive - It looked good at the start - then I decided to test it! removed the harddrive - well it could never finish the process - obviously corrupting everything i can think of ! Ghost file tomb file - Plainly put: if it worked out of the box it would have be great! but it didnt! So i reload via HP restore doohicky thingy! it work - I was back to a fresh start!!!
tried 5 more times - same result -
Suggestion make the bloody thing RAID capable a standard! - Mandate at least 1GB ram - 512mb is plainly put; STUPID - and with todays prices i would mandate 2GB.
Upgrade the OS to 20 users - I dont have 1 and half kids and a dog! I have 12 people in my immediate famaily .
HP make a WEBsite like Phanfare - or can someone suggest something similiar!
Lastly:
When a product does not work as intended - the consumer should be reimbursed . if the product cause ill to the consumer it is taken off the market! and If the company refuses to fix the problem in a timely manner, well this great nation always has a letigious trigger finger! This is no different than the lemon law in most states.
I purchased this product with the intention (like most users) to use it in the manner we use a toster! I have not recieved any information regarding this problem - (I bought the product from HP online) - you would think ; hey maybe and email or better - a warning via the update machanism on the server !!!!!!
Just 1 person's 2 cents !
Tinue,
I think that you are on the right track here, if we knew the circumstances that bring this up, we coul avoid them. I found this article on ZDNET http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=348&tag=btxcsim and they are listing this as the three things that need to exist:
- The files had to be fairly large, at least 2 or 3 megabytes in size.
- They had to have been downloaded from the Internet on a Windows machine, which in turn adds an alternate data stream (ZoneIdentifier) that blocks execution of the file without user consent.
- They had to have been uploaded to the Windows Home Server from a machine running Trend Micro antivirus software. Other AV and security programs didn’t trigger this bug.
Based on this, you can see why the Home Server Team is saying that this is an isolated condition that is going to affect a very few users. I would have to say that I don't understand why they are making recommendations of only going to a one drive system with such a limited set of circumstances that create the issue in the first place..
JCharm wrote: [....] Based on this, you can see why the Home Server Team is saying that this is an isolated condition that is going to affect a very few users. I would have to say that I don't understand why they are making recommendations of only going to a one drive system with such a limited set of circumstances that create the issue in the first place.. Hmmmm! Nah! Sorry JCharm. That might certainly be one set of circumstances that triggers the bug, but if that was all there was to it, Microsoft could jump for joy, offer us a short one-liner warning, and move on to happier new developments.
While I agree with you that it'd be good to know more about the nitty gritty details of the flawed algorithm, there are obviously many more situations than the one ZDNet proposes, where the bug can bite. I'd place my faith in Microsoft's own guidelines, knowing that they would choose to keep that list of 'possible hazards' as short as they possibly could.
Colin P.
JCharm wrote: Tinue,
I think that you are on the right track here, if we knew the circumstances that bring this up, we coul avoid them. I found this article on ZDNET http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=348&tag=btxcsim and they are listing this as the three things that need to exist:
- The files had to be fairly large, at least 2 or 3 megabytes in size.
- They had to have been downloaded from the Internet on a Windows machine, which in turn adds an alternate data stream (ZoneIdentifier) that blocks execution of the file without user consent.
- They had to have been uploaded to the Windows Home Server from a machine running Trend Micro antivirus software. Other AV and security programs didn’t trigger this bug.
Based on this, you can see why the Home Server Team is saying that this is an isolated condition that is going to affect a very few users. I would have to say that I don't understand why they are making recommendations of only going to a one drive system with such a limited set of circumstances that create the issue in the first place..
This is a COMPLETELY SEPARATE ISSUE !!
This item you are referring to was documented in this KB article http://support.microsoft.com/kb/943393/en-us and fixed in the November, 2007 Windows Update as documented in this KB article. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/941914/
JCharm wrote: Tinue,
I think that you are on the right track here, if we knew the circumstances that bring this up, we coul avoid them. I found this article on ZDNET http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=348&tag=btxcsim and they are listing this as the three things that need to exist:
- The files had to be fairly large, at least 2 or 3 megabytes in size.
- They had to have been downloaded from the Internet on a Windows machine, which in turn adds an alternate data stream (ZoneIdentifier) that blocks execution of the file without user consent.
- They had to have been uploaded to the Windows Home Server from a machine running Trend Micro antivirus software. Other AV and security programs didn’t trigger this bug.
Based on this, you can see why the Home Server Team is saying that this is an isolated condition that is going to affect a very few users. I would have to say that I don't understand why they are making recommendations of only going to a one drive system with such a limited set of circumstances that create the issue in the first place..
JCharm,
I would be willing to bet I could provide you with instructions that seem fairly innocent, and if you were to follow them they would produce complete destruction of any .AVI files <1GB in size on a multi disk WHS system.
If you are using Vista / XP and redirecting your user folders to a WHS share and then using Vista Photo Gallery or Windows Live Photo Gallery to import / view JPEGs and AVIs from you digicam you are playing with fire.
My WHS RTM system is a brand new purpose built machine with a Pentium Dual Core (E2140), 1GB Ram, 3 Seagate 320GB 7200.10 drives, using all Windows 2003 Server Certified Drivers. Reproducing the AVI corruption was very easy on my machine. Moving to 2 drives seemed to help but the corruption was still a problem. THE ONLY solution is ONE drive, or a properly setup hardware level RAID array that appears to WHS as ONE drive. I have used both. Please do not downplay this problem. Maybe I am one of the few that has been redirecting user folders to a fileserver in my house... I have been doing this for years. That may put my usage into a less than normal scenario but this problem is real and results in real file loss / damage.
I would strongly recommend that anyone with a multi drive system pay carefull attention to their usage and keep backups of all their important files. Better yet. Remove your extra drives from the pool and stick with one drive until this is fixed.
WHS is still a great product and with any type of offsite backup (a good idea anyway) is still fully functional besides the drive pooling.
Regards,
Chad
- Thanks for the Update, this sounds fairly promising. A request for confirmation, if I might.
I'm one of those who has re-built an older machine to run WHS, and -- after reconfiguring it with some help from folks here -- have had it ready to go for some time. The primary drive will be 750gb, and there are two additional drives in the machine that I intend to add to the pool. I will install the software at home.
Thus far, I've held off on the software build, as the primary purpose of the thing is safe storage, and unsafe wouldn't help all that much. Until the team had actually identified the bug, and particularly while we were adding programs to the list and realizing that utilities and such that open files might cause curruption, I wasn't ready to do anything. Waiting wasn't that painful, and it was safe.
Now, however, the latest report suggests that the team knows where the problem lies, and that it's with a mini-filter driver which I understand to be used to distribute files to additional (as opposed to primary) drives in the pool. My question, therefor is this:
Do we now have a detailed enough understanding of the problem to be absolutely certain that a single drive system will not experience corruption associated with the bug? I realize that there have been reports to that effect for some time, but didn't trust them until I saw this report (if we don't know what the bug is, we don't know what it can do). So I'm just double checking.
Also, just to be extra careful with the clarification, I can still use the additional drives in the meantime as long as I don't add them to the pool, correct?
If the answer to even the first question is affirmative, I'll go ahead and start learning the OS. I'll gladly (well, kinda gladly) wait until we have a solid fix, and I can figure out what's up with WHS in the meantime.
Best of luck squashing the bug. And, much as I hate to say it, take your time. It's a server. It has to be bulletproof. And it's part of something that may be far bigger and better than some at MS have yet realized. Get it right, and keep up the good work. I'm really looking forward to what might be next once the base product is patched.
Regards,
Mike R. Chad,
As the Windows team pointed out above, I pointed out a seperate issue. I apologize for any confusion.
Mike_Va wrote: Thanks for the Update, this sounds fairly promising. A request for confirmation, if I might.
... My question, therefor is this:
(1) Do we now have a detailed enough understanding of the problem to be absolutely certain that a single drive system will not experience corruption associated with the bug?...
(2) Also, just to be extra careful with the clarification, I can still use the additional drives in the meantime as long as I don't add them to the pool, correct?
If the answer to even the first question is affirmative, I'll go ahead and start learning the OS. Regards,
...Mike R.
Mike,
Shortened the text and numbered your questiions to make it easier to respond.
(1) Yes. As stated in the KB #946676 article. "Single hard drive Windows Home SErver systems are not affected by this issue, nor are Windows Home Server Backup and Restore capabilities, Health Monitoring and Remote Access functionality"
(2) yes, this should be correct. Just an FYI - the home server team has not tested this specific scenario - so I cannot confirm this with 100% certainty.
Well i bought a copy of the software aftert the trail expired and my pal bought the HP unit as he was equaly impresses, touch wood we have had no problems to date, i think the product is excellent, sure there are things that need tweeking, but like anything new thats always the case, even when you buy a brand new care there are often things that dont work as intended.
I for 1 will be sticking with WHS and look forward to the power pack and other updates in the future, keep up the good work, and to all those negative people look at the positives of the product once they sore the known issues out, its gotta be worth it or you would not have been using it in the first place would you !.
Thanks T.H.:
The clarifications are most helpful. I understand that the second scenario isn't tested. I may just unplug those drives for the time being. But there's lot's I can start getting up speed on while you work the bug.
Regards,
Mike
- I am sorry; I am of the opinion that this could have been addressed much faster then 7 months. I took a leap of faith and purchased this brick (HP Media Center) and got all 4 500 GB drives. I have placed my life in it and no I don’t have extra drives with which to backup the 1B that's on it as all those drives WERE SUPPOSED TO BACK EACH OTHER UP. That was the whole point!
I don't understand why the WHS team doesn’t understand the anger that being reflected here when we customers are reflecting our fear at loosing our files, our memories, and indeed our misplaced trust. We have seen Microsoft be quick to market with fixes when they are for licensing issues, or protecting their bottom line, but 7 months for a fix like this (I am a systems developer and used to work on earlier versions of the OS) is just not acceptable. Not at all.
Of course we are upset, and rightfully so. We are also fearful of loosing our data after making what has turned out to be a really bad decision in trusting you.
The best thing that can be done here is to present a fix as soon as possible. If that means turning off data duplication (if that is indeed the issue), then do so. But data lost invoked by a product that is supposed to help us save our data is a violation of trust in a major way, and one that a company of any size can't separate itself from.
This seemingly small issue could have a serious impact going forward, and mark the inflection point Bill Gates spoke about, only alas, in the wrong direction for the company.
Don’t let that happen.
DW DEVONW wrote: I don't understand why the WHS team doesn’t understand the anger that being reflected here when we customers are reflecting our fear at loosing our files, our memories, and indeed our misplaced trust. We have seen Microsoft be quick to market with fixes when they are for licensing issues, or protecting their bottom line, but 7 months for a fix like this (I am a systems developer and used to work on earlier versions of the OS) is just not acceptable. Not at all. I think they understand the issue, but did not have the resources to dedicate to the issue. You have to figure, in the past couple of months they have released server 08, vista sp1, xp sp3 beta, IE 8 beta 1, etc, etc.... they have been busy.
As I've said before, the "A" team will now get working on WHS.... have to figure WHS could wait since it is not a big product right now... no matter how much we want to believe it is.
The product just started... couple of months of waiting for an update will be no big deal. Only us zealots (and that includes me) will remember this issue in two years.
- I take your point except that those who lost data would remember for a very long time.
DW Lets not cut them too much slack! Sure Microsoft the corporation has been busy with all those releases but this is not a Mom and Pop shop with only 20 or 30 developers, this is a huge company with vast resources and billions of dollars of cash on hand. If their entire research and development team is only composed of a handful of developers then they need to put more money into fixing their own house and products before they go out and buy some other company's problems. They know they have lots of product problems but they do have the resources to devote to fixing problems, they just choose to do so on their own time frame and the customer has no choice but to wait. I can have patience with a small company having to deal with issues like this but not one that has the kind of money and people available to them as Microsoft does.
Cpicdude wrote: Lets not cut them too much slack! Sure Microsoft the corporation has been busy with all those releases but this is not a Mom and Pop shop with only 20 or 30 developers, this is a huge company with vast resources and billions of dollars of cash on hand. If their entire research and development team is only composed of a handful of developers then they need to put more money into fixing their own house and products before they go out and buy some other company's problems. They know they have lots of product problems but they do have the resources to devote to fixing problems, they just choose to do so on their own time frame and the customer has no choice but to wait. I can have patience with a small company having to deal with issues like this but not one that has the kind of money and people available to them as Microsoft does.
Companies do not scale like that. I ran into a similar issue late last year, early this year... issues with a product. Had the money to hire some more people, but the time it would take to get them working would have taken a good amount of time. In addition, after the job we would not need the extra people... so temps for two months? No real benefit?
And if you talk about hiring another team, good luck...
Not as easy as it sounds....
I don't think it is letting anyone off easy... there is nothing you can change by whining too much about it. Then again, I guess we could organize a Million WHS user march on Redmond. That would be cool.
- Deleted the last post - Please stay on topic.
Hey guys, just chill. It's not the end of the world. Some problems cannot be solved overnight. MS are working on it and June is only 9 weeks away.
I don't know about anyone else, but I'd rather a proper solution rather than a quick hack which might have undesired effects later on.
- Okay, firstly, that is not true in this case. This is THEIR product and it's internals are part of the jewels they have been cultivating for quite some time now. And more importantly, releasing a product that can DELETE your files when its express purpose is to save them in a redundant fashion is just too much. This methodology is mature now, many are doing it in some fashion like DROBO and others. The fact that we are stuck in a box that is a time bomb is a scary position Microsoft should have NEVER placed its customers. And after realizing it has done so, should get the fix out faster then 7 months.
As I said before, I know a little about what I am taking about here and they have done so with fixes for their exposures. They should be just a little more responsive to their customers even though they are just consumers and not businesses. We consumers some of us drive parts of large companies and we could take this resentment and disbelief back to our companies when we make desicions.
Thanks
DW - Question: I'm subscribed to this thread so that I get email whenever there's a post. I did this because I want to know when there's new information that may be important to my use of WHS, whether from a fellow user or from Microsoft. The vast majority of the posts, though, are expressions of feelings and opinions about the situation. This is perfectly valid, and I've contributed to the conversation myself, but I'm wondering if it would make sense to have two separate "master" threads: one for substantive information and technical questions, and one for commentary. Admins, what do you think?
I decided to delete this post, crying won't fix anything, but please, could you find a way to notify people thst don't know enough to search you out...
nc
Does this corruption issue come up as a result of internal server edits too? For example, one of the issue programs like uTorrent running on the server making changes internally.
Is the corruption only a result of client machines making changes? Are these programs doing things that are normal on most PCs but out of the ordinary for WHS?
To reply to K Collier -
In at least one scenario which I describe below, yes. The server itself can provoke the corruption when it writes to a shared folder. I'd predict the same problem will happen with other software.
I'll accept that Microsoft never intended users to set up schemes like the one below, so it may fall into the "unsupported use" box, but of course this sort of tweak is routinely done on countless non-WHS servers every day, without hiccups. So hopefully when the corruption fix arrives it will be all-embracing and will also stop the server biting itself.
In the notes below, please focus on the plain text WinZip log file, and not on the final ZIP file. It was only the WinZip log file which was being damaged (IMO) by the corruption bug.
Scenario 1: WHS server fails when updating a text file.
I set up a WinZip 11 job, triggered every few hours by Windows Scheduler, to grab a copy of all the WHS logs on the WHS C: drive and write the subsequent ZIP file to a User's shared folder. The WinZip "write-to" folder was a UNC path \\servername\Users\Colin\WinZipJobs
WinZip was installed on WHS just like any normal application, and it ran from its installed location under Program Files.
The ZIP behaviour was set to 'update' the zip file with only the changed WHS log files, and the WinZip 'logging' behaviour was set to append to the WinZip log (which is just a simple text file), and to maintain this log file in the same folder as the final ZIP (in other words, to the same UNC path as above). New ZIPs were made each day based on the date, so that each ZIP filename and each WinZip log-name would be updated multiple times in a 24 hour period.
As WinZip made its first ZIP for the day, its initial log file would always be created OK. No problem. The trouble came later when WinZip "appended" new info to its log file; the file became corrupted, and (typically) the first few dozen lines of the file would be replaced by apparent "whitespace". (I never examined the actual 'whitespace' contents. The top of the log file was just a huge gap when viewed in Notepad). The corruption occurred at any one of the "appends" and wasn't consistent or predictable, and on some days the log file stayed intact through a whole day.
Scenario 2: WHS server writes solid text files.
To get around the above WinZip log-file corruption, I changed the WinZip "write-to" folder to a folder on the C: partition (I just created a C:\Temp folder). Now - WinZip is working entirely on the C: partition. It doesn't operate on any shared folder directly, and NO WinZip log-file corruptions have happened since.
I now just run a separate batch file in Windows Scheduler to XCOPY the ZIP and its accompanying log to my User share (to the same UNC path as noted above), and because the batch file only ever copies directly to the share, the corruption bug never bites. The XCOPY command uses the "/M" switch so it copies only files with the archive attribute set, and turns off the archive attribute, and the batch file is carefully timed to run 3 minutes after each WinZip job. It runs from the same C:\Temp folder.
Supplementary info
1. Regarding my snapshots of 'live' WHS logs: I accepted that many WHS logs remain perpetually 'open' by WHS, or would coincidentally be open by WHS at the same moment the WinZip task would be trying to snapshot them. Nevertheless, the WHS logs usually remain perfectly readable at the moment WinZip grabs a copy, and WinZip adds appropriate warnings in its own log file. WHS itself will never be upset by WinZip's attempt to read its still-open log files because WinZip is smart enough only to seek co-operative reads of the logs, and I'm happy to roll with the occasional actual clashes if WHS says "no ... get your hands off" to WinZip.
2. The actual ZIP file was never in danger of the corruption because the destination ZIP file was never operated-upon directly by WinZip. WinZip always creates a new temporary "updated" ZIP file before overwriting the destination ZIP file, in a single 'copy' operation.
3. My WHS has 3 hard drives, but with folder duplication turned OFF on all shares.
My conclusion is that any program running on WHS which updates or amends a file on a shared folder, will provoke this bug just the same as if the program was running on a client PC.
YMMV
Colin P.
Lliam wrote: RONIEL wrote: Quentin Stephens wrote: Colour me appreciative of the update and the notification of the expected timescale. I'll continue to use hardware RAID in the meantime.
Thanks!
I was just about to ask if hardware RAID would get around this problem. I am also hoping to get a perf bump out of the deal too. I have 4 good 500gb sata3 drives and 2 slower legacy IDE drives which I am going to pull out of the machine. I ordered 2 more 500gb drives so when they get here, I flatten the box and start over with the 6-drive RAID setup.
~Bear
As long as the WHS partition thinks it is on one drive (RAID or not) you shouldn't have the corruption bug. It shouldn't matter if you're using software RAID or hardware RAID. Keep in mind that you'll probably have to provide the correct IO drivers when installing WHS on a RAID array.Thanks,
I ended up getting a PNY RAID3 card and I am using 5 drives with it. It's a driverless card and super easy plug&play setup. I am really happy with this so far. The best part is that I got it from newegg for 35 bucks!!
(just do a query for RAID 3 on their page to find it). I did get a huge perf bump and my WHS is running beautifully. I highly recommend the raid work-around for anyone that can.
~Bear
RiskyBiz wrote: This Anandtech article is a "must read" for anyone interested in the WHS data corruption "bug". According to the article, it is not a bug, but a Design Flaw in the WHS Drive Extender component.
http://www.anandtech.com/weblog/showpost.aspx?i=413
WHS will be a great product, so let's hope Microsoft gets the WHS Drive Extender component redesigned and tested in time to meet the projected June 2008 WHS release.
T. Headrick wrote: Tangible wrote: RiskyBiz, Thanks for posting this very interesting article. It would be great to get confirmation from a Microsoft person about the technical details in the article, especially those identified by the author as speculative. I will commit to sharing more details. I just need people to be patient, as I will need to get anything that is written up to go through a fairly extensive technical review pass, and I really don't want to interrupt the development team right now.
T. Headrick,
It has now been over a month since your post, do you have any update on sharing the details?
RiskyBiz wrote: T. Headrick,
It has now been over a month since your post, do you have any update on sharing the details?
Yep, same question. Any chance to get informed?
- For what it's worth, I'm yet to encounter the problem and have systematically broken almost all the rules. Little comfort to those that have for sure, but it might not be as prevalent as suggested. My budget-spec HP server with enterprise drives (that aren't on RAID as required!) is yet to have even the slightest hickup, been running for about five months and I often run apps on it too.
- Jimbo, Lucky you. There is apparently only one bullet in the chamber. Do you really know you haven't encountered the problem? As I've read through hundreds of these forum messages, I've yet to see a viable test proposed to know if you have experienced the problem without opening every file at risk. Is there such a verification test?
Microsoft has some highly talented people and this is a great opportunity for them to apply some timely ingenuity. This is pretty obviously a difficult issue since it is rooted in the design strategy of the module that manages the drive pool (to paraphrase others).
I've seen people suggest backing up the WHS. If the WHS files are already damaged, what does that accomplish? For us, WHS is the backup. A corporate enterprise would not tolerate 0.01% data loss by design. Consistently and intelligently managed, with adequate redundancy, even a home backup solution could and should be very close to 100% reliable. WHS is not ... yet, but I sure hope they get there. Meantime, feel free to play roulette with your data.
To lose any part of my wife's photography catalog would be a crushing blow. We have some manual and imperfectly managed backups and an external USB drive I have only marginal faith in. The WHS with folder duplication was supposed to be the rest-easy solution and it has fallen far short. Apple's Time Machine, with its own particular set of problems, seems to not be any more useful than WHS and, unlike WHS, has no obvious path to make it useful, so I still don't think I chose poorly when I decided on WHS. I, along with many of you, just won't have any real peace of mind until the FIX arrives ...
Anyone know if T. Headrick or any other "insider" plans on giving us an update? Please see this blog post on the Windows Home Server blog:
We shipped the Power Pack 1 Release Candidate 3 software to our NDA Beta Participants (Microsoft MVPs, Windows Home Server Insiders, Partners and Microsoft employees) yesterday afternoon on schedule. Release Candidate 3 includes software to address the data corruption issue.
We are still on track to release a public beta of Power Pack 1 in May.
- Will PP1 allow WHS to function like a "real" server? Meaning, will I be able to ACTIVELY use files on it w/o fear of data corruption? I have seen first hand the data corruption when trying to use MS Access db files on WHS. I had hoped to use Access files directly on the server, seeing is how it IS a server, right? I also hope to set up my QuickBooks to be used ON the server. Can you confirm or refute if this will be part of the "fix" or is using files actively on the server likely to never be supported? Thanks much.
Oh, not to stir up any more cr@p, but has anyone moved from WHS to Windows Server 2003 or similar? Surely this OS allows active use of these files, right? All I know is I need a reliable SERVER, not just a fancy backup device. - Yes, you will be able to edit files stored in your shares.
ChiknNutz wrote: Will PP1 allow WHS to function like a "real" server? Meaning, will I be able to ACTIVELY use files on it w/o fear of data corruption? So, I know this will be fixed soon, but I just need to vent a little I guess. Just went to convert about 6 GB of music for a portable device. Most of it is stored in WMA lossless, so when I sync to a portable device I need to use Windows Media Player to convert the tracks on the fly.
To make a long story short:
Basically, 900 files converted properly, and 150 or so were corrupted and therefore couldn't convert. They still play on the PC fine enough, but enough data is missing that they can't convert. Now, before you ask, yes, I do own these CDs, so theoretically, reripping them should be simple. However, for one they're scattered throughout different CDs (not to mention that who knows the extent of the damage over all 9000 songs), and two most of these CDs are in storage in my parents' attic 5 states away, since they've been ripped to my hard drive for probably 6 years now (except of course the more recent releases). Never had a problem with corruption until I started using WHS not even a year ago.
Like I said, I know it'll be fixed, but its REALLY frustrating. I'm not one of the people who hates Microsoft, (early adopter of Vista, and love it, and the same for WHS), but leave it to MS to have a bug in their server product that defeats the whole purpose of having a server.Frustrating as it naturally is, you really should have a backup!
Jimbo! wrote: Frustrating as it naturally is, you really should have a backup!
And where would I put that backup of hundreds of GB? On my home server where it belongs? Oh, wait a minute.....
I'm not disagreeing with you, but you should still have an off-line backup, otherwise you are very vunerable to corruption, virus, malice etc. USB HDD is ideal.- Re "a public beta of Power Pack 1 in May":
Congratulations on this important progress. However, I'm not clear on what Microsoft expects users to do with regard to this public beta. Generally, beta software is for those who are willing to take on some risk and inconvenience in return for early access to new features, while those who are conservative and risk-averse are better off waiting for the production release. By combining a set of new features with a desparately-needed bug fix, MS may be reversing this situation. So, what's the guidance? Should we all move to the beta as soon as it's available, or should we wait until RTM? In other words, to what degree will we be jumping from the frying pan to the fire? - As it says,it's a public beta.They would hope that all the bugs have been fixed, but there is a chance that the broader exposure could well show something that is new. If you feel that your server and it's data is too important to
subject it to this small amount of risk, then don't install it. No-one but yourself can make that decision.
Personally, even though I have never experienced the corruption bug, (I have a complete copy of everything that's on the server, somewhere else,) I intend installing it into a working environment when available. (I'm lucky, I also have a second WHS I can put it on there as well so I can try to break it!)
Colin
Tangible wrote: Re "a public beta of Power Pack 1 in May":
Congratulations on this important progress. However, I'm not clear on what Microsoft expects users to do with regard to this public beta. Generally, beta software is for those who are willing to take on some risk and inconvenience in return for early access to new features, while those who are conservative and risk-averse are better off waiting for the production release. By combining a set of new features with a desparately-needed bug fix, MS may be reversing this situation. So, what's the guidance? Should we all move to the beta as soon as it's available, or should we wait until RTM? In other words, to what degree will we be jumping from the frying pan to the fire?At the end of the day its still a beta - you install it and use it at your own risk. Its your call as its your data - if you are only wanting it for the DE bug fix then I would suggest waiting if you dont want to risk your data anymore. If you have a backup of your data somewhere else I would suggest installing it and testing it as much as possible. The more people that do this, the quicker Microsoft can find out about any other problems that may or may not exist. The whole point about getting it out as a public beta is for people to test it in their environments - remember that MS had a lot of problems reproducing the bug in the early days.
Andrew
If we do decide to install the public beta would we need to do a full install once the RTM version comes out? This would be the deciding factor for me.
Pugsly0014 wrote: If we do decide to install the public beta would we need to do a full install once the RTM version comes out? This would be the deciding factor for me.
I would say that information will be available when the beta is actually released. But if I had to guess you would be able to just remove the PP1 beta and install the final code.
Andrew
How about an update on this? It is now 18 June and there has not even been a beta
billyg43 wrote: How about an update on this? It is now 18 June and there has not even been a beta
Actually, yes there is. You can download Power Pack 1 beta (which includes a beta version of the fix) from Connect right now.
- Well, shut my mouth! Here I was Googling for updates related to KB 946676 and could find nothing later than 10 March. I now see that lurking in some of the posts here that you are correct. I was vaguely aware of PP1 but had no idea the beta fix was contained therein. Thanks for hand-feeding me.
kariya21 wrote: billyg43 wrote: How about an update on this? It is now 18 June and there has not even been a beta
Actually, yes there is. You can download Power Pack 1 beta (which includes a beta version of the fix) from Connect right now.
Hi:
I looked into downloading this beta, but in the end, it is indeed a beta and I am not willing to do the work to be a beta tester. I guess I just want what I've paid for, which is a system that does certain things.
I seem to have read somewhere that MS had some sort of goal of releasing the fix by end-of-June. Perhaps this was just an informal goal. While it would appear that they have missed that date, if they were trying for it, perhaps they will come in close to it.
When they do, I guess my first course of action will be to reinstall the 2nd hard drive and stop "working without a net". I hope PP1 gets through beta soon, but at least it would seem, from various comments here and there, that we are close to the finish line on what has been a significant issue.Hi
There is still no update on the KB for this, none since March indeed. Actually, WHS is also not in the list of products even on the KB.
When I first became aware of this issue, I was entirely willing to wait for the fix, being that WHS is such a good product and one with so many new components and ideas.
But, and it's a big but, the length of time it is taking to get a proper fix is entirely unacceptable.
Yes it is still providing web services and backups, but it's main purpose (for me) was centralised file sharing of music and photo's (i.e., a file server).
I just can't understand how seven months or more is acceptable. Microsoft, you're really letting us down BADLY on this.
Thanks
James.
- James, the issue is deep in the core of Windows Home Server, which is why it's taking a long time to get it out the door. It affects almost every aspect of Windows Home Server operation, and therefore requires a great deal of testing. In addition, given how Microsoft has been crucified in the blogosphere for the issue in the first place, they (properly) decided to err on the side of caution.
Microsoft has had a beta patch for some time; it's part of the Power Pack 1 beta, and will be part of Power Pack 1 when that is released (soon). I'm not sure what you would expect; do you want Microsoft to say it will be released at a particular date, irrespective if it's ready or not? If you've been following the forums, you will have seen that even after the public beta, there have been a few bug reports and follow-ups. However, they do appear to have reduced somewhat recently, so I would guess we are approaching the time they feel it's ready.
However, after saying that, if they find something at the last minute, I'd far rather they delayed it again, than releasing it just because they feel pressured.
Colin
I just don't think it's had the resource it needed.
On the other hand I wonder if there is common code between Drive Extender and the new whizzy corporate stuff which seems to provide the same ideas. That might explain the delays....
Take this for what it's worth from someone involved in building and testing high criticality software for a living: nine women can't make one baby in a month. And nine clueless programmers trying to help with a deep and complex problem in system level code they haven't been involved in previously tend to make the baby take more like eighteen months if you're lucky.
Hi,
Can someone comment on the current status of this bugfix?
Is there any other place where this information is available?
I bought the full product in Dec 07, based on early positive reviews and still waiting for deployment for its intended purpose.
Thanks.
H.P.
The fix to this issue is included in "Power Pack 1" which has been available for several weeks now and has been put in the Windows Update stream within the past week, IIRC. Search this forum for PP1 and you will find hundreds of related threads.
hsi-pro wrote: Hi,
Can someone comment on the current status of this bugfix?
Is there any other place where this information is available?
I bought the full product in Dec 07, based on early positive reviews and still waiting for deployment for its intended purpose.
Thanks.
H.P.
Please see KB 944289 which provides a description for Power Pack 1:
The Windows Home Server Power Pack 1 update is available now. Power Pack 1 provides a range of improvements. These include the following:
• Support for home computers that are running Windows Vista x64 editions • Backup of Home Server shared folders • Improvements to remote access • More efficient power consumption • Improved performance Additionally, this update resolves the data corruption issue that is described in the following Microsoft Knowledge Base article:
946676 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/946676/) When certain programs are used to edit or transfer files that are stored on a Windows Home Server-based computer that has more than one hard drive, the files may become corruptedThank you
Lara Jones [MS]
