scary music server

ed · Post by ed » Mon Sep 16, 2013 1:58 pm

I had cause to look for a particular track on my music server yesterday. The track was missing.

I have my music server in a standard directory structure which is track within album within artist. The tracks are named nn - name.flac, e.g

01 - track1.flac

I do it this way because I usually use the squeezebox by going through the browse directory structure menu entry.....rather than use any of the indexing methods.

anyway, the track I was looking for was missing..and so were some other tracks on the particular album.........panic

I checked on the backup, and the tracks were there......panic

so I ran my differences program to show what was on the backup that wasn't on the server....there were about 30 items, some individual tracks and some complete artist directories.....

I have spent the morning putting back what was missing....

I have had no failure messages, the server disc checks as no errors and there are no error logs on the server......I'm mystified, but scared

the server is a buffalo linkstation NAS drive, hacked with a different linux to allow telnet entry...it has not given any probs since I set it up in 2006.

anybody got any ideas

edit: Having thought about this a bit more...if it were disc failure it would manifest itself in a much different way, i.e the tracks would likely be there but unplayable by corruption.....the FAT would still be in place so to speak.......this smacks more of sabotage as specific files were missing.......mmmmm

ed · Post by ed » Mon Sep 16, 2013 3:09 pm

ooh, this is getting much scarier

I've just looked at the directory contents of those items I replaced in both slimserver and in linux on the server....

the items are now duplicated

but windows shows them in explorer as only the item I reloaded...
e.g the linux ls report is not the same as the windows directory list......

same with slimserver...if I look at the directory contents there are 2 versions of the stuff I reloaded, one version of which has a letter changed in the filename to prevent duplication......

anybody any idea why windows might not be showing these files when they are quite plainly there.

the unix/linux file attributes are identical for the original file and it's duplicate...

aaaaarggghh waily waily

edit: I've just wasted an entire morning restoring files that were already on the disc--------in my defense I'm not so stupid because I had no reason to believe that windows was giving me false information

ed · Post by ed » Mon Sep 16, 2013 3:55 pm

duplicate post...very very scary

Mike H · Post by **Mike H** » Mon Sep 16, 2013 6:50 pm

They are therefore hidden from Windows. Files can be hidden from Windows.

Try looking at the settings in Windows explorer, might be a clue there. It might for example be only files with the archive bit set are visible, or something like that. But I'm guessing.

The hiding of files thing is I think so that computer dim-wits are not confused by seeing files that they have no idea what they're for. It's one more example of Windows trying to be helpful (but failing)

Mike H · Post by **Mike H** » Mon Sep 16, 2013 6:54 pm

Appendix ~ another possibility is user access control, if you've got it. The user identity you are using is being prevented from seeing those files.

This is another 'helpful' feature that prevents 2 or more users on the same computer seeing others users' private files.

ed · Post by ed » Mon Sep 16, 2013 7:33 pm

Mike H wrote:
Try looking at the settings in Windows explorer, might be a clue there. It might for example be only files with the archive bit set are visible, or something like that. But I'm guessing.

mmmmmm? If I can't see the files in windows explorer, how am I going to see the settings for these files??

from my previous post:

the unix/linux file attributes are identical for the original file and it's duplicate...

I am totally mystified......I have found a way around this but it's super tedious....I delete the file or directory that I re-installed which leaves the original file or directory with the rogue character in the name and then I delete this file or directory with a wild card to access the rogue character.....then reinstall the file or directory from the backup.

the single copy of the file/directory is then visible in windows.

as I said very tedious...I can't see a simpler way

either way I'm a bit scared...I might have to divert some scarce funds towards a new music server.....oh waily waily

Mike H · Post by **Mike H** » Mon Sep 16, 2013 7:58 pm

No you do it through the Windows explorer menu, Tools > Folder Options. Bearing in mind I'm using Vista. Under the view tab is the ability to turn on or off hidden files and folders. Then as you say the file will have a hidden attribute under its own properties. You can look up about hidden files in Windows help.

HTH

ed · Post by ed » Mon Sep 16, 2013 8:26 pm

Hi Mike

thanks for giving this some thought........

As usual I don't think I've explained myself very well.....

These are linux controlled files on a linux machine being served to a workgroup network.....

I maintain the files(load them) through windows explorer because its easier to do the tagging of the flac files. I don't usually have cause to view them, and certainly don't play them through windows.

so I happened to look at a directory through windows yesterday and what I saw was:

01 - track one.flac
03 - track three.flac
04 -
05 -
07 -
08 -
etc

02 and 06 were not there, so I put them back from the backup, and everything showed in explorer.

I checked on the squeezebox and saw there were two track 02 and two track 06 but the filenames on the duplicates had been subtly altered to prevent duplicate names. I double checked on the server and there were indeed two copies of everything that I'd reloaded.

now, bearing in mind that nothing has been changed on the server, control wise, and nothing has been changed vis file attributes or access rights on the windows machine, I checked the file view settings in Windows explorer and the file attributes on the server. Everything was ok.....it was just that the linux server wasn't passing some info to windows on the network, or if it was then windows wasn't acknowledging it.

In a nutshell, the whole of a directory was visible in windows explorer before and now certain files were missing....all files in the directory had the same settings.

The Stratmangler · Post by **The Stratmangler** » Mon Sep 16, 2013 8:36 pm

What do you see when you use the web interface to access Squeezecenter?

ed · Post by ed » Mon Sep 16, 2013 8:42 pm

hi Chris

still on slimserver 6.2.2

from post #2:

same with slimserver...if I look at the directory contents there are 2 versions of the stuff I reloaded, one version of which has a letter changed in the filename to prevent duplication......

by that I meant 'browse music folder' from the web interface to slimserver.

just to recap:

in windows I see 1 copy of the files/directories I reloaded
in linux I see 2 copies of the files
in slimserver I see 2 copies of the files
on squeezebox I see 2 copies of the files

and....they are only 1 or 2 or 3 random files in any particular directory

brig001 · Post by **brig001** » Mon Sep 16, 2013 9:41 pm

Ed, I know there are issues with old samba versions with new (Vista onwards) windows versions. Not sure which ones work together TBH, but I had a terrible time with windows 7 and samba V2.x (think that's right). Don't really know much about it - it was for work, so we went out and bought a buffalo/bison/wildebeest or something and everything was fixed.

Any way you can check the samba version and update it?

HTH,
Brian

Andrew · Post by **Andrew** » Mon Sep 16, 2013 9:47 pm

I would agree with Brian, plus try the obvious, ie. a reboot.

Andrew

Post by **Nick** » Mon Sep 16, 2013 9:47 pm

It may be windows being non case sensitive?

Andrew · Post by **Andrew** » Mon Sep 16, 2013 9:53 pm

Nick wrote:It may be windows being non case sensitive?

That's a good point but isn't the server Linux?

Hmm so that leads me to the question...How did the stuff get on there originally, was it copied from Windows and are you you a different Windows machine? What's changed in the system/chain?

Andrew · Post by **Andrew** » Mon Sep 16, 2013 9:54 pm

If the problem persists across a reboot, I would wonder if the samba config file has changed or been corrupted?

Andrew

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