Folks, have any of you experienced this “slow to update” file information on a mapped network drive between two Windows 7 machines? Any advice / comments very much appreciated.
The setup we have is for BMX race timing and scoring. Two PCs are used, one running MyLaps DataCollector to communicate to the track timing equipment and using Live File Export of the passing files and the second PC running the Bmx Event Manager (BEM) race program.
Basic operation is that the DataCollector machine writes small text files (passing records) to a “Passings Folder” on its local drive in “save on deletion” mode so the it will only create a file when that file does not exist. The BEM PC has a drive mapped to the Passings Folder on the DataCollector PC and moves the passing files to its local drive for processing. Once the file has been moved then DataCollector will write a new file as required.
We have operated with this configuration successfully for the past two years using both exclusively XP and a mixture of 1 XP and 1 Windows 7 machine. The problem we are now experiencing is when both PCs are running Windows 7. Frequently there are delays varying from seconds to minutes where the BEM PC cannot see the files on mapped drive to the DataCollector PC.
The issue is easily demonstrated by opening Windows Explorer on both PCs and when the problem is occurring, the file(s) are visible on the C drive on the DataCollector PC but not visible on the mapped P drive from the BEM PC. See screenshots below for an illustration of this scenario. It’s as if the PC with the mapped drive has an out of date image of what it believes the contents are and doesn’t actually check what is physically on drive when the BEM program is checking if a new file exists (uses VBA Dir command).
Leaving everything else the same, I replaced each of the Windows 7 PCs in the configuration in turn with an XP machine and the problem of the files not showing up never occurred which is consistent with the experience from the last two years.
Another configuration change that appears to be a work-around (but not a cure) is to have the DataCollector PC write its passing files to a mapped drive on the BEM PC rather than to its local drive. With this configuration the problem with files not showing up does not occur.
Note that this scenario is not restricted to the individual PCs and router as the same scenario has been reported from other race scorers using completely different hardware. The common issue is both PCs running Windows 7.
I’ve searched a number of forums and one solution that may be applicable (but not yet tried) is to disable SMB2 (Server Message Block) and rolling back to SMB1 which I understand is effectively the operating mode between Windows 7 and XP.
See http://forums.overclockers.com...wthread.php?t=942932
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