Not all VPN clients do this correctly which further complicates proper working DNS-over-VPN. Some VPN clients will ensure that all DNS traffic goes over the VPN tunnel so that the local DNS server (ie home routers) are no longer used. When connected via VPN, ensure the DNS server provided to the user is an Active Directory DNS server. This will at least force a DNS query and not fall back to NetBIOS which doesn't work reliably anymore either. Or better yet, \\\dfsshare\ and setup DFS Namespace. In today's day and age we should rely on DNS and use \\\sharename instead. In the old days we'd use \\servername\sharename and that works fine on-network. What makes things work a bit more reliable is ensuring you're using FQDN for the folder paths. Redirected folders without sync also has the annoying side effect that logons take a long time, waiting for things to time out especially if the Desktop is redirected. No immediate answer for you other than " yes, happens to me all the time, too" to the point I've been considering stop using that offline files feature (and find a different way to ensure people store their files on network storage that at least gets backed up daily). Since I didn't mention earlier, I have adjusted the offline files allowed space to be able to consume pretty much all but 10-20 GB of a system which pretty much gives it over 100GB that it is allowed to use, which I haven't come across any personal drives that have needed more than that yet. One more item, many of my users are digital hoarders so that between their Desktop or other files on their personal drive, this capacity is easily well over 20 or 50 GB. Given that this process isn't very efficient, is there anything that I can do to better troubleshoot this issue overall or a solution that I may be able to use to remedy this over VPN since I know that this is going to happen sooner or later and we won't be able to ask the users to bring their computers to the office for fixing. When this process doesn't resolve the issue I then have to resort to delete the user's profile and re-sign in, reboot a couple of times and re-prime the offline files and then it seems to hold them correctly. I can exempt the PC from the Offline Files policy, add the registry item to Format the offline files database, re-apply the GPO and re-prime the sync and it may or may not resolve the issue (doing a full reboot between each step). Doing a complete reboot while remaining directly connected to the network will restore the Desktop icons, Documents folder and personal drive but again the Sync Center will give a "Sync Pending" status that it never really changes. Going to the Sync Center we can click the Sync Now option and it will just change to a status "Sync Pending" and not do anything. Sometimes there will be a strange mix of files or file types but in any case files on the desktop are unavailable.Īfter reconnecting to the network (direct connection, no VPN or reboot) anything associated with the personal drive is still unavailable, but other network drives work just fine. What we are experiencing with user after user is that on-network they have their Desktop and Documents as they should (and personal drive), if we disconnect the network or activate airplane mode quite often a number of the desktop icons get the grey X indicating that the files on the desktop are unavailable as well as their Documents folder. I can't speak to how many on-network logins this may take to fully sync since I don't immediately try to VPN in, but in this most recent troubleshooting of other users I've found that it may take a login/reboot or two for GPO to get the Offline Files policy fully working. I can then go home, log into my computer with my cached profile and my Desktop and Documents are still there. I've reimaged my system a couple of times and in my experience what has happened is that I can sign in to the computer while on the network, I get my usual Desktop and Documents folders. When connected to the network, the local Desktop folder is mapped to its counterpart under the user's Desktop folder on their personal network drive space. Systems are WindEnterprise, we have a single GPO that activates Offline Files and it syncs the Documents, Desktop and personal drive folders of the users, no Music, Video, etc. come to find out Offline files decides to act up. Despite a couple of weeks of talking with managers and "essential" users we are having plenty of last minute meltdowns now that all loaner systems are gone and people are expecting to pick up a machine 10 minutes before they leave for the day without any sort of testing.
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