Missing files on Synology

[magister]

This may be a MinimServer problem, or a problem with my Synology NAS -- in either case I hope someone can help, since I am flummoxed.

I had one very large folder for classical music. I created two other shared folders (with appropriate permissions) and moved many of my music files from the original into the new folders. Now none of the control points I've tried (three) will see the moved files; the new folders show as empty in MinimServer's folder view. I have, of course, rebooted the NAS, restarted and rescanned MinimServer twice, all to avail. MinimServer's log shows no issues.

Synology's own File Station shows the files in the right places. In Windows, I can open an Explorer window, open up the Synology under the Network, and navigate as usual -- and the moved files are shown there, which makes me think there is nothing defective with what I did when moving the files. I appreciate any help!

[Jota]

What does the contentdir inside Minimwatch > properties say?

Mine is /volume1/music as I only have my music in that directory on my Synology NAS.

I'm guessing if you've moved music to another folder you'll have to add the new locations to the contentdir inside Minimwatch on your PC.

[magister]

(18-02-2014 02:31)Jota Wrote:  I'm guessing if you've moved music to another folder you'll have to add the new locations to the contentdir inside Minimwatch on your PC.

That is correct, and I did update the contentdir immediately after creating the new folders. But thanks for thinking of this possibility!

[simoncn]

(18-02-2014 01:55)magister Wrote:  This may be a MinimServer problem, or a problem with my Synology NAS -- in either case I hope someone can help, since I am flummoxed.

I had one very large folder for classical music. I created two other shared folders (with appropriate permissions) and moved many of my music files from the original into the new folders. Now none of the control points I've tried (three) will see the moved files; the new folders show as empty in MinimServer's folder view. I have, of course, rebooted the NAS, restarted and rescanned MinimServer twice, all to avail. MinimServer's log shows no issues.

Synology's own File Station shows the files in the right places. In Windows, I can open an Explorer window, open up the Synology under the Network, and navigate as usual -- and the moved files are shown there, which makes me think there is nothing defective with what I did when moving the files. I appreciate any help!

I presume you have given the minimserver daemon user access to the new folders.

As a test, you can try removing your main shared folder from contentDir and setting the logging level to Debug. If you do a MinimServer rescan with these settings, what do you see in the log window?

[magister]

(18-02-2014 08:15)simoncn Wrote:  I presume you have given the minimserver daemon user access to the new folders.

As a test, you can try removing your main shared folder from contentDir and setting the logging level to Debug. If you do a MinimServer rescan with these settings, what do you see in the log window?

Simon,

Thank you for the reply. This turned out to be a problem with Synology's permissions. I created the new folders as admin, gave them needed permissions (including minimserver daemon), and used the move command in File Station to move the files. All files worked fine before. So one would think that permissions would be moved along with the files or whatever. No.

The music folders, which are organized by artist (e.g., San Francisco Symphony) had all needed permissions. Folders below that (e.g., folder for Beethoven Symphony No9 and the flac files it contains) did not have any permissions. I had to select each artist folder, open the permissions tab, check "copy permissions to subfolders and files" and hit OK; then all was well after a restart of MinimServer.

If any Synology experts read this and can tell me how to avoid the problem, I'd appreciate it since I need to move some more files around.

[DavidHB]

(23-02-2014 00:53)magister Wrote:  If any Synology experts read this and can tell me how to avoid the problem, I'd appreciate it since I need to move some more files around.

I'm anything but an expert, but this thread interests me, as, because of the mess Netgear have made of their NAS product development policies, Synology models are candidates for my next NAS purchase.

Presumably, you can access the music folder on your Synology as an SMB share, and set global permissions for the whole folder through Windows in the usual way. If you do that, do the permissions 'stick' when MinimServer accesses the files? I'd have thought that Windows/Samba would have to propagate the permissions in the native Linux environment of the NAS, but perhaps that is just too naive ...

David

[magister]

(23-02-2014 12:26)DavidHB Wrote:  Presumably, you can access the music folder on your Synology as an SMB share, and set global permissions for the whole folder through Windows in the usual way. If you do that, do the permissions 'stick' when MinimServer accesses the files? I'd have thought that Windows/Samba would have to propagate the permissions in the native Linux environment of the NAS, but perhaps that is just too naive ...

You ask a very interesting question.

My normal workflow is to download, rename, and tag music files on my laptop, then move them to the Synology. I just drag and drop them in Windows Explorer (the Synology displays under the Network tab and I click the little triangle to show the folders--I think this is what you call an SMB share). I know I had to set up some kind of permissions when I first started doing this, but it was a long time ago and I forget details. It has worked smoothly for a long time.

Recently I needed to reorganize my music storage for the first time since setting up the Synology. I thought that this was a really serious change and I was better off doing it in Synology's DSM (disc station manager software, which comes with a very nice GUI). Maybe I was wrong about that!

If you right-click a file in the DSM File Station and choose Properties/Permissions, the files that I have dragged from Windows have a different look to them than do the ones I recently moved around with File Station. The box and the options in it are not the same, and I am just not expert enough with Synology to understand this.

I would not let this put you off from buying a Synology. I found their DSM easy to learn, although with some differences from Windows (as expected) and overall I like it very much. I'm sure I just need some additional knowledge about how Linux-style permissions work.

[DavidHB]

Thank you for your reply, which takes this useful discussion a step further.

To respond first to your final point, from what you say I doubt very much that the issue you encountered is specific to the Synology. Indeed, I even wonder whether the problem is at the Linux end of things at all.

Just to explain, Samba is the component of Linux which enables folder and file sharing between the two OSs. It is what enables your Windows file system to think that a Linux folder is a normal Windows shared folder, and Linux likewise to see Windows shared folders as part of its system. Samba gets its name from the SMB file sharing protocol, which it implements, and the folders shared in this way are called "SMB shares". SMB has been going since the mid-1980s, and Samba is often now so transparent that we tend to take it for granted.

Because the translation process from Windows to Linux tends to be so reliable, it is in fact an open question whether the problem you encountered actually has its origin in Windows and then has been mirrored across to Linux on your NAS. Moving files around in Windows can sometimes generate unexpected problems with permissions.

To make sure that Windows is not causing the problem, there is a way of ensuring that permissions in the top level folder are replicated in all its sub-folders. In the Properties for the top level music folder, you ensure that the Sharing tab has the share set in the way you would wish (on a local network, there's no harm in giving 'Everyone' read/write access). Then youdrill down from the Security tab (via Advanced -> Managing Permissions entries) to the Advanced Permissions dialog, where there is a tick box to make all sub-folders inherit the permissions of the parent, which is what you want.

Another approach is to reset the permissions on the NAS itself. It sounds as though your Synology has better file management capabilities than my Netgear NAS, but even with the latter I can reset permissions on individual folders. In case it is of interest, the permissions set on my media folder, and recursively on all sub-folders (including all music) are:

Folder Owner: nobody
Folder Group: nogroup
Folder Owner Rights: Read/Write
Folder Group Rights: Read/Write
Folder EveryOne Rights: Read/Write

While I'm hardly an expert, I do know that these are standard Linux permissions, and they work for me, so they should be applicable on your NAS also.

As you may currently have some problems, I'd do the inheritance thing (on your Windows computer, or on the NAS, or on both) this once in any case. But my own normal procedure is simpler and less technical. I don't move the music files to my NAS; I create a Chinese copy of my main music folder using the Windows SyncToy. As it's an exact copy, permissions are also copied, and Linux on my NAS has no difficulty seeing the files. The copies act as backup for each other, and I can work on the master copy while playing the music from the NAS.

I hope this is useful.

David

[magister]

David,

Thank you, this is helpful. I realized there had to be a way for Linux and Windows to communicate about such matters, and now I understand it better.

I looked at the Windows permissions as you suggested and everything seems to be in order. And, as I said, MinimServer on the Synology has never had a problem reading the files I've dragged and dropped in WinExplorer to move them onto the Synology.

The permissions in DSM seem different from the generic Linux ones to some extent. I have to go away on business tomorrow so it may be next weekend before I can study them more -- but I will not forget since I still need to move some of my files around to finish the restructuring of my music server. More later!

[DavidHB]

(24-02-2014 02:17)magister Wrote:  The permissions in DSM seem different from the generic Linux ones to some extent.

I am sure your NAS uses standard Linux permissions. The underlying console commands chmod (change mode) and chown (change owner) are part of all flavours of Unix and Linux, and have remained fundamentally unchanged for many years. How the permissions are described in any GUI used to implement these commands will no doubt vary (the descriptors used in my NAS are somewhat different from ones I have seen used elsewhere), but the way permissions work will be the same.

David