Change Cases on mapped network drive

[denbolle]

Hi All, this is my problem :

Western Digital My book - san : provides a shared area "Media" , mapped as M:
Desktop with Win XP-pro, sp3
User has all rights on the M:- drive.
goal : all entries in m:\music in lower case (for scripting purposes)

When I use BRU to select all files in m:\music after some time it presents the list of all folders, and sub folders. (Approx 32k files)
- All files are selected, and by using option 4 (Case) all files and folders should be replaced in lower-case.
BRU shows the old names, and the new one, as wanted by me.

Hitting 'rename' starts the proces, and at the status line I see the progress, xxx files (and counting).
After some time all seems to be done and in the old and new column I see the names in lower-case. No error's reported.

When I check in Windows the folders and files aren't changed. When I open the same m:\music folder in BRU I see again all names in different upper and lowe case (as it was.)
Changing the names by hand in windows is no problem, and works. (So no rights issue)
When I take smaller sections of files and folders, the same happens, so amount of files and folders isn't the problem (assumption).
When I copy some folders to the local harddrive and do everything again it works as planned (ie. changes all upper in lower cases) .

What am I doing wrong, or not seeing ?

BTW : I know the quick and dirty work around : copy batches of files from the SAN to the local harddrive and perform the change, move the processed batch back to the san, and then the next batch, until all 32000 files and folders are done. Just the whole copy process would take up to 50 hrs, due to file sizes..

Kind regards for pointing me into the right direction,

db

[GMA]

Hi, denbolle:
The fact that BRU shows no errors (or a "No renaming needed") when it finishes the renaming process, and that then both the "Old Name" and "New Name" columns show the names correctly (i.e. in lower case) is what I find curious. But this...

When I copy some folders to the local harddrive and do everything again it works as planned (ie. changes all upper in lower cases).

...makes me think that there IS actually some kind of access or rights issues between BRU and the M: drive.

Maybe you could try with some other operation, just to test if the problem is related with the Case (4) function in particular or with BRU in general (I'm guessing it's going to be the latter). For example, select just one file and try adding a suffix using Add (7).
Let me know how that went (if that works I have a couple of ideas to try).
Cheers,

Gabriel.

[denbolle]

Hi GMA,

I'll create a test environment within m:\MEDIA and copy some folders\files into it, and do some tests, and keep you posted on the results.

FYI : DRU is running under the same account as the 'windows-renaming' test,(just a normal account, nothing catchy related to service accounts or so) and the user is a local admin on the desktop.
I don't get a message "no renaming needed", actually I get a report that (don't pin me on the numbers) "31256 Files found, 29445 renamed, XXXX files no rename needed " It looks as if BRU has done it's job. E.g creating a list of files to be renamed (just after pressing Rename) goes rather fast, and the processing itself is much slower, suggesting work is in progress. When I'll test I'll see if I can catch some network traffic to see if the SAN is being addressed with the functions.

Regards,
DenBolle

[denbolle]

Hi GMA,

the test :
Created a folder test on m:\music (m:\music\test), al tests perfomed on the SAN.
SAN is a WD My Book, 1 Tb, with an embedded os, connected to my network with a fixed ip adres, and 100Mbs utp connection. User has on M:\music Read/Write rights (as shown by hand actions)
- filled it with some upper and lower case folders and files, and some files in the root of the test map. About 380 files, 1,3 Gb.

- test 1 :
BRU with these settings :
add (7) 000 prefix
auto(8)date (prefix) current, ymd
repl(3) <space> --> _+_
case(4) Upper
Clicky click --> all files changed accordingly. ( ) Mhm.. probably done something wrong first time. Me and my big mouth.

So ..lets change all to lowercase.. --> fails.. no error, same behavior as in OT.

Test 2 : (replaced test area with new test set)
repl(3) <space> --> _
case(4) Upper
Rename --> in every file/foldername where a <space> exists the space is replaced with a underscore and the name is capitalized. Files with no space in it stay unchanged.

Test 3 : (used the files from test 2 )
repl(3) _ --> <space>
case(4) lower
Rename --> underscores are replaced with a space and names are changed in lower case. Names without the _ aren't affected and stay unchanged.

Test 4 : (used files from test 3)
--> changed by hand some previously unchanged filesnames so they contain a _ and made sure that they are in upper capitals.
redo test 3 --> the handchanged files are renamed..

test 5: (used files from test 3/4)
Select all files, and just selected case in upper (or lower) --> no change, although BRU seems to change te names.

Conclusion :
when I try to change several things (with a replace and / or prefixes) the upper/lower case works IF a file has a other change then the upper/lower cases.
If a file doesn't change by replacement the upper/lower cases aren't changed.
If just upper/lower cases should be changed, the change isn't performed, although BRU works on the files and reports how many files are changed.

I hope this provides some input were to look.

[GMA]

That's great, DenBolle, quite a thorough test. Yeah, exactly the same conclusion here. As for the reasons, I'm not sure; I suppose it may be related to BRU not working well with storage networks, or networks in general, as mentioned in this post: http://www.bulkrenameutility.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=471 (sorry, no links allowed; must copy & paste).
Or maybe there's something in how the embedded OS in the M: drive manages the filenames, that doesn't recognize when an application sends the instruction of JUST changing the case of a filename (I don't know; I'm talking out of my *ss ).
Anyway, my suggested workaround for you to change the files to lower case would be the following (it'll take two steps):

STEP 1:
1. Set Case (4) as "Lower".
2. Use Add (7) to add a Prefix to all of your files (or at least to those you pretend to change to lower case); use a prefix not likely to be part of your filenames, like "abc321xyz".
3. Press Rename.

STEP 2:
1. Set Repl. (3) as:

Replace: abc321xyz
With: (nothing, leave it empty)

2. Press Rename.

------------------------------------

That should work. You can do a little test in your "m:\music\test" folder first, and then go for the 30000+ files.
Best regards,

Gabriel.

[denbolle]

Hi GMA,

your trick worked in the test environment. Foolish that I didn't think of it.

Processing the 32K of files created more problems, so those have to be sort out by me first.
At this point I'm not able to change any cases in the original environment, not even in windows anymore, so perhaps a reboot of the san or recreation of the initial directory should be done.

When I'm done I'll post te last update here. Thx anyway for your time and effort.

kr.

DenBolle

[GMA]

Ok; hope you sort this problem out. And if you remember to let us know what the problem is/was, much better, so we'll know if there's indeed a BRU/NAS compatibility or -hopefully- not.
Cheers,

Gabriel.

[denbolle]

Hi GMA,

solved it (partially)
the two step trick you suggested worked, I've added a prefix, and lower-cease change, and later on deleted the prefix.

--> For what I've seen I don't think that the problem is in BRU. It's either windows handling the rename requests or in the os of the san.
--> change just capitals in lower case in windows gave errors, and other renaming utils gave the same behaviour and problems. So don't worry about the functions of BRU. I only got one san, so I'm not able to test it on a other one, to exclude san-os issues.

At this point Bru does what is should do, and my scripts can work without a problem, so it's fine for me now.
Thx for your help and suggestions !

kr.

DenBolle

[GMA]

Hi, DenBolle:
Well, it seems like it wasn't a BRU/SAN problem after all. Good to know.

At this point Bru does what is should do, and my scripts can work without a problem, so it's fine for me now.

Glad at least you found a way around the problem.
Thanks for the feedback
Cheers,

Gabriel.