(I asked this question in another forum and they sent me over here...I'm not an ITpro or admin.)
I seem to be having some trouble with synchronizing offline files for some shared mapped network drive folders on the company server. I am working on an ultrabook with Win8.1 Pro, I attach to the network via a wireless network connection (not connected as a domain computer) when at the office, and via VPN connection when at home, and I have access to the network's shared drives/folders where my work resides.
The drives are set up to be shared on the network side, so I can usually map them to my computer with no problem (but not always). I use them this way when at the office directly connected to the wireless and also when connected remotely through VPN, and when it works, it works well. The issue is that I want to make them available offline so I can work on documents within certain folders/subfolders when NOT connected to the network, which speeds up the work/save/update process, and then sync up once reconnected (and I don't have to sit there watching while it is syncing). I used to do this with WinXPpro and had no problems at all for several years. Now that I have upgraded the computer and the OS, I seem to be having problems making this work. I know that the server has been changed as well, but I am trying to make sure everything on my end works properly so that if there are any issues, it is on the server side and not something to do with how I am attempting to make this work on the new UB/Win8.1 side.
Issues in a nutshell:
(1) can map drives by IP or server name, but have to pick one or the other for the offline files to synchronize properly (can't make the IP version of the mapped folder available offline and then sync when mapped as the named version - doesn't seem to work). The reason this is an issue is that sometimes one will map and the other won't, so I can't keep the mapping consistent. What I mean is that some days i can map via the IP version of the folder name, and other times that won't map, but i can map using the server name version instead. I can do my work, but this makes it hard to keep the offline files sync'd up properly. I am fairly confident this is a server issue and not a connection/VPN issue, but I'm not certain of that.
(2) if i map the drives and make them available offline, which is what i am trying to do, and they become available, i can no longer see the server version of the mapped drive, only the offline version. For example, if i only make three folders on T: drive available offline, because that is all i need to use when i am working offline, i can't see the other ten folders that are in T: for other work. When i connect to the server, i only see the three folders i made available offline. I can re-map the drive, but that leads me to #3 below.
(3) if i map the drives and make them available offline, once i disconnect, the Sync Center seems to lose its ability to synchronize the drives again once i re-connect and map the drives back to where they were mapped before. I hit the "sync all" button and they don't seem to sync anymore. Instead, the sync fails and says "This file is currently not available for use on this computer." even though i can access it freely in file explorer. Once i disconnect from the server, i can't seem to get the mapped drive to sync again, so I'm stuck with unsynchronized offline files in both directions (#2 above). I can see the rest of the network drives and folders, so i can work from the mapped drive, but i can't synchronize any work from the networked drive or from my offline file. (so basically i can't use this method)
(4) i don't think this will matter, but the server files are protected by password. i click "save my credentials" and it doesn't give me any problems mapping or accessing the drives when connected (online), but i wanted to mention it so that if the sync process does something behind-the-scenes that could be impacted by a password, it was known.
This is very frustrating, because it makes it impossible to work offline, which is how i used to do a lot of my work. I can't work when on an airplane or anywhere i don't have good internet access (like the "free" wi-fi in a hotel which is slower than snails). I can only work when actually attached to the network, and then the speed of the connection (the speed at which i can send and retrieve files) can really impact how fast i can work. Any help would be appreciated.