This is a really off the wall issue I'm trying to debug here, and I am hoping someone else has seen this before.
I have a fully function DFS namespace which we use to house our users home directories. Up until this week I've never seen any problems with it once we got it up and running properly.
We have a main office and 11 remote branches, each with it's own Domain Controller (Server 2008 R2). The DFS namespace is set up with a hub and spoke topology, with the hub at the main office and a spoke to each branch. Replication is working perfectly everywhere. Referral appears to be working properly everywhere . . . when you log in to a workstation (Windows 7) at Branch 01, you are referred to the Branch 01 copy of the namespace. So forth and so on. Everything just . . . works.
Except.
We have a couple users at Branch 11 who are having major problems. Their account is correctly set up, and in fact they were working up until this week with no complaints. Now, when they log on, their Home Directory shows up as "mostly" empty. There are no user created files in their home directory, only the system created folders My Pictures, My Music, My Videos . . . and those are empty. These users have tried multiple workstations at their branch with the same results. We have deleted their local workstation profiles. Same results. Empty home directory.
The good news is that their files were not lost, and in fact, to the rest of the world, still appear to be there. While logged on as one of these malfunctioning users:
1. \\domain\dfs\home\username\documents appears empty. This is the same as saying that their home directory appears empty. No real surprise there.
2. \\branch_11_server\dfs\home\username\documents appears empty. Slightly surprising, as I said specifically to look at the local copy.
3. \\branch_11_server\home\username\documents shows all of the users files, as it should. If a user changes one of these files, DFS replicates it, as it should.
To make things really strange, we tried logging one of these users on at a different branch, and when we do that, everything works perfectly. It's only at this one branch where things go haywire.
Home Directories are set up in AD, on the profile tab with a Connect <Drive> to \\domain\dfs\Home\username\documents. AD replication appears to be functioning normally at the problematic branch. Workstation GPUPDATE 's have had no effect.
Any suggestions appreciated, because this one has us stumped.