Files become inaccessible when marked as offline on Netapp CIFS shares.

MohitD — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 19:40:24 GMT

Has anyone seen this issue? Setting offline flag on a file over CIFS makes it unaccessible. We reied this on 8.2.2 7-mode and 8.3.1 cluster mode.

Description:

Setting the offline flag on a file in a Netapp CIFS share corrupts the file's NTFS security (ACLs and owner), rendering that file inaccessible to all users. If you then manually try to change the owner or add ACLs on this file, you get an “Access denied” error.

Repro steps:

On any Windows desktop,

Map a Netapp CIFS share.
Create a file in this share.
Verify that it has valid ACLs and owner.

Right click on the file and select Properties.
Go to the ‘Security’ tab and click on Advanced.
Verify that the owner and permission entries are valid.

Open Powershell and run the following commands:

$file = Get-Item <File-Path>

Use the full network path for <File-Path>.

$file.Attributes = $file.Attributes -bor [System.IO.FileAttributes]::Offline

This sets the offline flag on the file. You should see a grey ‘X’ on the file’s icon, indicating that it’s an offline file.
Run $file.Attributes to confirm if Offline attribute is set.

Try opening the file.

You will get an ‘Access denied’ error.

Now check the permission entries and owner of this file.

Permission entries list will be empty and you’ll see ‘Unable to display owner’ for the owner.

Try changing the owner or adding a permission entry.

You will get an ‘Access denied’ error.

Re: Files become inaccessible when marked as offline on Netapp CIFS shares.

Sahana — Fri, 19 Aug 2016 09:17:31 GMT

Hi,

Please check the junction path. Also refer Microsoft article Offline File Synchronization.

topic Re: Files become inaccessible when marked as offline on Netapp CIFS shares. in Network and Storage Protocols

Files become inaccessible when marked as offline on Netapp CIFS shares.

Re: Files become inaccessible when marked as offline on Netapp CIFS shares.