Tech Blog

Move users to another Work Folders server

Load balance the Work Folders servers by moving some users to a new server.

1. Create new security groups for each Work Folders sync share
2. Migrate the existing data to the new server (see detailed steps below)
   1. There are two options:
      1. Let the Work Folders client seed the new server
      2. Pre-seed the data on the new server (move the user folder from the old server to the new server)

(Note: If this step is performed, the ACLs and timestamps must be retained or the client will re-sync all data.

3. Deploy Work Folders on new server
4. Give users access to the sync share on the new server
5. Remove access to the sync share on the old server

Detailed steps can be found in the following forum post: https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsserver/en-US/aef2011c-2d99-4bf8-955f-94b013d03733/howto-migrate-work-folders-server

If Work Folders is being really really rubbish then move to OneDrive.

If thats not an option then try and defrag the Database:

Defrag the Work Folders sync database

Check the size of the metadata (meta.db) on the Work Folders server. If it’s over 500GiB in size, I recommend running defrag on the database.

The meta.db is located on the same volume as the Sync Share. For example, if the Sync Share is on the D: volume, the meta.db would be located under the following path:

D:\SyncShareState\syncsharename\metadata\meta.edb

To defrag the database, perform the following steps:

Stop and disable the SyncShareSvc service (so it doesn’t start)

Run the following command from an elevated command prompt:

esentutl /d <DRIVE>:\SyncShareState\syncsharename\metadata\meta.edb

This command will defragment and compact the database.

Once the esentutl operation completes, start the SyncShareSvc service

You might of spotted that I have a few Work Folders blogs, thats because the company I work at has a lot of laptops and although not perfect Work Folders seems the best method (Outside of OneDrive) to backup documents.

We recently moved all our Work Folders servers from Server 2012 R2 to Server 2019 and since then we’ve had no end of issues with Work Folders.

Client errors such as:

Sync failed. Work Folders path: C:\Users\Joe.Blogs\Work Folders; Error: (0x80c80003) There was a problem syncing because the server is currently busy. Sync will retry later.

Just to name one.

Its odd as some users are fine and others not so the guess was the Server was just too busy to process everything.

Work Around:

One temp fix was to restart the “Windows Sync Share” service on the server.

Note, if it wont restart, kill this task: svchost.exe -k SyncShareSvcs

Potential Fix:

Things to check:

1. The user has an active sync session on another device

Or

2. The server is busy and IIS is rejecting the connections.

• Use the HTTPERR log to view if connections are rejected (log location: %windir%\System32\LogFiles\HTTPERR).
• If connections are rejected, you will see the following error in the HTTPERR log:

1. 1. 2019-09-05 19:27:34 10.1.186.194 59530 10.0.0.1 443 HTTP/1.1 GET /sync/1.0/capabilities – 503 – QueueFull SyncSharePool{FEF7C002-5430-430B-BF6F-G96EF79C24D1}

If you see the “503 – QueueFull” error in the HTTPERR log, the server cannot handle the number of connections and you need to follow the steps below to reduce the load on the server.

1. Reduce change detection frequency on the server

Work Folders has a change detection operation which runs every 5 minutes and scans the user folder for any changes that were made outside of Work Folders (e.g., users updating files through SMB). If users are not accessing\updating their files on the Work Folders server via SMB, increase the frequency in which the change detection operation runs by using the following cmdlet: Set-SyncServerSetting –MinimumChangeDetectionMins

2. Reduce client change notifications

Reduce how often clients are notified of file changes. This feature (faster change replication) was introduced in Server 2016 (more details below).

To disable the faster change replication, create the following registry setting under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\SyncShareSrv\SyncCore\ChangeDetection:

Note: The SyncCore and ChangeDetection registry keys need to be created if they don’t exist.

Once you create the registry setting, you need to restart the Windows Sync Share (SyncShareSvc) service.