user having issues seeing folders in \\domain.local\dfs

Question

I have had this issue with two users only and no other instances I have seen thus far.

Basically, I am just a tech who has no access to anything on the DFS and just a basic knowledge. Ive been working with our admin who controls it all, but he is being very evasive and not wanting to help me at this point. Ive had this for over 2 weeks and the user and their supervisors are getting upset.

In a nutshell - this came to us because there is a GPO that maps a drive to their system, but it is failing because it cannot find the folder. Throws error 4098, network path not available.
Its trying to map \domain.local\dfs\folder

So going to that location, it shows it does not exist. Also, the user CAN access \domain.local\dfs , but its completely empty, no folders.
If I go to \domain\dfs then the folder that needs to be mapped is there and I can map it manually. But when the GPO tries to apply again later, it deletes the drive.

I can log into any other account, and it will map the drive without issue, and I can manually go to \domain.local\dfs and it will pop the folders up.

I have also tested it upon login and after a fresh boot and login, i can go to \domain.local\dfs and the folders have popped up.
Then, I will map it manually through file explorer and it will map, and if i return to \domain.local\dfs, the folder have disappeared once again.
Same thing will happen if I run a gpupdate. It will show, run the gpupdate, let it finish, it doesnt map the drive, check the \domain.local\dfs and its empty.
in what knowledge I have, it seems like when the GPO gets ran, it removes access to the folders for some reason.

I am completely stumped, their user info is the exact same as the others who do not have issues, nothing in my event viewer is showing anything to help with the problem. I am just looking for a bit of guidance since my admin is little to no help to me.

Answer 1

Hello,

Unfortunately if the person in charge of this is not cooperative, it stops becoming a technical issue and may require a non-technical recourse. If the mapping is controlled by GPO and you do not have access to view/edit GPO's, your hands are tied.

You can optionally map the working folder \domain\dfs and just use a different drive letter that will not be overwritten by GPO as a workaround.

-Miguel Fra
https://www.falconitservices.com

Answer 2

Hi,
Based on your description, the GPO was not working for the specific 2 users, and other users can map the drive successfully through GPO, right?

Since when the user access \domain.local\dfs ,he can't see anything within it, it seems that the ABE was enabled on the DFS-N. And if user doesn't have read permission on the folder, users are not able to see contents within it.
For the ABE, you can refer to [Using ABE with DFS][1]

You may try to ask you admins to check the permission firstly.
Then you may try to run the command: gpresult /h report.html to check if there are any errors about the mapping drive GPO in the output.

Best Regards,