Not working with shared disk of Thinfinity software

Hello dear Customer Care helpers!
I've bought Thinfinity® Remote Desktop Server software --> https://www.cybelesoft.com/thinfinity/remote-desktop/server/ it's HTML5 RDP replacement with file transfer feature and the shared disk doesn't work (plz see screenshot), if I uninstall directory opus - shared disk works just fine with standard windows explorer. I created a ticket in Thinfinity service desk - IN04025 but they refuse to provide resolution due to I'm using non-standard software.
So I hope you can help. They also provide 30 days trial for tests :smiley:

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I wonder if they are self-aware enough to realise their software is "non-standard" as well...

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Could you give us detailed steps on what to download and install where (client and/or server machines), and how to configure it to reproduce this?

I'm not sure why an RDP server would be creating shared disks. That sounds like something an RDP client would do. But an HTML5 client would be restricted to running inside a web browser and not able to create local filesystems that anything outside the browser could access. So I am not sure what to download or setup here.

Or are we talking about installing Directory Opus on the server machine, connecting to it via the HTML5 client, then trying to use Opus on the server to connect back to network drives shared from the client? (But, equally, a purely HTML5 client should surely not be able to create network shares of local disks. That would be an enormous security hole in every web browser if it was possible. I must be missing something here.)

Also, from what I've found so far, it looks like the Thinfinity client provides a file manager that can access the remote server in a web browser, and not as a real local disk? Or is that just one of the options?

Could you post a screenshot of what it looks like in File Explorer?

Also, when viewing some files on the server in File Explorer, please click on the path/location field to edit it, and paste the path that it changes into there. That may tell us the type of devices that it is.

If it is a proper network drive or filesystem that would work in all software, then that same path should also work in other places, like a Command Prompt. Does it?

First of all thank you very much for your cooperation, it's very valuable compared with Cybele Software approach.
To reproduce the issue what you need to do:

  1. install Directory Opus on Windows machine

  2. Install Thinfinity® Remote Desktop Server Trial on that machine (where directory Opus is already installed)

  3. Configure available port and user for Thinfinity via Thinfinity Remote Desktop Server Manager shortcut

  4. Test connection from any other machine from local network (it's easier from local network because no need to configure NAT on router). To test it, just open Https or http (according to thinfinity config) page in chrome and connect to remote desktop by firstly entering Thinfinity user credentials and after windows account credentials. So now we just got an evidence that Thinfinity works.

  5. Now we need to test Intermediate disk. It's the shared disk that uses for file transfer between Thinfinity server and any HTML5 browser. To enable before you connect to server you select Resource tab and Enable Intermediate Disk option. See screenshot:

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  6. So after you enabled it and connected to RDP server you want to share some files, you go to My computer, and there is Thinfinity disk available.

  7. And here are the problem begins, when you create new folder in that disk, you go to that folder and pressing up to parent folder you get an error.

This is as far as I could get. The machine has internet access, and I tried two different addresses, but both fail with no useful information as to why.

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They seem to have an online trial registration form, but it only lists other products, not this one.


Are you able to copy files to their network drive using a Command Prompt? If that doesn't work then they just be doing something strange and not providing a real network drive / filesystem.

You may also find that things start working in Opus and other software after first accessing their network drive using Explorer, which can happen if they don't make it connect properly and rely on Explorer doing something extra to make it start working (which should not be necessary if they have implemented it correctly, since Explorer is not the only piece of software on the planet that might write files to a drive :)).

Thank you very much Leo for your valuable effort.
I tried just recently to get serial number and it worked fine. I just downloaded 64 bit version from this link https://www.cybelesoft.com/thinfinity/remote-desktop/server/4-0/ and installed it, and after opened "Thinfinity Remote Desktop Server Manager" shortcut and registered there using an e-mail.
Anyways I've installed that trial version on VM and have already provided to you the credentials to leo@gpsoft.com.au.
Iе would be very appreciative if you would check if possible.

Many thanks. I tried again today and it no longer failed at that point. Maybe they were doing sever maintenance yesterday, or what you did meant it now works for my email address.

I followed your detailed steps above and got things working. Many thanks for those!

But once I was set up, everything seems to work fine without having to do anything. I'm able to copy files to and from the ThinDisk drive using Opus on the remote machine (viewed inside the web browser):

I then did a test where I launched Opus with UAC elevation, to see if that might be involved in the problems you were seeing. Sometimes network drives aren't set up to work with both the normal account and the elevated version.

(We recommend against elevating the whole Opus process, and instead advise using the Admin Mode and UAC support in Opus. But I wanted to see what happened in case you were doing that.)

The drive still worked worked fine in Opus with elevation briefly, but after changing to the sub-folder (New Folder, in my screenshot), I started getting the same error as you. The drive now no longer works for me, even after restarting Opus without elevation.

However, I then switched to File Explorer, and it now fails there as well:

(I also checked a Command Prompt and PowerShell and it was no longer accessible to them either.)

Rebooting the server, the drive works once again, until I go into the sub-folder. And that's repeatable if I reboot it again.

So it appears the code they have to implement the network share crashes or goes wrong somehow when Opus goes into a subdirectory, at which point it no longer works in Explorer either.

Why that is happening I cannot say, and I think it is something only the vendor can debug. Opus is able to access the root level of the drive fine, and Opus doesn't know anything about the drive or treat it differently to any other network share, so we're not doing anything to it that we don't do to every other drive without issue. Nothing an application-level program like Opus does to read files/folders from a drive should make it completely disconnect and prevent it being accessed by other software, so this is definitely a bug in Thinfinity, in my opinion. It's probably something that other software could trigger as well, if something else also happens to do whatever filesystem request Opus is doing that crashes their network drive emulator.

issue seems to be fixed in Thinfinity Remote Desktop Manager Server 4.0.18.3 !

Regards,
Karsten

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Thank you very much Karsten, I checked it and confirm the issue is solved!

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