Hello there,

We are currently experiencing problems with our Unity Medianet 5.0 system and I was wondering if anyone else had similar issues in a University environment.

We have 20 Windows machines connected via ethernet all running Media Composer v2.8 on a range of varying configurations. It doesn't seem that the client machine spec are relevant as all machines suffer the same error. What may be relevant is that each machine has two network cards, one to the Univeristy network and one to Unity.

The error we get is intermitent, when people connect with connection manager workspaces are mouting and showing up as network drives but are unavailble in Avid. When they are clicked on through Windows the following message is displayed:

"Windows cannot read from this disk. The disk might be corrupted, or it could be using a format that is not compatible with Windows."

The way the IT people set up the Unity users is to give them the same name as Active Directory groups that contain a number of users. They do this as some of the classes that use the system have several hundred students in and one Unity account per student would be hugely time consuming.

We have been struggling with this issue since we upgraded our failing LANShare to MediaNET and our supplier has been unable to help much as they think it is to do with the University settings.

This is a bit of a long shot but if anyone could cast some light on this problem it would be much appreciated.

1.  It doesn't seem that the client machine spec are relevant as all machines suffer the same error.

Actually it is very important.  If you look in the release notes, it states pretty strict guidlines as to what slot network cards, firewire cards, etc... have to be in because of the bus structure inside the PC.  A unity connection MUST have its own bus to operate on inside the machine.  It cannot share it. 

2.  What may be relevant is that each machine has two network cards, one to the Univeristy network and one to Unity

Shouldnt have an issue here, as long as UNITY is STATIC IP ADDRESSES!  Your regular network is probally running DHCP. 

3.  Windows cannot read from this disk. The disk might be corrupted, or it could be using a format that is not compatible with Windows.

Well, Unity is AVID FS.  Windows will not be able to see any of the drives, contents, or structure like a regular drive.  Only Connection manager can mount the workspaces and have them function properly.

4.  The way the IT people set up the Unity users is to give them the same name as Active Directory groups that contain a number of users. They do this as some of the classes that use the system have several hundred students in and one Unity account per student would be hugely time consuming.

Well, never heard of this, but i would think this is your issue.  Unity Users / CLIENTS have to have admin rights.  No if, and or but.  I would focus here, this has got to be a permissions issue.

5.  The way the IT people set up the Unity

BIG BIG ISSUE!  IT people have no clue about Unity or lanshare.  Ill give them ISIS, because Isis is more IT based anyway.  MY VIEW, have an ACSR come out, have HIM look at  it, he can figure it out, and  then have him tell your IT people to stick with Microsoft outlook.  Unity and lanshare should be there own network, with their own permissions, and own administrators.  NO IT PEOPLE.

Also, if your on an LP or EX, Wipe 5.x off and stick with 4.1.5 or 4.2.x

Call Avid Support, they can get you intouch with someone who can help.

Jay   (just my view)  :):)  Hope it helps.

1.  It doesn't seem that the client machine spec are relevant as all machines suffer the same error.

Actually it is very important.  If you look in the release notes, it states pretty strict guidlines as to what slot network cards, firewire cards, etc... have to be in because of the bus structure inside the PC.  A unity connection MUST have its own bus to operate on inside the machine.  It cannot share it. 

Yes I realise that the client configuration is important what I meant to say is that with this issue it is occuring accross all our machines (4 HP xw8400 certified workstations and 15 lower spec HP machines) so I was thinking it wasn't a problem at the client machine.

3.  Windows cannot read from this disk. The disk might be corrupted, or it could be using a format that is not compatible with Windows.

Well, Unity is AVID FS.  Windows will not be able to see any of the drives, contents, or structure like a regular drive.  Only Connection manager can mount the workspaces and have them function properly.

When the workspaces are functioning properly they are accesable through Windows Explorer once they have been mounted with Connection Manager.

5.  The way the IT people set up the Unity

BIG BIG ISSUE!  IT people have no clue about Unity or lanshare.  Ill give them ISIS, because Isis is more IT based anyway.  MY VIEW, have an ACSR come out, have HIM look at  it, he can figure it out, and  then have him tell your IT people to stick with Microsoft outlook.  Unity and lanshare should be there own network, with their own permissions, and own administrators.  NO IT PEOPLE.

I couldn't agree more but in the world of education things that make sense in the real world get turned upside down. The short version of the story is that because Unity is running on a Windows Server IT claim ownership of it. I have been in this job 18 months and have only just won the battle to be allowed remote desktop access to the Unity! I had to take the guy who administers it to an edit lab to show him what Avid is and how it works....

Call Avid Support, they can get you intouch with someone who can help.

The problem is, I think, that as far as Avid are concerned we are not running the system in a certified configuration so they can't help other than to say run it properly!

I don't know enough about Windows Domains and Active Directory to figure out if the University Active Directory is what is causing the problems.

Jay   (just my view)  :):)  Hope it helps.

Thanks :) I appreciate you taking the time to reply :)

 I second jasonsaro on keeping IT far away from your Avids.  I'm also running a small Unity setup at a university and the closest the local IT mafia here came to ours was supplying the fibre cables.  I do have sympathy for your situation in that I had also encountered resistance from them "because I wanted to run my my own network".  IT has no clue how video and Avids work. In the end I won, they lost and my Avids are now my business, far away from their virus-infected world. I had an ACSR install ours and we haven't had many issues so far. Good luck, and again sympathy. 

Hey appreciate the reply. Keeping IT away from the Avid's is getting to be a familiar piece of advice! I'm working on putting a case together but it has some implications regarding the support of the PC's etc (currently is a component dies IT come and replace, if we reclaim the labs I will have to do it) as Avid is a smallish part of my job spec.

Still hoping someone running Media Composer and Unity in an Educational environment with Active Directory will see this and speak up!

jamesdebenham:

he problem is, I think, that as far as Avid are concerned we are not running the system in a certified configuration so they can't help other than to say run it properly!

Hi,

That's probably the case if you called Avid Support, but if you hired an independent engineer who was ASCR certified on Unity, they might be able to come see what's what in person and sort something out for your particular situation.

good luck,
Carl 

Your system came with restore disks for the File Manager and Port Servers.   Run them.  Change the passwords for administration, keeping the IT people out.   You don't need a user for each an every person.   You need only a few logins.  Administrator,  Faculty, TA, Student.

You may have as many users connected to a Unity via portserver with the same user as you would like.   So a student user would log in as Student,  and only have certain access.   You won't have a workspace for every student,  so I would suggest a render partition that can be cleared nightly or weekly (students can re-render).   If you are sharing "class" media,  then the class media is a read-only drive for the student.

I would assume that your client systems have the University network as the primary Nic, and the Portserver as the secondary-   that should be no problem for the connection manager most times.   However, you may need to work out a static route with metrics to keep the system from searching on the university network for your portserver, then giving up and erroring out.   Computers don't do well with more then one gateway configured in the IP stack.

JDS

Couple of things.

Active Directory seems to play a role in this issue

 - Remove the Unity from the Network's Active Directory and setup users locally inside Unity Engine

You never mention anything about Fiber Connections.

 - I Read somewhere that a MediaNet without at least 1 Fiber client can cause problems.

"Windows cannot read from this disk. The disk might be corrupted, or it could be using a format that is not compatible with Windows."

 - Looks like the connection manager is not properly installed and some Server settings issues. the Unity 5.x (PortServer) mounts the workspace from the Array into the server's OS and Share it on the network using Samba.

Thanks for all the replies.

This morning I did some testing to see whether the server and clients could stay on the active directory but use non-domain accounts to log onto Unity.

It didn't work but I did narrow down the problem.
The unreadable workspace error occurs when different users mount a workspace.
 
The test I did this morning was to log the whole edit lab (11 machines) onto unity using the same user - avid1. This user is NOT a domain/active directory user. I created a project on each workstation and set media creation options to capture to unity. All was fine.
 
On one of the machines I logged avid1 off and connected with avid2. avid2 was giving the list of workspaces but when the drive mounted we got the usual errors.
 
To prove there was no problem with the avid2 user I logged the whole lab back off and then reconnected them all with avid2. It worked fine.
 
I then logged the whole lab on with my active directory user account and all was fine untill I tried to log one machine on with a different account.
 
Although I am no closer to the answer I think I have proved that as soon as the second user tries to connect to an already mounted workspace the errors start occurring.
 
I had hoped the test would prove that the non-active directory users where fine.

My ideal soloution is basically as you have all suggested to get the Unity off the University network and the active directory and restore it to the state it arrived in. The thing that drives me nuts is that this may not be an option!

Thanks for all your help.

 I've been running my Avid unity on a active directory network for over 4 years. Although it's not a qualified configuration, it works well for me and keeps account management easy. First up, i do not have a lot of users to begin with, so that might make my case easier than yours.

My system config are :

Unity 3.5.5, File manager, MediaArrayZX, PortServerPro2

Fibre clients see the file manager directly, so they are no fuss. it's the ethernet attatched ones which complain.

Having 2 NIC will confuse the client machine and this will lead you to the problems you already have. so you will need to remove 1 NIC, and move the campus LAN access directly onto the switch of the Unity instead of to the individual clients.

On your active directory, create a user group called avid users. This assumes, you have access to the domain controller. add all your users of the avid to this group. Now, join the domain from each of the clients. you will be able to get DHCP thru the switch.

When you're done, add the AVID user group from the domain controller to the Power User group on each of the client. This allows for them to execute the editing software, or AVID will not run.

If you want seemless login to avid drives and you need individual workspace to the each user's account. This is very cumbersome and will not work with 100+ accounts. Hence this option is not for you. I have this option done up as i have less than 20 accounts. So my users authenticate thru active directory and also log on to the unity in one step.

Next, assuming you got to the previous step, you will now need to login the user, then ask him to click on the A icon at the bottom and choose switch user, enter your AVID username and password, this will then allow him to connect to the unity volumes via the port server.

Things to note, do NOT join the file manager or the media array (should not even be connected to the ethernet switch) to the domain controller (active directory), but the port server should join the domain.

Doc Avid:

Your system came with restore disks for the File Manager and Port Servers.   Run them.  ...

jamesdebenham:

We are currently experiencing problems with our Unity Medianet 5.0 system ...

I'd also check the metadata drives while you are at it.

achuakh:

Next, assuming you got to the previous step, you will now need to login the user, then ask him to click on the A icon at the bottom and choose switch user, enter your AVID username and password, this will then allow him to connect to the unity volumes via the port server.

Did you try setting up that AVID user group on the PortServer?

achuakh:

Things to note, do NOT join the file manager or the media array (should not even be connected to the ethernet switch) to the domain controller (active directory), but the port server should join the domain.