Drive letter for a cloud drive becomes invalid after awhile

Question

I have a class that encapsulates the cloud drive code for creating the page blob, the container, the cloud drive and mounting it. The resultant drive letter is stored as a static string that's then accessible by my web role (actually methods in Default.aspx). When I start up the web role and start interacting with the web pages, everything works fine--the page is basically a from for user input that then gets stored on the cloud drive. But after some time period (15 min?) the next access (when loading the page anew) of the drive letter reults in this error:

Could not find a part of the path 'F:\'.

Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.

Exception Details: System.IO.DirectoryNotFoundException: Could not find a part of the path 'F:\'.

Source Error:

An unhandled exception was generated during the execution of the current web request. Information regarding the origin and location of the exception can be identified using the exception stack trace below.

Stack Trace:

[DirectoryNotFoundException: Could not find a part of the path 'F:\'.] System.IO.__Error.WinIOError(Int32 errorCode, String maybeFullPath) +239 System.IO.Directory.InternalGetFileDirectoryNames(String path, String userPathOriginal, String searchPattern, Boolean includeFiles, Boolean includeDirs, SearchOption searchOption) +2134 System.IO.DirectoryInfo.GetDirectories(String searchPattern, SearchOption searchOption) +140 JNBridge.CloudInterop.AzrInterOpCore.FileSystem.getAllProjectDirectories() in C:\Data\JNBridge\Cloud projects\InteropService\Prototype\AzrInteropCore\FileSystem.cs:164 JNBridge.CloudInterop.AzrInterOpCore.AzrInteropProjectManager.loadProjects() in C:\Data\JNBridge\Cloud projects\InteropService\Prototype\AzrInteropCore\AzrInteropProject.cs:197 JNBridge.CloudInterop.InterOpDistrib._Default.Page_Load(Object sender, EventArgs e) in C:\Data\JNBridge\Cloud projects\InteropService\Prototype\JNBAzrInteropSvc\InterOpDistrib\Default.aspx.cs:53 System.Web.Util.CalliHelper.EventArgFunctionCaller(IntPtr fp, Object o, Object t, EventArgs e) +25 System.Web.Util.CalliEventHandlerDelegateProxy.Callback(Object sender, EventArgs e) +42 System.Web.UI.Control.OnLoad(EventArgs e) +132 System.Web.UI.Control.LoadRecursive() +66 System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain(Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint) +2428

Any thoughts?

Bill

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Bill Heinzman JNBridge, LLC www.jnbridge.com

Answer 1

Can you try DriveMountOptions (FixFileSystemErrors or Force) with the Mount operation and see if that makes any difference?

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Please mark it as answer by clicking on "Propose As Answer", if it helps

Answer 2

Since you are running locally you should be able to use subst at a command prompt to verify that the drive has been mounted. Indeed you should be able to navigate the drive using Explorer. After your app starts it is probably worth doing this to check that everything is OK.

One of the Azure Drive documents (Storage Team whitepaper?) suggests it may be worthwhile to try and write to a drive after mounting it just to ensure the drive was mounted OK.

Answer 3

I am using the drive option 'Force'. Haven't tried FixFileSystemErrors.

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Bill Heinzman JNBridge, LLC www.jnbridge.com

Answer 4

Actually, I'm not running locally. This is all in Azure, not the Dev Fabric. The problem isn't that the mount doesn't work--I can read and write to the cloud drive fine. The problem is that after about 15 minutes (roughly) the drive letter, stored as a globally available string, becomes stale resulting in the error. Because the drive is being accessed from a method in Default.aspx, are there issues with accessing the drive from different threads?

I can bring up the form the first time after the web role starts (the mount occurs when the code first asks for the drive letter from the global property, that's when the drive letter is cached), store that information to the drive. However, when I wait 15 minutes and bring up the page a second time and grab the drive letter from the cache, the save to the cloud drive fails.

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Bill Heinzman JNBridge, LLC www.jnbridge.com

Answer 5

Hi Bill,

When you mount a Windows Azure Drive, a thread is created in your process to maintain the temporary signature the drive uses to authenticate with Windows Azure Storage.  If your process exits, this thread is destroyed and your drive will be unmounted in about 30 minutes because the authentication stops working.  I'm guessing this is what is happening.  The workaround is to call Mount() every time you need the drive.  If the drive is already mounted, Mount() will return very quickly with the current drive letter.

Thanks
Andrew Edwards
Windows Azure Storage

Answer 6

Thanks. That worked.

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Bill Heinzman JNBridge, LLC www.jnbridge.com

Answer 7

Even though this thread is marked as answered, I'd like to point out that Mount()/Unmount() of a read/write cloud drive carries a substantial penalty resulting in significant latency. For example, a simple ASP.NET form with a 'Submit' button will invariably timeout if the click handler mounts the cloud drive followed by an unmount. Also, if the read/write drive is already mounted and another VM tries to mount the drive, that mount appears to block for some unspecified time--a behavior that's not documented or configurable. The second mount should immediately throw an exception. Writing code that allows several roles to access a drive with read/write privleges is tatamount to writing an OS disk driver. Can't the Azure driver handle all this?

Finally, using cloud drives in the dev fabric does not reflect the behavior of that same code running in Azure--in fact, something will run perfectly in the dev fabric, but throw an exception in Azure.

Cheers,

Bill

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Bill Heinzman JNBridge, LLC www.jnbridge.com

Answer 8

What if mount call takes longer time to mount the drive in case of large .vhd?

is there any other work arround?

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mitesh

Answer 9

Update.

Beginnning with Azure SDK version 1.4 (or later)  and Guest OS versions 1.9 or 2.1 (or later), the mount will persist even after the process that mounted the drive exits. Note for web and worker roles, it is necessary for the application to be using both the correct SDK and Guest OS. A listing of OS versions is available here http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee924680.aspx

For VM roles, the integration components in SDK 1.4 are sufficient for the mounts to persist.