Hello… I have 3 DROBOs, 1 FS and 2 Ns. I’ve had them set up for ages as read only for everyone and read/write for me (single user). Everything has been working fine. Recently, all of a sudden, one of the Ns (newer one) has decided to ignore my read/write permissions and is treating everything as read only. If I change settings in the dashboard to give “everyone” write permissions, then I can write to the drive. Any ideas? For some reason my computer (win7) isn’t logging into the DROBO with the correct credentials and is being treated as a generic user. As I said, the other two identically set up DROBOs work fine, with only my account having permission to write to the drives.
hi, can i check if you have upgraded any firmwares or dashboard since the last time it was working fine?
are you also using drobo login users for the permissions, or are they carried out via windows ntfs permissions?
I have the newest firmware (3.30?) and Dashboard (2.7?). What’s also strange is that now one of the 5Ns doesn’t let me change user permissions at all. I was trying to just make all my shares read/write for everyone, but now I get the “failed to save the settings” error message with one of them (not the other).[hr]
Also, the permissions are carried out by using the Drobo dashboard. Not sure how to make it work via Windows NTFS, although that may be more practical.
hi thanks for more info,
as far as i can tell, the latest firmware for 5n is Version 3.3.0 [8.75.76511]
& there seems to be dashboard v2.7.0 (though the website is still showing v2.6.10 as the latest)
have the drobos (and computer) been rebooted recently and are you trying to make the changes in dashboard as the main admin user or possibly as another extra user that you made?[hr]
(here is a link which may help with more info about shares and users)
http://dashboardhelp.drobo.com/guide/250/en/5N_Creating_and_Using_Shares.htm
I’m pretty sure I have the latest firmware and dashboard updates. I’m logged in as Admin. Everything has been rebooted multiple times.
What’s odd about this situation, is that in the last few days, the newest 5N has stopped allowing me to change permissions at all. If I do change them, upon saving the settings I get a “failed to save the settings” error message. This only happens on the newest 5N, not the older one, and not the FS.
hmm ok
would you be able to check which firmware the older one is using (just to see)?
No problem. It’s 3.3.0 [8.75.76511].
I mis-read your question. The 5N DROBOs both have 3.3.0. The older FS has 1.2.7 [4.45.10288].
thanks for the info,
(its ok i was indeed asking about the older 5n) but extra info doesnt hurt 
the main reason for the question though, was to try to see in case a more recent firmware possibly caused permission issues, but as both 5n’s appear to be the same, then its probably not that.
would you be able try comparing both 5ns, in terms of the way that your users and permissions are setup, just in case you can spot something from yourside, that could be not allowing permissions to be saved? maybe the main admin account or related permissions on the shares need tweaking back?
also when you say this:
“my computer (win7) isn’t logging into the DROBO with the correct credentials and is being treated as a generic user”
can you help clarify how win7 is mapping to the 5n?
maybe like a network share, if its removed from mycomputer, and remapped fresh again, it might fix it?
The two 5Ns are set up identically, other than contents of their shares. The Admin password and user passwords are identical. Let me clarify that last part - When I log in to DROBO dashboard as Admin, I should then theoretically have admin-level access to my shares from the computer where I logged in to the dashboard as Admin. And I only mean Admin-level as in, read/write permissions as set by the dashboard. I currently have Admin set up to read/write to all shares, “Everyone” to read only, and then me as read/write to certain shares. On a computer that doesn’t have the dashboard installed, the shares can be accessed (correctly) as read-only. It used to be that on the computer with the dashboard installed and logged in as Admin or as me, I would have read/write priviledges as defined in the shares. This stopped working recently. The only way I can write to any of the shares now is to change permissions for “everyone” to read/write.
thanks for the clarification,
Would you be able to try shutting down dashboard, and then relaunching it in admin mode?
(eg to rightclick the .exe (or a shortcut of it) and to Run as Admin.
if you then try your usual dashboard logins does it make a difference?
If not, then would you also be able to pick a folder on your share, (where you would normally have read and write permissions) and to try the following?
(please read both below, but in hindsight it might be worth carrying them out in reverse order)
a) to log in to dashboard, setup with how it used to work
and to rightclick on that folder you identified above, and to bring up Properties for it.
then to go to the Security tab, and to click on your win7 user name that you are using.
(what permissions are ticked in the area below?)
b) to set up dashboard with everyone with read/write.
and to do a properties as above, and to see if you can find your user name and permissions.
what can you see in those popups?
(am just curious as what ntfs is showing…)