Webdav copy & Windows 7 problem

[blannoy]

Hi,

we're using alfresco Enterprise 3.3 and are having some trouble with using webdav from W7 computers.
We get a webdav explorer view on the repository and can open documents.
However when we try to copy/paste docs into that explorer, the operation fails.
W7 seems to think that the file is already there and tries to make a second copy.
I end up with a locked empty file.

When I look into the copy/paste traffic the webdav client does the following operations:
PUT <file> –> empty file
LOCK <file>
PROPFIND <file>
PROPFIND <file>
PROPFIND <folder>
PROPFIND /
PROPFIND <file(2)>
at which point I cancelled

If I compare a copy/paste operation on an Apache webdav instance this works and has the following sequence
PUT <file> –> empty file
LOCK <file>
HEAD <file>
PUT <file> –> puts complete file
PROPPATCH <file>
PROPPATCH <file>
UNLOCK <file>

Things started going different from the HEAD command.
anyone had any experience with copy/pasting a file using webdav on W7 (enterprise x64) in Alfresco?

Bob

[mrogers]

Have you contacted Alfresco support?

[blannoy]

No not yet, I thought someone may have had similar problems + a solution

[mrogers]

Yes there are problems with Windows7 and WebDav.   There's discussion threads on these forums about using different (Non MS) WebDav clients for Windows 7.

[blannoy]

Hi,

fyi, I found the cause.
It seems to be related to the lock-method.
When I disabled webdav locking in windows 7 (registry entry for webclient ) the copy ran without a problem.
A closer look to the difference in response from apache and alfresco showed that alfresco returns a response without namespaces:
<prop xmlns="DAV:">
  <lockdiscovery>
    <activelock>
….
</prop>
While in Apache I get something like
<D:smileytongue:rop xmlns="DAV:">
  <D:lockdiscovery>
    <D:activelock>
….
</D:smileytongue:rop>

In other methods like PROPFIND in alfresco this is with a namespace like <D:….>
Manually changing this on the fly in Fiddler makes the copy/paste option succeed.
So now its up to the developers

Bob