Multiple issue's on multiple machines, Inconsistent behavior with: OS Sign-in, Networking, SMB and "File "Explorer"

abactuon said:

You can use powercfg.exe to change anything you want in Balanced.

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@abactuon , I just finished viewing powercfg /?, I did not see anything specific to usb connection's that would stop the connected drive's from spinning down. Could you shed more light on your suggested use of 'powercfg'? To be clear, my interest in adjusting the power-plan is only to keep all the usb connected drive's spinning 24/7/365; 'USB Suspend' and all its friends are not currently helping.

jimbo45 said:

For any sort of Lan monitoring etc - I'd always recommend a Linux Host --Networking usually works straight out of the box with mapping to Windows and other boxes no issue

Cheers
jimbo
,

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@jimbo45 , after reading your detailed response, it's not a matter of 'just' browsing share's,There is quite a bit of video file transfer's taking place, not to mention --your suggestion appears pull more money from my depleted piggy-bank's to purchase more hardware. Am I correct that another machine is needed to run that Linux Distro you're speaking of? Also, the software I use for the IPC's is proprietary and only runs on Microsoft Windows. Using VMware and the like would, in my opinion, add to latency and would be another something to troubleshoot; should there be an event. Please do correct were needed.

I'm in a real-time scenario with the IPC system.

20241019 -- NOTE-03: For those who are following along, moving forward the "OS build" numbers for the two Win-11 machine's have changed; due to recent "Windows Update\Recovery\Reinstall's".

THE GOAL: Local Account Sign-In with a blank password. To at least temporarily resolve the bullet-point labeled "OS sign-in: Inconsistent result’s (priority)" as seen in post #1, the following is now true.

Box-a -- Edition: Windows 11 Home, Version: 23H2, Installed on: ‎10/‎9/‎2024, OS build: 22631.4317.

Attempting to use the above configured account did not provide the expected results: to auto-magically reboot and land on the desktop, followed by forcing 'this' account to provide --different valid credentials associated with all Windows hosted share's.The original plan was met with the following random result's:

a) Would randomly/intermittently successfully login then land on the desktop, normally or,

b) Would stop at the Sign-In screen, prompt for a password that does not exist. Then, when you attempt to proceed with a blank password, the account would be locked and remained locked until the Ethernet cable was disconnected from the PC in question; reboot and try again.

Ultimately had to use 'netplwiz'; which was not the plan. netplwiz uses an existing password. The plan was to Sign-In using a completely blank password field as a simple way to trigger the OS to prompt for credential's of a different, valid user when 'this' passwordless account attempted to access share's on another Window's machine; this only worked for a hot minute. I do understand there is at least one other way via Sharing\Permission to trigger a Windows credentials prompt, once verified, then access the Windows hosted share's associated with another account on a different machine but, there are extra steps to remember.

Moving forward netplwiz is in the mix on box-a; the problem-child. Over the next two week's I should know if this issue, shown in post #1 is stable.

That is what I learned today; any thought's ...

@Ghot @antspants , Update:
11/15/2024 5:46:21 AM – Things have calmed down considerably after:

• Replacing a zero-length password with this tutorial.
• Pausing the OS updates by following this tutorial.
• Discovering a faulty (intermittent) peripheral a/c-adapter and removing it.

While box-a is still problematic, it's not as intermittent as it was, allowing enough time to troubleshoot\research the outstanding concern's.
Box-b has been subject to an "Windows Update\In-Place Reinstall", shown here. Even though there are still remnant's of issue's scattered about, all of the above bulleted item's have really settled the current OS\installation. Thank you all for the feedback. More updates to this thread will be posted.

Continued Respect

Query01 said:

To be clear, my interest in adjusting the power-plan is only to keep all the usb connected drive's spinning 24/7/365; 'USB Suspend' and all its friends are not currently helping.

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Unless maybe you are running the type of HDDs that are specially designed to keep spinning 24/7/365 (e.g., Enterprise/NAS/Surveillance type of HDDs), you should consider to avoid the HDDs spinning continuously more frequently and for longer periods of time than really should be needed to achieve the goal that you need to achieve.

The only goal that could potentially make some valid sense in this regard is to eliminate the delay that occurs each time when a HDD has to spin itself back up again before it can be accessed, but.. beyond that, to keep a "consumer grade" HDD spinning endlessly for no reason at all is bound to be counterproductive in every way. As a matter of fact, the same also holds true about Enterprise/NAS/Surveillance drives spinning many additional hours each time when there is real certainty that, during that entire lengthy period, they're not going to be used for anything.

So, use KeepAliveHD to keep the drives spinning as long as you need to keep them spinning, but don't use it to keep them spinning for too much longer than that.

hdmi said:

Unless maybe you are running the type of HDDs that are specially designed to keep spinning 24/7/365 (e.g., Enterprise/NAS/Surveillance type of HDDs), you should consider to avoid the HDDs spinning continuously more frequently and for longer periods of time than really should be needed to achieve the goal that you need to achieve.

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@hdmi , The above is the exact application; running both multiple Seagate Skyhawk Ai and WD Red Plus NAS connected via USB\Saabrent Docking Station's.

hdmi said:

The only goal that could potentially make some valid sense in this regard is to eliminate the delay that occurs each time when a HDD has to spin itself back up again before it can be accessed,

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As you stated, the spin-up delay is the issue. The time it take's to spin-up causes buffering and other access delay's. The access delay's will cause a program to timeout and throw an error about not finding the path\or\dest.

hdmi said:

So, use KeepAliveHD to keep the drives spinning as long as you need to keep them spinning, but don't use it to keep them spinning for too much longer than that.

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Am I to assume your recommendation (KeepAliveHD) to also mean, I've done everything the OS has offer for this concern and that, a third-party app is the only other option?

Update 20241123:

With regard to the concern of usb connected hdd’s possibly going into low-power-mode, being suspended via the active “Power plan\Advanced setting’s\USB suspend” or not complying with --any other “Power Management” setting, additional research has revealed the hdd’s being used –do not support “Advanced Power Management” (APM); does support Power Up in Standby (PUIS).

To bring this part of the thread to a full-stop, instead of using recommendation’s and/or suggestion’s of @abactuon ‘powercfg’ and @hdmi ‘KeepAliveHD’, as seen in Post #25, to work around this issue in order to keep the hdd's spinning for quicker access, --I used the OS’s “Task Scheduler” to, --write to a text file at intervals just below the time the drives would spin-down or, go into low-power mode. Which is a native way of doing what ‘,KeepAliveHD’ say’s it does; without an added install.

No new issue's have popped-up, more update's to this thread as I pick away at the aforementioned concern's.

Everyone remain healthy.