"Delayed Write Failed or The Path is too deep."

Delayed Write Failure

Data corruption may occur if the Large System Cache feature is enabled in Windows XP. This symptom does not occur on all systems. The key ingredients that lead to this symptom may include:

System Memory greater than 512 Meg. (1 gigabyte of RAM is common)
- Large NTFS disk volumes. And multiple large volumes. (60-100 gigabyte hard drives possibly in RAID arrays)
- AGP graphics with large AGP resource requirements (AGP aperture greater than default)
- Large file transfers
This problem occurs when the computer runs out of system page table entries. Windows determines (at boot time) the default number of page table entries to assign, based on the amount of system memory available. The items mentioned above all contribute to increasing the number of page table entires that Windows XP must maintain and in extreme cases the page table entries may be exhausted.


To avoid this symptom ensure the System Cache option is NOT selected for Memory usage. Use the Programs option.
- right-click on the My Computer Icon then Properties to open the System Properties dialog box

- select the Advanced Tab then the Settings button under Performance

- select the Advanced tab on the Performance options tab

- in the Memory Usage area, ensure the Programs radio button is selected

- Apply the changes and select OK


It may be possible to work around this issue by increasing the value for page table entries, as follows,

WARNING: Please make a backup copy of your Registry before proceeding. If you use Registry Editor incorrectly, you may cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.

Launch the Registry Editor. Select the Start Button then Run. Type in regedit.exe and select OK.

Locate the SystemPages value under the following key in the registry:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management

Double-click the SystemPages value. The Edit DWORD Value dialog box appears.

Enter the maximum value (0xFFFFFFFF) , and then click OK.

Quit Registry Editor.

NOTE: 0xFFFFFFFF is the safest value however a value greater than the default but less than the maximum may provide better results.

NOTE: Changing the VALUE from the default may decrease performance by 1-2% .

INFO-BASE# 4217

KEYWORDS: ALL Products for PC Data corruption Large System Cache Windows XP

 © 2004 Microsoft Corporation.

While the network drive is around 100G, the above fix would only seem to apply if several users were having the same problem.  This is not the case.  Only the one user.  I did however give it a try with some progress.  

The Programs button in the Memory area was already selected.  So, I went to the registry and looked at the Memory Management value.  It was set to 0x1b000 or 110,592.  I bumped it up to 0xFFFFF or 1,048,575, nearly 10 times the value.

Now she can drag and drop files without a problem, although it does seem slower than normal.  From an application however, it still bombs out after a long delay, only now it is showing the "Delay Write Failed" message instead of the "Path too deep".

BTW, the path is only 75 characters or so, and I even tried writing to the root of another directory, so it was less than 20.  No difference.

Try turning off Write Caching on the drive.

I think you'll find this in the properties of the hard drive in Device Manager.

I agree with Netman66.

That's an older version of your problem:
File Lock or Access Denied Error Message When You Save Files Over the Network
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=812937

Here's a hotfix that addresses the same files as in the other link, but it's newer; you should give this a try:
"Delayed Write Failed" Error Message When You Write a File to a Server
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=321733

And just in case it might be hardware related after all:
For Windows XP, hardware related:
"Delayed Write Failed" Error Message When You Manage Files in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=330174

Tried those already.  No joy.

Well, I finally found part of the problem... There is a setting in the local security policy that was disabled - "Microsoft network client: Digitally sign communications (if server agrees)".  Enabling this setting got rid of the errors, but it is still very slow writing to the network share.

Thanks to everyone who helped - You gave me some ideas of other places to look I had not considered.

After chasing this one for serveral weeks, we tried connecting the user to a different port on the Cisco switch and the problem went away.  I moved the user back to the original location and the problem reoccured.  I checked the settings on the port and they were correct.  I reset the speed and the duplex.... magic, the problem is fixed.