I am Software Technical Analyst, I have a customer that is using Novell 6 (SP3), Netware Client 4.83 (SP2), and Windows NT 4.0 Server (SP6). Our application generates a 'lock file' while reading configuration files during a read process, then deletes the lock file after the read. This process occurs once a minute (in a split second)and the application is up 24/7/365, consequently there are ALOT of lock files generated and deleted. The problem is that, randomly, we seem to lose the file handle, and an error is displayed indicating a failure to delete the lock file. After that error our application server ultimately seems to grind to a halt, forcing a hard boot of the server. When we move the config files locally to the application server the problem goes away, we feel pretty sure this is Novell and/or PC OS issue. We are not generating Novell 'salvage'files in that Netware 6 folder, we are sure of that and have the folder set not to create salvage files... Anyone have any clues as to what may be causing this? The customer upgraded from Netware 4.x and was not having this problem prior to the upgrade... Any help appreciated, thanks in advance for access to this helpful forum!

File handle errors can be very tough to figure out, so I know what you are going through. Do you have the exact error message by any chance? Also, is this a custom application or are you using a commercial database to access the files? (ie. Pervasive, Oracle, SyBase, etc.)