AppleShare creates and maintains a file called AppleShare PDS, which stands
for "AppleShare Parallel Directory Structure." This "Parallel Directory"
stores information about files, such as AppleShare short names and access
privileges, that cannot be stored in the standard directory. As you add files
to an AppleShare volume, the AppleShare PDS file grows.
The problem occurs when the "AppleShare PDS" file grows beyond one megabyte
(1,048,576 bytes). It's hard to predict how many files you can add to a
volume before you reach this limit.
AppleShare's maximum volume is somewhere between 8,000 and 12,000 files.
(The variation is due to how the file names are added to the PDS file.) You
can check the size of the "AppleShare PDS" file to see how close you are to
the one megabyte limit. If you exceed this limit, your server will continue
to report an error condition even if you remove enough files to bring the
file down below one megabyte in size.
To fix this:
1. Throw away the AppleShare PDS file.
2. Run the AppleShare Admin program and verify access privileges for the
volume. This will recreate the "AppleShare PDS" file, which allows your
server to start up again. We recommend that your volumes contain no more
than 8,000 files.
The next release of AppleShare will fix this problem.