Network Issues

[FrizzleFried]

Alright,  I have 3 MAME cabs,  my wifes computer and my computer networked (wired,  not wireless).  From my main computer I can see the wifes, the horizontal MAME and the veritcal MAME.  I can not see or access the Cocktail MAME even though it is shared,  on the same workgroup, etc.  Now,  on the cocktail MAME I see all the other computers including the main computer...and I can access them as normal.

Any idea why I can see and access the main computer from the cocktail but I can't see nor access the cocktail computer from the main computer?

[leapinlew]

Alright,  I have 3 MAME cabs,  my wifes computer and my computer networked (wired,  not wireless).  From my main computer I can see the wifes, the horizontal MAME and the veritcal MAME.  I can not see or access the Cocktail MAME even though it is shared,  on the same workgroup, etc.  Now,  on the cocktail MAME I see all the other computers including the main computer...and I can access them as normal.

Any idea why I can see and access the main computer from the cocktail but I can't see nor access the cocktail computer from the main computer?

When you say you can't access the cocktail - you've tried accessing it by clicking Start>Run and typing

\\computername
or
\\IP Address

From my experience, networks without servers that rely on a browse master to populate the network neighborhood are flaky. I would imagine you can access it from the main computer with the \\IP address. Let me know if that works.

[ahofle]

LOL welcome to windows networking.  I especially enjoy the 30-60 second timeouts which lock up the entire explorer while trying to connect.
One thing I've found which helps is to connect by IP address instead of computer name.  So instead of \\someCompName\c connect to \\192.168.0.15\c
 

EDIT: leapinlew beat me

[leapinlew]

leapinlew beat me

Worth preserving. Forever. 

[ahofle]

 

[FrizzleFried]

I'm just using "My Network Places"... I guess it's time to dust off the old command prompt...now where was that again?

[leapinlew]

I'm just using "My Network Places"... I guess it's time to dust off the old command prompt...now where was that again?

It's not that bad. Just click Start, select run and type \\computername or \\IP. If you use \\IP, you'll be bypassing all those name pesky name resolution issues.

I've given up trying to fix naming issues in workgroups.

[saint]

Alright,  I have 3 MAME cabs,  my wifes computer and my computer networked (wired,  not wireless).  From my main computer I can see the wifes, the horizontal MAME and the veritcal MAME.  I can not see or access the Cocktail MAME even though it is shared,  on the same workgroup, etc.  Now,  on the cocktail MAME I see all the other computers including the main computer...and I can access them as normal.

Any idea why I can see and access the main computer from the cocktail but I can't see nor access the cocktail computer from the main computer?

Turn off the Windows firewall on the cocktail computer.

[FrizzleFried]

\\COCKTAIL doesn't work.

\\192.168.1.105 doesn't work.

That is the computer name and IP address.  Error reads:  The Network Path Was Not Found.

Windows Firewall is not active...as a matter of fact,  the service is disabled.

[Kevin Mullins]

I constantly have problems between one computer or another like that.
Sometimes to the point of having to reset the network shares back up again on the one that can't be seen or accessed.

Go to the properties of C: (or whatever your main drive is) under Sharing and Security like you normally would and  unshare it and then re-share it.
And I check the "Allow users to change my files."
And then a usual re-boot of the PC.

Just a suggestion to try.

Windows Wonky Networking.

[ahofle]

Are all these computers running XP? 

[saint]

\\COCKTAIL doesn't work.

\\192.168.1.105 doesn't work.

That is the computer name and IP address.  Error reads:  The Network Path Was Not Found.

Windows Firewall is not active...as a matter of fact,  the service is disabled.

Any other firewalls or security programs?

Can you ping 192.168.1.105 by the IP address?

Are you getting DHCP or static addresses? If static, are your subnet masks the same on all systems? Mismatched subnet masks and firewalls are common reasons for the problems you're having.

[FrizzleFried]

It uses DHCP.  I just checked and I can ping my main computer (192.168.1.103) from the cocktail without issue but I can not ping the cocktail (192.168.1.105) from the main computer or ANY of the other computers hooked up to the network.  Essentially,  the cocktail can see and access every computer in the net but none of the other computers can even see or PING the cocktail cab.

That got me thinking.  I do remember going thorough the cocktail and removing services based on the WIKI and/or some other "speed up XP" post here... does anyone know of a service that if disabled,  would prevent other computers from seeing this one on the net?!

BTW: I checked and the subnet masks are the same as well.  Everything matches?!?!!

[ahofle]

Check the 'server', 'network connections', and 'computer browser' services?

[SavannahLion]

That got me thinking.  I do remember going thorough the cocktail and removing services based on the WIKI and/or some other "speed up XP" post here... does anyone know of a service that if disabled,  would prevent other computers from seeing this one on the net?!

Yeah there is. Don't ask me what. Many moons ago, I made the grave mistake of reading Steve Gibson's article on XP and following his "advice." This was back when my network was  predominantly Linux based. So most remote PC access was done via Telnet or FTP. Samba was too damn fussy to set up.

Now, my network is dominated by Windows boxes and configuring any sharing of any sort is a ---smurfing--- nightmare from somewhere beyond Hell thanks to that cock sucker Steve Gibson and his utterly useless doomsday advice. If I go to Hell, I'm going to take the ---uvula---(s) who designed the MS Windows sharing framework and Steve Gibson with me and stuff their pee holes with huge chunks of brimstone and burning coal. I have wasted more hours configuring Windows print and file sharing than I ever have configuring serial devices.

Compiling and configuring LAMP, LAPP, or WAMP from scratch is 1k times more appealing.

Anyways, enough with the ranting. If you ever figure out how to get it working, let me know. It might be something I haven't tried.

[SavannahLion]

And the troubleshooting guides are somewhere between useless and moronic. Someone really needs to hunker down and create a comprehensive troubleshooting book on the topic.

[Hoopz]

If I go to Hell, I'm going to take the ---uvula---(s) who designed the MS Windows sharing framework and Steve Gibson with me and stuff their pee holes with huge chunks of brimstone and burning coal. I have wasted more hours configuring Windows print and file sharing than I ever have configuring serial devices.

Now that's passion. 

 

[saint]

If you do not have the "server" service running, no workstation can access the resources on that box. 


Server service is what allows someone to browse what you have.
Workstation service is what allows you to browse what someone else has.

(Did I mention I'm an MCSE? Pity me.)

[FrizzleFried]

If you do not have the "server" service running, no workstation can access the resources on that box. 


Server service is what allows someone to browse what you have.
Workstation service is what allows you to browse what someone else has.

(Did I mention I'm an MCSE? Pity me.)

Yup...checked and all services listed above are there... I will double check the server service but I am pretty sure it's there.  Some aren't running,  but they are checkmarked so they are available.

[saint]

Server service has to be running, not just there

[FrizzleFried]

How do you make it "run"... I don't see an option to turn a service on or off from within MSCONFIG.

[SavannahLion]

How do you make it "run"... I don't see an option to turn a service on or off from within MSCONFIG.

Start\Control Panel\Administrative Tools\Services

or

Run services.msc

While you're at it. Download and install nmap for Windows on a computer different than the problematic one. A simple port scan (eg nmap xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx) will reveal whether the correct ports are open.

[FrizzleFried]

I dunno... server service is up and running... all services related to networking that I can see are up and running.

[saint]

Three thoughts next:

1. Run "msconfig" and make note of every line's status in both the 'services' and 'startup' tabs as to whether they're set to run or not. Then turn them all on and reboot and see if that fixes it. Make sure you note which ones were on/off so you can put them back the way they were. This is just an experiment to see if you've got something important turned off. If so we can start troubleshooting from there.

2. Reboot the cocktail in "safe mode with networking" mode, and see if you can ping it from your main computer then.

3. Is the main computer on DHCP as well, or static?  From both computers, run a CMD prompt and then do an "ipconfig /all" -- capture the results and post them here.

[CCM]

What firewall software are you running?  I use Zone Alarm and have added my home network (range of IPs) to the trusted zone.  Is it possible you have a similar setup and your cocktail is somehow getting an IP assigned to it that is outside your trusted zone? 

[_Iz-]

Are you using simple file sharing? (All computers should have the same setting for this)

I personally turn simple filesharing off but you need to have passwords for all the accounts you're trying to access or windows will block them.

[SavannahLion]

I personally turn simple filesharing off but you need to have passwords for all the accounts you're trying to access or windows will block them.

Did someone figure out hw to disable SFS in any other version other than XP Pro? From what I recall, the work arounds and hacks I've seen only gives access to the Admin panel, but doesn't actually disable SFS.

[FrizzleFried]

Three thoughts next:

1. Run "msconfig" and make note of every line's status in both the 'services' and 'startup' tabs as to whether they're set to run or not. Then turn them all on and reboot and see if that fixes it. Make sure you note which ones were on/off so you can put them back the way they were. This is just an experiment to see if you've got something important turned off. If so we can start troubleshooting from there.

2. Reboot the cocktail in "safe mode with networking" mode, and see if you can ping it from your main computer then.

3. Is the main computer on DHCP as well, or static?  From both computers, run a CMD prompt and then do an "ipconfig /all" -- capture the results and post them here.

John,

Unless I absolutely have to,  I'd rather not "shotgun" enable all services.  I re-went through them and only a few are unchecked in MSCONFIG...and none have anything to do with networking,  unless messenger is "networking".

I did try to ping COCKTAIL when it was loaded in to savemode w/networking and got the same result.  I could not ping it from the office PC but I could ping the office PC from it.  It will also ping itself.

Attached is the IPCONFIG /all output from the COCKTAIL.  I can't do the OFFICE PC as I am using a MAC keyboard on it (I'm using 3 macs and a pc all from the same keyboard) and the PRTSCRN button is non-existent.   That said,  I compared the output to the COCKTAIL output and it's identical minus the NAME and the network adaptor type (one is a Nvidia the other is a RealTek I believe).  All addresses match save for the .103 vs .105.

[FrizzleFried]

Looking at my router settings... I notice that under DHCP Active IP Table only IP's .104 and .105 are appearing.  I THINK my wifes PC is .104,  but .103 the office PC isn't showing up there.  There is an option to delete and that is it.

Should I?

[_Iz-]

Do you have a switch or something else in there besides the router? I'm counting more computers than a standard router has ports...

[FrizzleFried]

I do think it's an 8 port router... I have 3 MAME cabs, the wifes PC,  the office PC, a Mac server and 2 mac clients.

[leapinlew]

I dunno frizz....

not being able to connect to the cocktail via \\IPAddress implies a firewall or service not running. When you use the IP address instead of the name, you bypass all the naming resolution services and your trying to connect 1 computer to the other computer.

You could look at the event logs on the cocktail. In the control panel, go into administrative tools, and double click event viewer. Check out the log files and see if you see anything in there that might provide a clue.

[saint]

Another thought - I have seen Realtek NICs do some funky things. Do you have another NIC you can put in the cocktail machine to try? Even if just as a test.

[Kevin Mullins]

Not that I have pinpointed the exact problem, but like I mentioned earlier that I have constant on and off again networking issues. Sometimes one pc or another just doesn't see eachother and vice versa. And after reading this thread again I played with mine half the friggin' day trying to find the cause, because the pc I'm on right now would not see the other pc's. I could surf the net, all network settings were dead on, yada, yada.
And just like his issue, the other pc's could see and access this one just fine.

Just now I unplugged the router power, let it set a second or two, plugged it back in..... linked right up with the other pc's just fine.

So maybe he needs to look at the router side of things. (just an idea)

BTW - I have a Linksys WRT54G router.

EDIT: Just noticed it took a reboot and a little time for everything to show up on each computer correctly. So there may be a time delay depending on if one of the PC's has been elected as the master browser server and it's waiting for basically a ping from each of the pc's type thing. (or something to that effect)

[SavannahLion]

BTW - I have a Linksys WRT54G router.

That's interesting... I had an unmodded one I switched from my modified Barricade when I moved. Basically when my Windows file sharing hell started.

[Kevin Mullins]

Well damn, there is still something a bit wonky like FrizzleFried situation going on with mine.
Because now one of the pc's that had been able to see this one all day long can't see it.
But now this one see's and can access all the others. (three others, four total)
No settings have been changed in between, just simple re-boots.

I do understand his frustration.   

[FrizzleFried]

Not that I have pinpointed the exact problem, but like I mentioned earlier that I have constant on and off again networking issues. Sometimes one pc or another just doesn't see eachother and vice versa. And after reading this thread again I played with mine half the friggin' day trying to find the cause, because the pc I'm on right now would not see the other pc's. I could surf the net, all network settings were dead on, yada, yada.
And just like his issue, the other pc's could see and access this one just fine.

Just now I unplugged the router power, let it set a second or two, plugged it back in..... linked right up with the other pc's just fine.

So maybe he needs to look at the router side of things. (just an idea)

BTW - I have a Linksys WRT54G router.

EDIT: Just noticed it took a reboot and a little time for everything to show up on each computer correctly. So there may be a time delay depending on if one of the PC's has been elected as the master browser server and it's waiting for basically a ping from each of the pc's type thing. (or something to that effect)

Hi Kevin, 

Thanks for the suggestion,  but it's a No-Go.  This problem has plagued me for over a year now... through many "recycles" of the power to the NIC... but for shits and giggles I did it again... no go.

[Kevin Mullins]

Yeah, I feel your pain.
I thought I was onto something, but after getting mine to connect and just leaving it set overnight I'm back to square one again as well.
The one I'm on now won't connect to the "network" but the others can see it just fine.
And that's all I did was leave them all running when I went to bed, no changes, no re-boots, nothing.

PIA 

They're all running XP Pro if that's any help.

[saint]

In addition to trying a different NIC, if you can try a crossover cable directly between the cocktail and the main machine. If it works with a crossover cable then you may have some sort of router issue, though I doubt it since communication works one way.  You try swapping the NIC yet?

[leapinlew]

In addition to trying a different NIC, if you can try a crossover cable directly between the cocktail and the main machine. If it works with a crossover cable then you may have some sort of router issue, though I doubt it since communication works one way.  You try swapping the NIC yet?

Thats a decent suggestion, as it removes the router from the equation. I wanted to add to it. If you do try a crossover, make sure to assign the machines a static IP address.

[Kevin Mullins]

I think it's boiling down to a Master Browser conflict of sorts.
Been playing around with my setup and assigned one absolute master and set the rest to not be. Meaning instead of the system being able to "elect" a master from time to time there is one and only one at all times. But that also means that that ONE master HAS to be on in order for the others to find the network. This morning was the first time that I have had all four computers seeing and accessing all four computers without a single problem or "missing" a computer.
Even after getting this pc I'm on right now to recognize the network and all the other pc's,  this pc then disappeared from two of the others. (wtf??) And then i left all the machines on and all it did was sit overnight and it had quit working again. Whether it was because the "master" at that time went to sleep or whatever causing it to try and elect a new master I have no idea. (causing a conflict somehow)

So basically what I did was set this pc as the master and all the others to not be eligible, then rebooted everything and ALL was working without even a hiccup.

Might be worth playing with..... keeping in mind that whichever is set to master has to be on at all times and also while rebooting the others.

Go to START then RUN .... regedit.exe

Find:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Browser\Parameters and change the "Maintainserverlist" value to "TRUE" for the MASTER.

And then:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Browser\Parameters and change the "Maintainserverlist" value to "FALSE" on all the rest.

Default is AUTO and I haven't tried each pc on auto one at a time to see if there is one particular machine causing any sort of conflict. I might check into that, but of course that would be a lengthy investigation of trial and error.

[saint]

In addition to trying a different NIC, if you can try a crossover cable directly between the cocktail and the main machine. If it works with a crossover cable then you may have some sort of router issue, though I doubt it since communication works one way.  You try swapping the NIC yet?

Thats a decent suggestion, as it removes the router from the equation. I wanted to add to it. If you do try a crossover, make sure to assign the machines a static IP address.

Oops, yes, what he said.

[Kevin Mullins]

Just a side note to chew on:
After getting all of mine connected properly using one as a master I went back and set all of them with the value of TRUE and all is working great still. And it doesn't matter if one of them gets shutdown and rebooted or anything in between.
My girlfriends pc is running Zone Alarm so I had to set the proper privileges for the rest of them to access it, no biggy.
I also noticed that my daughters laptop actually goes into a hibernation mode, at that time it's not accessible, once again no biggy, just noted information.

So all of my pc's registry value are now:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Browser\Parameters and change the "Maintainserverlist" value to "TRUE"

Seems like the AUTO stuff has been causing MY network fits..... so might be worth taking a look at on yours.
I'm no IT or Networking guy, but I know I racked my brains with all the usual advice and resolutions that never seemed to be the cause of the problem.
I'll monitor my progress and see if it holds up solid.

Any other suggestions or understanding of why this would happen from you other fellas?

EDIT: I have not tried "adding" a new computer to the network yet to see if it gets recognized by all the others properly. I will try that later and see what happens.
I've got another laptop we haven't used in forever that I can throw in the mix and test the theory out.

EDIT 2:
Just set the other one up, normal home network stuff...... and it popped right up on all the other pc's and can be accessed with no problems. Didn't have to reboot or anything funky like that either.

[SavannahLion]

That's interesting. In every single description I've ever read of windows networking. That particular Reg entry was never mentioned... ever. Should be worth looking into and might explain a lot of behavior that I originally attributed to the Linksys handling of DHCP addressing.

[Kevin Mullins]

Well, like I've mentioned, I'm not a network buff ..... but I've had alot of similar issues as to what Frizzle is having and I had to dig deeeeep to find what little information I could about how the Windows stuff was "supposed" to work when it's all set up correctly.
Because obviously it still wasn't working right.
And his thread got me digging into my issues some more.
Needless to say...... it's all holding up very nicely so far.

I'm curious as to how FrizzleFried is coming along on his issues. 

[SavannahLion]

I did a search on that reg entry. Apparently here's how it's supposed to work.

Setting Maintainserverlist to TRUE forces the PC to act as a master browser if no other PC is acting as such.
Setting the same to TRUE if another PC is acting as a master server list puts that PC into a backup "mode" when it sees a master on the network.

Setting Maintainserverlist to AUTO causes the PC to take over the role of a master if no other master exists or acts as a backup if not enough backups exist on the network.

Setting it to FALSE forces the PC to never hold a master or backup role even if no master browser exists on the network.

In other words, putting all the PC's on a network to TRUE causes one PC to become the master and the rest to become backups. Expected behavior for that setting. That's why it works for you when you set them all to TRUE.

So it appears there's a deficiency in how Maintainserverlist set to AUTO works. I'm going to have to try this when I get home tonight.

In any case, a quick peek through the MSDN and Technet pages, Microsoft is rather vague on how it all works. MSDN has better information on a technical basis, but hardly any nutshell information. Oddly enough, I did note that the browser list is supposed to be one master and one backup for a network with 32 or fewer PC's and an additional backup for every 32 beyond that. Seems to me that the AUTO setting can't decide which PC should act as a master and backup.

Here's a thought. Anyone with problems using non-Windows PCs in their network? Linux, Wii, PS3 perhaps? Anyone that don't have problems, are they using a pure Windows network? Just a thought, I recall my Barricade refused to list any Linux PC unless I used some hacked firmware.

Corrected annoying spelling error

[saint]

Frizzle: From a command prompt, what do you get when you do a
"net view" (no quotes)

Do you see the cocktail cabinet showing up?

What do you see if you do a
"net view w.x.y.z" where "w.x.y.z" is the IP address of the cocktail cabinet?

[FrizzleFried]

Frizzle: From a command prompt, what do you get when you do a
"net view" (no quotes)

Do you see the cocktail cabinet showing up?

What do you see if you do a
"net view w.x.y.z" where "w.x.y.z" is the IP address of the cocktail cabinet?

NET VIEW shows:

\\COCKTAIL    Cocktail
\\OFFICEPC    Office PC

NET VIEW 192.168.1.105 (cocktail address) shows:

Share name Type Used As Comment
C Disk
COCKTAIL_BACKUP Disck
F Disk
HPLaserJet Print
L BACKUP Disk

So it's seeing it!

EDIT: While NET VIEW shows both \\COCKTAIL and \\OFFICEPC,  NET VIEW 192.168.1.105 does not show anything but "System error 53 has occured. The network path was not found"... the results above were from 192.168.1.103 (the office PC)...

EDIT 2: While I posted earlier that it pinged,  I was being an idiot and pinging my office PC (103) not the cocktail (105) which is still not pinging.

[FrizzleFried]

Welp,  I can get in via IP address (\\192.168.1.103)... not sure WHY or HOW it was fixed...

\\computername isn't working though.


EDIT: I am a dumbass...I was getting in to my OFFICE PC at .103... the cocktail cab (.105) still is not pinging nor is it accessable via \\192.168.1.105...

Essentially I am at the same spot I was...but you can see the damn thing with NET VIEW.

[patrickl]

Maybe its a problem with the NetBios registration?

Verify WINS registration of client NetBIOS names

[ark_ader]

That will teach you a lesson Frizz next time you will use Bluetooth! 

[FrizzleFried]

Maybe its a problem with the NetBios registration?

Verify WINS registration of client NetBIOS names

COCKTAIL isn't appearing in the list at all...

[patrickl]

Maybe its a problem with the NetBios registration?

Verify WINS registration of client NetBIOS names

COCKTAIL isn't appearing in the list at all...

Yes,  I was going with your suggestion that you could see it on the IP address, but not by name. That would indicate that the NetBios service is not running (or is having some problem) Since you corrected that it's not working at all it's something else.

Still what do you get when on the cocktail command prompt you type:

nbtstat -n

[FrizzleFried]

See attached for the results from the COCKTAIL PC.

The OFFICE PC lists this:

OFFICEPC <00> UNIQUE Registered
MSHOME <00> GROUP Registered
OFFICEPC <20> UNIQUE Registered
MSHOME <1E> GROUP Registered
MSHOME <1D> GROUP Registered
..__MSBROWSE__.<01> GROUP Registered

Not sure why there are 3 MSHOMEs or 2 OFFICEPC's...

[patrickl]

OK, that seems fine.

Are you really really sure that there isn't a firewall somehow active on the cocktail PC? That's the only explanation I can think off as to how ping traffic is blocked in one direction only.

BTW if you have Windows XP Home running on the cocktail it could very well be that you have reduced functionality on the name resolution (ie computer won't show up automatically in the browser) and "net view" might not work either. Still "\\cocktail" should work (if you have file and printer sharing switched on and all computers are in the same group and no firewall is blocking traffic etc etc etc)

[FrizzleFried]

Nope...no firewall...and it's Windows XP Pro?!  Very very very strange...

[leapinlew]

I dunno... server service is up and running... all services related to networking that I can see are up and running.

Hey Friz,

Attached is a picture of my running services. Can you show us what yours looks like? I wanna make sure we are on the same page.

[SavannahLion]

Are you really really sure that there isn't a firewall somehow active on the cocktail PC? That's the only explanation I can think off as to how ping traffic is blocked in one direction only.

Virus scanner? I believe McAfee is particularly known for running its own firewall on top of Microsoft's.

Installing nmap on any PC other than the cocktail will let him know what ports are open on the cocktail. This at least removes the possibility of his ports not being opened, either due to a firewall, bad settings or the services running.