Bizarre network file-sharing issues. (1 Viewer)

[ogmzergrush]

I've got a network here of four machines, a laptop which comes and goes from the network, two desktop machines and an xbox (obviously, not on all the time). They're connected via a NetComm 8 port switch, and IPs and network settings are manually configured correctly for each machine. All machines are running XP Pro (Aside from the xbox), and no software or hardware changes have been carried out on any of the systems within the last few months. Most of this information probably has no bearing, but I think it best to mention it just in case I'm missing something.

Up until recently, everything has functioned correctly, an Internet connection is hosted on one of the desktop machines and is shared around via ICS. File sharing is enabled between the machines, and up until a few weeks ago everything was fine.

My laptop has a network mapped drive (Which I've tried removing and re-adding) which corresponds to one of the drives on the desktop machine. This functions correctly in most cases, however when browsing to folders recently I have noticed that sometimes it tells me the folder cannot be accessed (Despite the fact that I know it exists). For example, visiting Z:\downloads will result in such an error, but then at a later time will work fine. These errors do not correspond to the first time I visit the drive (Ruling out it being an issue with accessing before it's been automatically mounted). Aside from this, connectivity from the laptop is fine, I can work, save files, retrieve (most of, more on this in a second) them, etc, across the network, and the Internet connection is still available.

Now, for the one that really annoys me. When browsing album folders across the network, only some files are visible. This is consistently happening, I will enter a folder corresponding to an album, and only tracks 4 - 10 are visible (Missing tracks vary, this is an example). I reboot all systems and the same tracks are missing (The tracks which vanish do not vary from session to session). The files still exist as I have checked from the machine hosting them, and are not damaged. I know for a fact that I used to be able to access those files across the network without any issues, so I don't think it's a case of being somehow invalid because of filenames or anything like that. This only appears to be happening with mp3s, as far as I've noticed other files are all appearing and functioning correctly. It's also not a case of my collection being too large to view at once or anything like that, because it happens even when I add/view isolated folders.

Behaviour seems quite strange to me, so I've also run a variety of AV and spyware tools on all machines involved, with no result.

I'm reasonably competent with networking but have never encountered anything quite like this before, so I figured before I go mental trying to sort it out I'd just check if anyone had any suggestions or thoughts on the matter. I know the post looks a bit long, but I've tried to cover everything I know about the problem and what I've already tried so we don't waste your time going over stuff I've already tried. Thanks in advance everyone

 

[seremify007]

That's happened to me before... It was to do with the firewall settings (I was running Norton Firewall) and then I had to set my local computers to be under the "Allow" list for each of them- if it helps, try disabling any firewalls (Windows and other) you have running and see how that goes.

My other guess is that if you've updated Windows recently, it might have disabled sharing of root drives (that's generally not recommended) and so every new file or folder you put in there may not be shared? Try unsetting the Share, and then re-enabling it.

 

[ogmzergrush]

Thanks for the reply I've just tried disabling the firewall and disabling sharing completely, then re-enabling it but it doesn't appear to have made any difference. The bit that really gets me is that as far as I can see the network configuration on my laptop and the *other* desktop machine (Not the one hosting files, but the other one) is identical, so I just can't see why the laptop isn't able to see files that the desktop can.

 

[ogmzergrush]

*Bump in disguise*

I've noticed that it's not just mp3s now, initially that's all it seemed to be happening with but I've recently noticed it with all sorts of other stuff.

 

[seremify007]

I know this sounds stupid but... if the connection settings are identical- is it possible that they both have conflicting IPs? I personally just use DHCP for convenience with IP reservations on my router.

I'm really quite baffled.. also try using dos (start - run - cmd) and then typing in 'net view' and enter.. make sure that the two computers can definitely see each other.

 

[ogmzergrush]

There's definitely no ip conflict going on, double checked that side of things, but checking in dos was interesting. I definitely ensured that they could all see each other when I initially set up the network (I guess about a year ago), and it was all fine. Having checked it again, I'm noticing that it can't see the other machine (Nor ping it by name). This confuses me as I've noticed no functionality problems up until this one.

Interestingly enough, now if I visit \\192.168.0.50\e\whatever (The machine in question's ip), rather than visiting by name (\\morty\e\), the files all show up as expected. As far as I know I've checked all the normal "My network is screwed, what do I do?" type stuff and nothing is announcing itself as the cause, though I guess I must have missed something otherwise this wouldn't be happening. That helps narrow the problem down a bit at least, anyone got any ideas in light of new developments?

(Also, thanks for reading all this crap, it's annoying the hell out of me)

 

[ogmzergrush]

Oh what the hell. Before I asked this issue had been annoying me for about a month or so, now after I've browsed by IP, I just noticed that all the files have in fact returned when I visit by name or use the networked drive. If there's one thing that annoys me more than a problem it's one that vanishes without an apparent solution or cause!

I wonder if this is some sort of indexing issue across the network, where for reasons unknown it stopped updating the indexes when I visited, until I did the ip one forcing it to refresh them as it hadn't been visited that way previously? If it's not that then I have no clue what this is all about. Interestingly enough I checked net view again and still can't see the other machine, what's with that I wonder? Sigh, I guess I should just hope on it not getting worse again and be glad that it's fixed

Also in the unanswered questions department, why can't I see the machine via net view, network neighbourhood, etc, nor ping it by name, despite the fact that I'm able to visit drives mounted on the machine using its name? :/ This is utter crap, I'm converting to amishism :>

 

[Chocobo687]

(Your posts are getting me a little confused, and I'm getting contridicting info...)

But maybe stupid but if you can't ping it by name, have you checked they are on the same workgroup?

 

[ogmzergrush]

Nah all on the same workgroup.

Sorry about the confusing posts, I'm just having a hard time understanding exactly what's going on here, and it makes it a bit difficult to describe. Basically, the problem with not being able to see files is fixed and I can see everything now (But I have no idea what has changed). The problem which I have noticed now is that I can't ping the other machine's name, but can ping its ip, and can't see it with net view or in network neighbourhood, but can access it by visiting \\computername\drive. This isn't really a problem, as all services such as ICS and (now) filesharing work too, but it confuses me in that I can't actually tell why it doesn't work.

 

[seremify007]

The only thing I can think of is uPnP enabled/disabled.. but I don't think that'd cause it. Maybe something changed your network settings >_> Sorry I can't really think of anything but yeh that's happened to me on WinXP a few times.. where suddenly all my stuff disappeared from My Network Places.

 

[ogmzergrush]

No problems, thanks for your help anyway seremify007, I wouldn't have even thought of checking that they could still see each other seeing as everything was (mostly) still working. I think I'll give up on understanding it and just hope it doesn't come back