the ever present "Failed to retrieve share list from server"

[CliveMcCarthy]

Here is some kind of clue. Smbtree does not show any resources on artshow24 yet it has a shared folder -- I just checked the folder's sharing permissions. Can Samba distinguish between an empty list and no list?

clive@VostroV13 ~ $ smbtree
CLIVEWORKGROUP
    \\VOSTROV13              VostroV13 server (Samba, LinuxMint)
        \\VOSTROV13\HP-LaserJet-1200    HP LaserJet 1200
        \\VOSTROV13\HP-LaserJet-4L     HP LaserJet 4L
        \\VOSTROV13\HL2270DW           HL2270DW
        \\VOSTROV13\print$             Printer Drivers
        \\VOSTROV13\shareddocs         
        \\VOSTROV13\music              
        \\VOSTROV13\IPC$               IPC Service (VostroV13 server (Samba, LinuxMint))
    \\Q9550                  Q9550 server (Samba, LinuxMint)
        \\Q9550\Brother-HL-2270DW-series    Brother HL-2270DW series
        \\Q9550\print$             Printer Drivers
        \\Q9550\shareddocs         q9550
        \\Q9550\IPC$               IPC Service (Q9550 server (Samba, LinuxMint))
    \\NETFLIX_HD             Zotac Ion
        \\NETFLIX_HD\SharedDocs         
        \\NETFLIX_HD\IPC$               Remote IPC
    \\MACBOOKPRO-AB2A        Tricia Bell's MacBook Pro
    \\ARTSHOW40              artshow40 server (Samba, Ubuntu)
        \\ARTSHOW40\shareddocs         artshow15 shared
        \\ARTSHOW40\print$             Printer Drivers
        \\ARTSHOW40\IPC$               IPC Service (artshow40 server (Samba, Ubuntu))
    \\ARTSHOW24              artshow24 server (Samba, Ubuntu)
    \\ARTSHOW21              artshow21 server (Samba, Ubuntu)
        \\ARTSHOW21\shareddocs         artshow15 shared
        \\ARTSHOW21\print$             Printer Drivers
        \\ARTSHOW21\IPC$               IPC Service (artshow21 server (Samba, Ubuntu))
clive@VostroV13 ~ $

[Morbius1]

The newer OS machines worked with Avahi, but then they also worked fine without it!

That's not exactly the question I asked. All Linux and OSX machines will respond to a hostname.local query. This thread is solely about having avahi broadcast the presence of a samba server via /etc/avahi/services/samba.service file so that it shows up under network:/// and can be accessed that way.

The way I set this up all of the machines that have samba.services files in them will broadcast a name that is different from the normal legacy samba way - with a "Samba hostname" in the file manager. What I wanted to know was if only the artshow24 machine is the issue when accessed that way.

Yep -- instantaneous it is! However, I still get the damned message from VostroV13.

Fascinating.

This post has gone on for so long I don't remember if anyone's asked for this or not. If it has point me to the answer:
Go to the artshow24 machine and post the output of the following command:

testparm -s

and just in case this one:

net usershare info --long

Don't be concerned if you get no output from the second command.

[CliveMcCarthy]

Will do. Be back soon...

[CliveMcCarthy]

So those two commands reveal:

clive@artshow24:~$ testparm -s
Load smb config files from /etc/samba/smb.conf
rlimit_max: rlimit_max (1024) below minimum Windows limit (16384)
Processing section "[printers]"
Processing section "[print$]"
Loaded services file OK.
Server role: ROLE_STANDALONE
[global]
    workgroup = CLIVEWORKGROUP
    server string = %h server (Samba, Ubuntu)
    map to guest = Bad User
    obey pam restrictions = Yes
    pam password change = Yes
    passwd program = /usr/bin/passwd %u
    passwd chat = *Enter\snew\s*\spassword:* %n\n *Retype\snew\s*\spassword:* %n\n *password\supdated\ssuccessfully* .
    unix password sync = Yes
    syslog = 0
    log file = /var/log/samba/log.%m
    max log size = 1000
    dns proxy = No
    usershare allow guests = Yes
    panic action = /usr/share/samba/panic-action %d


[printers]
    comment = All Printers
    path = /var/spool/samba
    create mask = 0700
    printable = Yes
    browseable = No


[print$]
    comment = Printer Drivers
    path = /var/lib/samba/printers
clive@artshow24:~$

clive@artshow24:~$ net usershare info --long
[shareddocs]
path=/home/clive/Desktop/shareddocs
comment=artshow15 shared
usershare_acl=S-1-1-0:F,
guest_ok=y
clive@artshow24:~$

[Morbius1]

Well, that's too bad since everything seems to be in order. I was hoping for something more exotic and obviously wrong. Even if the the home directory were encrypted or the permissions were wrong you should still see the print$ share.

BTW, You might want to add the following line under the workgroup line:

name resolve order = bcast host lmhosts wins

It won't do anything for the samba.service avahi process to function since it won't use it but you never know where this machine will end up.

Over the past several years with 10.10 installed on all machines I would be unable to connect to various machines. Sometimes many, sometimes just a few. Given time, things would 'mend' themselves and run happily for many weeks.

The thing with this is that the avahi process bypasses all the things about the legacy process that can sometimes cause that to happen. And it appears to be working or else this wouldn't have happened:

Yep -- instantaneous it is!

There's something else afoot here me thinks. 2 routers both supplying DHCP perhaps?

Did you ever think to upgrade to a newer version? I have some iso's around here but nothing that goes back to 10.10 so trying to reproduce this problem is kind of hard for me.

[CliveMcCarthy]

As perhaps you can tell, these machines are artworks each of which functions as a separate 'canvas' -- I use a relatively standardized set of hardware with an Atom CPU and an Nvidia Ion GPU. The artworks themselves exist on small HDDs which I can plug into various 'frames'. I have quite a large number of drives representing various works. I have started to upgrade from 10.10 to a newer OS. In practice this involves creating a stable master HDD and then cloning the drive with a HDD duplicator, then editing the hostname for the specific work. Upgrading all of the existing HDDs is quite a lot of work.

Here's the latest: Samba-Avahi-10.10 artshow24 has disappeared from the list. It is just gone from view from Vostrov13 and other machines! Weird.

I will check the routers. I set the system up so that there was only one DHCP server, of course, but something perhaps has defaulted to a reset condition...

[Morbius1]

You know you might want to try an experiment the next time you need to reboot artshow24. Boot into a current Mint LiveDVD - not to install it just to have a live session. Mint already has samba and avahi running in the live state - you can even create a share from the file manager.

Then see if both the standard samba works and see if this still throws an error:

caja smb://mint.local

The reason I suggest this is not so much to convince you to update your system but if the exact same thing happens with a more current distro then the problem points to artshow24's place in the topology of the network and nothing to do with samba or avahi.

EDIT: simultaneous posts it seems. Based on your description it's not clear to me that the "device" you are running it from even has a cdrom/dvd.

[CliveMcCarthy]

Correction: Samba-Avahi-10.10 artshow24 is back again!

[Morbius1]

Is this thing on wireless? You aren't connecting in and out of neighbor bob's network are you?

[CliveMcCarthy]

Yes, it is wireless but it has a strong signal (-59dBm) from a nearby AP of mine. I'll switch it to wired just for fun.