Can see, but can't access, WinXP network

[jhmiller42]

My network connection through my router works fine, internet connection is good, and I can see my existing WinXP network in Ubuntu's File Browser, but when I click the network's icon it "thinks" about it for 30-60 seconds and then displays an empty folder.

Weirdly, under 'Windows Network' in File Browser, it lists both my existing WinXP network and 'MSHOME', the default name for Windows networks -- though no such network exists. Also, my Ubuntu system is apparently included under MSHOME.

Any pointers? I'm on Hardy, BTW.

[renzokuken]

You need to set up Samba to share files between XP and Linux.....have a look in the wiki or just google "samba + ubuntu", there ae tons of guides

[kg4wih]

I'm having the same problem, I'm sure its something simple..... But when I was using 7.10 it would ask for my credentials but not anymore. And I never setup Samba, I thought it was just for sharing files with windows machines.


forgot this........ if you know the share/folder name, and your looking at the "empty folder" as you mentioned, click the button under the "back button" that toggles the text based location bar and add the share/folder name after the "/".....

or just enter the full address "smb://servername/sharename"

it will ask for you credentials then.....

[Fraoch]

Hmm, I'm seeing the same thing after upgrading from 7.10 to 8.04. The 8.04 machine can't see my Windows laptop or my other 7.10 machine.

At first I thought I needed to reconfigure samba, but my smb.conf hasn't changed and the big sign that samba is working properly is that the Windows XP Pro laptop can see the 8.04 machine's shares just fine. But not the other way around...

The symptoms are the same as the OP, which is why I'm posting in this thread. Places - Network "thinks" for 20-30 seconds before even displaying (I thought it wasn't working at all first). It displays "WORKGROUP" pretty quickly, which is indeed the name of my workgroup, but on clicking WORKGROUP it thinks for ~30 seconds and ends up with an empty screen devoid of all shares. If I try to connect to the server name with "smb://server/share" it does the same, thinks then an empty folder.

Oddly a share on the 7.10 machine I have mounted via CIFS on the 8.04 machine appears just fine? But I can't browse to the 7.10 machine's shares on demand.

[renzokuken]

have you added a samba login credentials

sudo smbpasswd -a username

then enter a password

[Fraoch]

Thanks for the help. I followed this guide:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=202605

and yes, I used:

sudo smbpasswd -L -a your_username
sudo smbpasswd -L -e your_username

as recommended in the guide.

I'm wondering if the smb.conf file in the article needs to be changed for Hardy?

Some progress though, I managed to get the 7.10 share to appear once by entering the server and share name, I can sometimes get to it but often it times out. I can't browse to it though and it doesn't always come up. I should be able to add the Windows XP laptop the same way but I never had to do it this way before and it's not very reliable.

[SonicSteve]

Did following the stuff above really work? In the past ie. Gutsy, Feisty etc. I could always see computers and shares before tweaking anything.

Currently I can see the computers in the Network, I just can't see the root shares. If I add the path of the share to the address bar I can browse the share.

for instance.
We have a server called Jehu
It has about 40 shares in it's root. When I browse the Network shares and I click on Jehu I get an empty window. If I then add the name of the share I want it then opens that share and is accessible. This can all be done before doing any of the above Samba setup guides. Those guides help make your files accessible to a windows computer. It used to be that by default a windows share was accessible without any tinkering at all. This new behaviour seems more like a change in Samba policy or a bug.

I've seen this behaviour both in fresh installs of hardy and from upgrades from Gutsy.

[jhmiller42]

So, more folks having a similar problem. If anybody can figure out why we can't browse the network, it'd be much appreciated. Heck, I don't even need to serve files to other computers on the network, just need to read/write files on my WinXP desktop from my Ubuntu laptop.

[SonicSteve]

So, more folks having a similar problem. If anybody can figure out why we can't browse the network, it'd be much appreciated. Heck, I don't even need to serve files to other computers on the network, just need to read/write files on my WinXP desktop from my Ubuntu laptop.

Have you tried typing into the address bar of Nautilus?
smb://computer/sharename ie substitute computer and sharename for you your xp machine and sharename.

When I do this I can see the shares and access the files, it's just browsing the shares that doesn't work. I should also add to this that sharing files through the Ubuntu share gui is not working very well right now.

[jhmiller42]

I can't even get that working. It tells me it "failed to mount the Windows share." The network works properly when I dual-boot into XP, so I don't think I've configured the Windows computers in any unusual way.

Just out of curiosity's sake, are network addresses case-sensitive? I've tried both ways, no luck.

Have you tried typing into the address bar of Nautilus?
smb://computer/sharename ie substitute computer and sharename for you your xp machine and sharename.

When I do this I can see the shares and access the files, it's just browsing the shares that doesn't work. I should also add to this that sharing files through the Ubuntu share gui is not working very well right now.