On Mon, 13 Aug 2007 17:18:01 -0700, Acupro Tech
wrote:
"Chuck [MVP]" wrote:
On Mon, 13 Aug 2007 11:26:02 -0700, Acupro Tech
wrote:
I have a client that has been having an ongoing network issue that I cannot
figure out.
They have 6 XP pro boxes configured in a workgroup environment. These
computers will work fine for a few days or sometimes weeks and then one day
they will start their day and the netowrk will be working fine. Then all of
a sudden one of the users will open "My Network Places" and literally watch
all the listed items disappear one by one (normally they have 10 or so items
in the list) until all are gone. As the day progresses they typically will
have this happen on all their machines, but not always.
They have a network hardware firewall/router in place and up to date
Antivirus (Norton) and Antispyware (Counterspy) in place. There is no
indication anywhere of infections.
Solutions tried:
1) Verified all have the same Workgroup name
2) Verified all have different computer names
3) Verified we are using simple file sharing
4) Ping by IP address to different machines generally works
5) I attempted the fixes mention in KB 811259 entitled "How to determine and
recover from Winsock2 corruption"
6) Saw another KB that referenced changing a key from 0 to 1 and verified
that registry key was set appropriately on all machines.
7) Checked wiring
One thing that has tended to work to resolve the problem on one machine at a
time is to do the following:
1) Change the workgroup name to something random.
2) Goto the Nethood folder in the users directory under Documents and
Settings and delete anything in there.
3) Reboot
4) Change the workgroup name back to the original
5) Reboot
6) Wait 4-5 minutes for Network Neighborhood to refind the computers
This work around is tiring and I need to find the cause and solution to
this. Any help would be appreciated.
Chris
Chris,
You have the symptoms of a master browser conflict. This is what Steve refers
to when he says that "network browsing through My Network Places is inherently
unreliable".
It's not unreliable, if you take the time to set it up right. Named, directory
based resource access is better than IP addressed, fixed link resource access,
for many people.
http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/2005/04/nt-browser-or-why-cant-i-always-see.html
http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/2005/0...lways-see.html
I suggest that you start by looking at your protocols used on the 6 computers.
An extra, unmatched protocol on one computer can cause symptoms like what you
mention.
http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/2005/05/fix-network-problems-but-clean-up.html
http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/2005/0...-clean-up.html
Having done that, look at logs from "browstat status" and "ipconfig /all", from
each computer. Read this article, and linked articles, and follow instructions
precisely (download browstat!):
http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/2005/05/troubleshooting-network-neighborhood.html#AskingForHelp
http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/2005/0...#AskingForHelp
While I was awaiting a response I discovered an article on how to define
which is the Master Browser and which are not. I also discovered that one
machine was always the Master Browser and it also had other functionality
that made this a bad idea. I have since changed the setting to FALSE on that
box and set another one to TRUE and left the rest as AUTO. As I understand
it this should resolve the issue. Do you agree?
There seems to be some conflicting reports as to whether I should the rest
to AUTO or FALSE so if I am mistaken here let me know.
It's a tuning issue. If you have one computer that stays on constantly, and
only one LAN segment, you only need one browser. As long as all computers elect
the same master browser, and no computer elects itself, you can have as many
browsers as you wish. Between the two figures ("1", and "n") is the number for
you.
The more browsers that you have, the greater the chance that you could end up
with 2 master browsers, and a segmented LAN. You always need 1 browser, if
you're going to use My Network Places.
So see how it works, for you, and use browstat to track what the actual browser
infrastructure is at any time. You can write a script, to run browstat (or any
other command) from each computer, with the script started from one computer,
using PSExec from SysInternals (Microsoft).
http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/2005/05/essential-tools-for-desktop-and.html#PSTools
http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/2005/0...d.html#PSTools
--
Cheers,
Chuck, MS-MVP 2005-2007 [Windows - Networking]
http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/
Paranoia is not a problem, when it's a normal response from experience.
My email is AT DOT
actual address pchuck mvps org.