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Lee DeRaud
01-13-2008, 1:43 PM
Not a critical problem, but very annoying...

I have three computers, all three XP Home with SP2 and the latest updates. Computer A stays on morning to night, goes into standby overnight. Computer B is usually in standby and gets brought up as needed. (I typically only shutdown/reboot them after I install updates.) Computer C is in full power-down when not in use (which is most of the time). They're connected through a standard Linksys router that hooks to the cable modem.

The problem is in access to shared drives/directories. Yesterday was typical: A could access B and C, but neither B nor C could access anything on A. And B could access C, but C could not access B. On other days, B can access A but A can't access B etc, and sometimes one or more pairs can access each other in both directions.

The error messages that come up simply says the other computer is "not accessable" and to consult the admin of the other computer, suggesting that it thinks there's a permission problem rather than a routing problem.

Any clue what can cause this?

Stephen Beckham
01-13-2008, 5:10 PM
Lee,

I get surprises (random of course) from time to time. Usually I find that it deals with my Symantic Firewall. I disable protection, enable protection and then I get all kinds of different results.

Another thing that has helped was putting my local network IPs in the EXCEPTION area where it allows/disallows computers to access each other. Where thats at? Not sure - it usually takes me some time to find it everytime I look for it...

One other possibility - are you using DHCP settings from the router? I had problems where the addresses would expire - the reboot would clear them or manual IP resets. Honestly - stumbled upon that one and can't remember how I fixed it either.

Bottom line - If you can ping the different computers in a DOS window - then it's not the network connectivity as far as the router is concerned. It's probably a firewall...

Lee DeRaud
01-13-2008, 6:27 PM
One other possibility - are you using DHCP settings from the router? I had problems where the addresses would expire - the reboot would clear them or manual IP resets. Honestly - stumbled upon that one and can't remember how I fixed it either.

Bottom line - If you can ping the different computers in a DOS window - then it's not the network connectivity as far as the router is concerned. It's probably a firewall...Ping always works: connectivity down at Ethernet or IP layer isn't the problem. I've got the local subnet (192.168.1.xxx) marked as "trusted", beyond that I don't know of any firewall things that would cause unidirectional (and variable) blocking.

I'll try the manual DHCP reset/renew thing, but since all three computers can get to the Internet, they clearly have valid IPs...possibly not the same IP from one day to the next, but valid ones.

It almost feels like I have to do a ping/refresh/whatever way up at the SMB level (Windows losing track of which computer goes with which workgroup ID?), but I have no idea where that stuff hides out. (Almost all of what I know about networks is from Solaris...if these were Suns, I'd probably have it fixed by now.)

Jim Becker
01-13-2008, 7:19 PM
I believe that Windows may assign one machine as the "master" relative to shares in the workgroup. Perhaps the various machines going to sleep are messing that up.