LAN Problems

roamer

a question thats bugged me for a while and I haven't ever been able to get a clear answer as to what exactly is going on.

Im hoping that perhaps somebody here will have an idea or can point me in the right direction.

The problem seems to be computers dissapperaing randomly from "My network places". Sometimes all of a sudden they may come back for no good reason.

I am using an ethernet switch to connect a few machines together. Its incredably annoying and all the computers seem to be set up correctly.

I can to some extent tolerate this at home, but I cant imagine what would happen in a large organization. Does anybody know of a solution?

Wandering Dazed

Check the event logs for any errors, and google them. If you look in workgroup computers are all the systems listed? Shortcuts on my network places time out after 48 hours, if the systems are turned off they may not be refreshed.

ntlbell

more info might help

os's of machines?
how many?
anything strange setup like multiple workgroups?

master browsing settings on machines?

tcp/ip or Netbeui?

how random is random? etc etc

roamer

a mix of osx, xp and one machine is windows 2000.
4 macs, 4 xps and win2k.

All in the same workgroup.

master browser settings??

tcp/ip installed, file & print sharing and client for windows installed on all windows based machines.
personal sharing and windows sharing is switched on the macs.

When I switch off all the machines in the network. And reconnect every network cable to the switch, then reboot them again all the computers will see each other again. After a few days (maybe in the same day) one or two computers might go missing from My Network places making it impossible to connect to them. Sometimes, out of the blue one of the computers may start appearing back in MYPlaces.

The only workaround ive found is to create a shortcut to the sepcific ip address. I dont want to do this though because I want to use DHCP. This way I must use static or else the links will go out of date.

ntlbell

roamer wrote:

a mix of osx, xp and one machine is windows 2000.
4 macs, 4 xps and win2k.

All in the same workgroup.

master browser settings??

tcp/ip installed, file & print sharing and client for windows installed on all windows based machines.
personal sharing and windows sharing is switched on the macs.

When I switch off all the machines in the network. And reconnect every network cable to the switch, then reboot them again all the computers will see each other again. After a few days (maybe in the same day) one or two computers might go missing from My Network places making it impossible to connect to them. Sometimes, out of the blue one of the computers may start appearing back in MYPlaces.

The only workaround ive found is to create a shortcut to the sepcific ip address. I dont want to do this though because I want to use DHCP. This way I must use static or else the links will go out of date.

take the mac out problem solved lol

nah, seriously tho so the internal ip address's of all these machines are changing regualry?

ntlbell

forgot to mention master broswer settings.

if you do nbtstat -n you should see something like

MYWORKGROUP

you should only see ..__MSBROWSE__. on one machine which is the master and holds lists of machines/shares etc etc if you see it on more than one multipe machines are trying to be the master so you should enable one machine to be master and disable the rest.

i take it this all worked fine with no problems at some stage?

roamer

when i do the nbtstat, it doesn't tell which is the master browser. Also in xp or the 2k machine it wont give me the properties option on file and print sharing for microsoft networks so i cant set it as a master browser. This has to be the problem...

ntlbell

regedit job

"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Browser\ Parameters\MaintainServerList"

set to true or false for 2k

"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Browser\ Parameters\MaintainServerList"

for xp i think it's yes/no you'll need to check

and my mac skills are fairly limited.