Computer Browsing

[Turkannodland]

I installed Amahi a few weeks ago and and I am up running fine except for an annoying browsing issue.
I have disabled the router DHCP and DNS and Amahi Hda is running these services. There are 4 XP computers running on the network and I was expecting to brows these computer as I did before in "My network places". The problem is that normally only the Hda is visible. The XP computers shows up right after they are started, but disappear again after 10 - 20 mins. I have tried a lot of configurations on my XP machines without help. To me it seems to be a problem with the browser funcion of the Hda. For some reason the browse.dat do not get updated properly. When my XP computers are listed in the browse.dat I can also see them in "My network places".

I know it is not a big problem, I can always brows using the run command //computer. But I have a Picture frame device connected that seems to be dependent on the browse list. Any hints on how to fix it would be highly appreciated.

[salocinbake]

You might have done this already; change the name of your computer's workgroup to be the same as your HDA. ex; myhda.com instead of workgroup.
If not give it a shot.

I have a mix of XP, Vista and Ubuntu at home, and no problem browsing the hda.

Salo

[Turkannodland]

Yes I have set up my workgroup with the same name as the Hda workgroup name, but that has not relieved the problem. I think there is some funny thing going on in the Amahi machine (Linux) because the browse list get reduced to only the Hda after a while. But, why all the computers get deleted from the browselist (browse.dat), I don't know. Linux is a new thing to me so I don't know how to proceed with the troubleshooting.

Any other suggestions?

[cpg]

that's interesting, and strange.

the log directory for the file server is here:

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/var/log/samba/

if you can pinpoint what files changed at the time the machines vanished, that would be good.

there is also /var/log/messages, however note that there is a common periodic message there that looks like this. i am told that it is harmless and the feature that does this can be beneficial:

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nmbd[4381]: [2009/03/02 17:45:25, 0] nmbd/nmbd_browsesync.c:find_domain_master_name_query_fail(350) nmbd[4381]: find_domain_master_name_query_fail: nmbd[4381]: Unable to find the Domain Master Browser name HOME.COM<1b> for the workgroup HOME.COM. nmbd[4381]: Unable to sync browse lists in this workgroup.

other ideas. do the machines re-appear if you do this (as root):

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service nmb restart service smb restart

also, is there by any chance some other windows box in your network that is configured as a "Domain Master Browser" or a "Domain Server"?

it may also be a good idea to reboot things and time when the machines disappear. with that in hand, if it's repeatable, we may be able to track down a timeout in samba doing it.

[Turkannodland]

that's interesting, and strange.

the log directory for the file server is here:

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/var/log/samba/

if you can pinpoint what files changed at the time the machines vanished, that would be good.

I checked all the logfiles in /var/log/samba. They were full of crap so I empty all the logfiles and restarted nmb and smb as suggested below.
Soon after restarting these services, the computers on the network became visible in "Network places" and browseable. I waited until all computers vanished again and then I collected all the changed logfiles in /var/log/samba . I have enclosed all these files.

As can be seen, I restarted nmb/smb at 20:51 and at 21:40 the computers had vanished. The logfile for the computer(Dellen) I was using while dealing with this has some errors related to an IP 0.0.0.0, I don't know what that means. But I see this 0.0.0.0 ip is also listed in the Wins.dat. I don't know what it is good for.

there is also /var/log/messages, however note that there is a common periodic message there that looks like this. i am told that it is harmless and the feature that does this can be beneficial:

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nmbd[4381]: [2009/03/02 17:45:25, 0] nmbd/nmbd_browsesync.c:find_domain_master_name_query_fail(350) nmbd[4381]: find_domain_master_name_query_fail: nmbd[4381]: Unable to find the Domain Master Browser name HOME.COM<1b> for the workgroup HOME.COM. nmbd[4381]: Unable to sync browse lists in this workgroup.

Yes, I have seen this. But this went away after i edited the smb.conf with domain master = yes. This change did not solve my browsing problem though.

other ideas. do the machines re-appear if you do this (as root):

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service nmb restart service smb restart

also, is there by any chance some other windows box in your network that is configured as a "Domain Master Browser" or a "Domain Server"?
I have checked the registry of all the computers. All have IsDomainmaster set to false

it may also be a good idea to reboot things and time when the machines disappear. with that in hand, if it's repeatable, we may be able to track down a timeout in samba doing it.

[Turkannodland]

I found a solution for my Computer browsing problem. I just disabled the "Windows firewall/ Internet connection sharing" service on my XP computers. Now all the computers on my network are visible and browsable under "My network places" and most important, they don't vanish after a certain time.

[cpg]

thanks for reporting back. i had talked to obnox, however he indicated he was going through a busy period.

what's puzzling about it is that "after a while" part. usually a firewall is there or is not. it does not come up after a while.

the only thing i can think of is that the computers in the network were visible just enough before the firewall went on and at the next cycle they were already not visible.

[moredruid]

actually there are lots of issues with computer browsing on Windows. Sometimes shares dropped off, went invisible, didn't come back up on restart etc. There are quite a few MS Knowledge Base articles about that (especially when not working with a domain controller).

You may also want to make sure you have Netbios turned on in your network settings of your win XP box, this service resolves names over the windows network (instead of just using DNS they _had_ to invent something new & "better")

[Blueracer]

Turkannodland-
I am having the same problem you did. The XP computer is always disappearing 10 minutes or so after I reboot it. I don't have that problem with
a Vista computer on the my network. Can you describe better how to fix this. I don't have the Windows firewall active, I use Mcafee.
Thanks for any help.

[Turkannodland]

Blueracer

It is not sufficient to turn the Windows firewall off. The "Windows firewall/ Internet connection sharing" service will still be running. Here is how to disable it:

Open Control panel / Administrative tools / Services. Scroll down until you find "Windows firewall/ Internet connection sharing". Right click on it and select properties. In the dialog select "Startup type:" disabled. You might stop the service as well on this dialog, (presumably it is running), then you don't need to reboot to make the change effective.