computer suddenly not visible on my network

J

Jim S.

n00b
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Dec 23, 2005
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I started up my network media player tonight only to find that it wasn't seeing my server. I grabbed my netbook and found that it didn't see the server either. The server was running fine otherwise (it's my main computer), but I rebooted it thinking that the SMB server process must've crashed for some reason. After the reboot, still nothing can see the server. A quick look at the event log didn't show any obviously-related problems. Everything was working previously (early last week anyway), and I didn't change anything. A Google search turned up quite a few complaints about 7 networking problems, but none of which seemed to apply to me. (Again, it was all working, and I didn't change anything.) I am, needless to say, out of ideas. The server is Windows 7 Home Premium, the netbook is Windows 7 Starter, and the media player is an Argosy (Realtek based).
 
I have to ask... did you check your firewall and advanced sharing properties to make sure everything is still allowed?
 
I believe I checked everything, but instead of winking at me, why not explain exactly what I'm supposed to be looking for regarding your mysterious update?
 
How are you trying to contact the server? IP or machine name? I suggest trying the IP, sometimes the computers DNS/WINS entries can get wonky. Let's cross that off the list.
 
Aha, thanks. It does work via IP, however, it asks me for a password, which it wasn't supposed to, and also the password dialog says something about a domain, which it definitely shouldn't be using, it should be using a workgroup. That explains why it doesn't show up on the media player -- it doesn't let me specify anything, it only scans for workgroups and computers therein.

So, the big question, how do I get it back to workgroup and no password? (Or even just on the workgroup would be a usable start.) According to all the settings I can find, it THINKS its on a workgroup and it THINKS it's not asking for passwords, which is the way I had it before it unexplainedly and silently changed.
 
The domain is normal even for workgroups. The domain should be the ip/hostname of the computer you are accessing. Do you have Sharing setup for Everyone to at least have read access, and under Security have Everyone have read access also?
 
Just to clarify, it doesn't broadcast its workgroup and hostname, and it cannot be accessed by hostname from another computer. (It recognizes its own hostname however.)

Everyone has read access under Sharing and Security. I had no problem accessing the shares from another computer via IP address, after supplying a password. The problem is that my media player doesn't let me specify a host manually, it only lets me select from a list that it's detected.

One time when I had two XP machines, the Windows name servers for some reason got into a fight over who was master and one shut down, so I couldn't access via names then. But I have no idea anymore what I did to solve the problem, and anyway I don't see any such log entries on my Windows 7 machines as I did on the XP machines.
 
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