This is a continuation of the Fritzbox story, whereby the Fritzbox has a USB hard drive plugged in, which I can see and access perfectly via my laptop, but not via wife's laptop. Both connected by wi-fi.
I think this must be a permissions or sharing problem - but am not sure. We're running W10 on both laptops. Using wife's, I have now mapped a network drive and can see the external hard drive, but clicking the hard drive gives the message 'This folder is empty'. Clicking that drive on my laptop, I see the expected content.
We both have user names and passwords, and can both log onto the Fritzbox itself, and both seem to have the same access rights.
I've convinced myself it is a problem with Windows settings on her laptop, but beyond that?
The hard part, is in File Explorer, finding where the Options thing is, and this dialog is triggered from there.
formatting link
You set up the desired values, click Apply. That will set the current folder to display Hidden (including the desktop.ini file). You don't want to see the desktop.ini file (it contains folder view customization info), but seeing it is proof you're looking at the contents of the folder. For example, if the folder had only JPG files, a special customization can be used to display JPGs as thumbnails, and the instructions to tell File Explorer what to do, are inside desktop.ini .
If you click Apply To Folders in that dialog, then every folder would adopt the new settings chosen. I usually run with Hidden stuff showing, in *every* folder, cause I'm a nosey guy. Not everyone wants that.
That dialog is one of the first dialogs I modify after installing a fresh copy of Windows. For example, I like to turn on File Extensions too, so that
Report \___ different icons Report /
becomes
Report.txt Report.xlsx
I want to see that .txt part. Always. Especially if it is
dangerous.txt.scr
which is trying to trick me into running malware (screensaver executable).
*******
A suitably obscure combination of permissions might produce the same symptoms. There are "permissions" and "attributes", and Hidden is an Attribute. The above discussion was making a change so that an Attribute did not block visibility. If you don't have Permission to the folder, that's a separate issue. You probably could not look in the folder, unless some level of Permission was granted.
Permissions include "Allow" and "Deny". Deny is a bitch, because it's so hard to debug. Inheritance is also a bitch, and makes fixing some problems in Windows file systems, almost impossible to figure out. Even if you walk up the tree and check every item above where you're working, the Inheritance issues might still not make sense.
Even IT guys who write web pages on this topic, give up after a while. A good article on the topic is *50 pages long* and the dude will still stop and say "some features, I'm not going to write those up". That's how awful this stuff is.
Jesper M. Johansson has written or contributed some articles on Permissions. That's the only name that stood out over the years.
Thanks Paul. I have set Show Hidden Files and Show File Extensions, but am no further forward.
I can 'see' the drive, left clicking it shows the usual properties i.e. capacity and left clicking it just tells me This Folder is Empty.
I have set up a third laptop in similar manner, with identical results, and have convinced myself I am missing something blindingly obvious, which is somewhat annoying. I just can't understand how I set up my own laptop perfectly yet have failed miserably with two others.
Thinking further, what I can see from wife's laptop is the whole drive, not the individual partitions I see from my own laptop.
Have you still got the file open on your computer therefore stopping anyone else from accessing its contents?
Try tuning off your computer, rebooting the Fritz box and see if the second computer now sees the files. Then turn on your computer to see if the problem has now swapped between computers.
I had an issue with my 5 NAS drives suddenly becoming inaccessible.
I tracked it down to a Windows 10 upgrade switching off SMB 1.0 and enabling SMB 2.0 and SMB 3.0.
( SMB is SAMBA )
Only trouble was that all 5 NAS drives only supported SMB 1.0 and the manufacturers had End of Lifed them so upgrading the firmware to SMB 2.0 or SMB 3.0 was out of the question.
Fortunately, you can actually re-enable SMB 1.0 in Windows 1o via the Windows Features app in Control panel.
Be warned though, SMB 1.0 is full of security holes as that was why it was switched off in a Winodws 10 update. SO to protect my security I disabled remote access via the router and also disabled remote access on all 5 NAS drives.
I also implemented a MAC address white list and strong passphrase on the Wifi network too.
Are you using different user names and passwords to access the NAS USB disk? If so it's maybe its a configuration issue - see section 2 in the link below which suggests that individual users can be restricted from seeing the contents of the disk, or only have limited access.
The Fritzbox in question had an upgrade available for the latest (later) version of SAMBA support on the very day that the OP originally asked about connecting a USB drive to the Fritzbox. I assume that the OP downloaded and installed the upgrade (or the automatic upgrade was selected in the Fritzbox menu)
Andy, no, in that left clicking brings up a limited menu that does not include New > Folder.
However, progress. Fritzbox software is up to date. I shut down all 3 laptops then cold booted the Fritzbox and the attached NAS, then booted wife's laptop only.
I cannot map a network drive from her laptop to the NAS, which has 5 partitions, each of which is mapped as a drive on my laptop. When I click Map Network Drive under Explorer, on my laptop I see Fritzbox, my laptop and any other laptop that is running. On wife's, I see only her laptop.
Using Explorer on wife's laptop, selecting This PC on the left, I can see the Fritzbox and the partitions on the right, so I left clicked the 'Films' partition and selected Pin to Quick Access. That then appeared as a folder on the left of Explorer, and clicking it brought up a list of files on the right. Random tested a few, and they work.
Then, I booted my laptop which worked as before - both laptops now able to play the same or two different films perfectly, and simultaneously.
Strangely, when I look at the list of films (which are not all the same file type) on my laptop, I see all the films and any associated srt (subtitle) files. On wife's, I see only the film files, not the subtitles. Similarly, looking at another partition, called Music, I see the complete content via my laptop, but not hers. I haven't worked out the logic of the files on her laptop I can't see, yet.
So, getting there, and usable, but still not 100% right.
It Works! Thank you - that seems to have solved the problem. I didn't do quite as you said, because wife's laptop doesn't have the search option, so instead, when trying to map a network drive, in the browse box, I entered the IP address and up it came. From there, mapping the contents of each partition was straightforward. Thank you. Brownie points earned :-)
Ah... if you can access it via IP but not via Hostname then that sounds like an issue with NetBIOS and/or Netbeui or you need to create a Hostnames list.
Lets hope ou have static IP addresses.... otherwise the IP addresses could change when the DHCP leases are renewed. (probably not an issue for teh router as that generally stays the same IP address.
Yep, your Zen IP is static/fixed and will not change but its the box IP that matters and the chances with a typical domestic set-up that will remain the same.
mailto : news {at} admac {dot} myzen {dot} co {dot} uk
Having done a little reading, I have found and opened Hosts (with Notepad), and there are a million entries by Spybot, and one for Demon, who I left years ago.
All the Spybot entries and the one Demon entry point to localhost
127.0.0.1. There are no entries identifying anything within our home network - I was expecting xxx.x.x.x my laptop xxx.x.x.x wife's laptop xxx.x.x.x printer etc., or have I misunderstood?
You can put in your own entries in the LMhosts file in the form you mention. This will work well if (a) you are using static addresses and (b) you do the same on *all* machines but I can't see that being possible on the Ipad!
You may want to check to see if you can create a Hosts or a FQDN list file on the Fritz box, I know nothing about Fritz bioxe....
Check your NetBIOS status on all of your machines
Go to Network and Sharing Center. Click "Change adapter settings." Select your network adapter (e.g., "Local Area Connection") Click "Change settings for this connection" Select "Internet Protocol version 4 (TCP/IPv4)" and click the "Properties" button Click the "Advanced" button on the "General" tab Select the "WINS" tab Select the radio button to "Enable NetBIOS over TCP/IP" OK your way out
This was more necessary in XP, because Win 7 and 10 is supposed to check to see if the DHCP server (i.e., your router) provides the NetBIOS setting and enables NetBIOS
if the DHCP server does not provide a setting (home routers do not).
Still, it wouldn't hurt to explicitly enable NetBIOS.
Check and see if the two Services that begin with the word "Function" are running. They're like "Function Discovery" or similar. That might have something to do with nameserving.
Homegroups (deprecated) uses a total of seven services. The two Function ones were part of that. Some of those services might be shared with other functions like Workgroups, which is why you can check those to see if they started or not.
I always turn on the SMBV1 (two of three entries) in Windows Features, because my subnet has one WinXP machine.
I think this is all a red herring. SMB servers advertise themselves on a local area network using a particular protocol
" nmbd
The nmbd server daemon understands and replies to NetBIOS name service requests such as those produced by SMB/CIFS in Windows-based systems. These systems include Windows 95/98/ME, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, and LanManager clients. It also participates in the browsing protocols that make up the Windows Network Neighborhood view. The default port that the server listens to for NMB traffic is UDP port 137. The nmbd daemon is controlled by the smb service. "
So if nmbd is running on the NAS a properly configured client will 'see' it in the networks window"
Also samba does not use Netbeui, so netbios and TCP/IP must be enabled for anything to work at all.
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