Unclear browstat Output

[ed9213]

At one time, I only had one XP Pro and one XP Home machine on the LAN, along
with three Win98SE and 1 Win2K machine. When the XP Pro machine would try to
map to any of the older machines, it did so with no problems. When I tried
to map to the XP Home machine, Explorer crashed, reset, and I had to reboot
to get back to full operation.

I have since added another XP Pro machine, and have the same issues. I
found articles that indicated that mine might be a browser issue.

I ran browstat, and found that this machine has the Master browser, but then
the browstat result indicates that I do not, and only pulls up one win 98
machine.

For example, the machine is ERELKES3, no domain, workgroup=WORKGROUP

C:\HOLD\Browstat>BROWSTAT STATUS

Status for domain WORKGROUP on transport
\Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{1BAB579C-9DA0-491F
-9E1C-01699ECE7AC1}
Browsing is active on domain.
Master browser name is: ERELKES3
Master browser is running build 2600
1 backup servers retrieved from master ERELKES3
\\P3450
Unable to retrieve server list from ERELKES3: 71

Status for domain WORKGROUP on transport
\Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{E4F6E2F0-8874-4EB6
-AB59-A4F62D992887}
Browsing is NOT active on domain.
Master browser name is held by: ERELKES3
Master browser is running build 2600

Any thoughts?

 

[John Wunderlich]

At one time, I only had one XP Pro and one XP Home machine on the
LAN, along with three Win98SE and 1 Win2K machine. When the XP
Pro machine would try to map to any of the older machines, it did
so with no problems. When I tried to map to the XP Home machine,
Explorer crashed, reset, and I had to reboot to get back to full
operation.

I have since added another XP Pro machine, and have the same
issues. I found articles that indicated that mine might be a
browser issue.

I ran browstat, and found that this machine has the Master
browser, but then the browstat result indicates that I do not, and
only pulls up one win 98 machine.

For example, the machine is ERELKES3, no domain,
workgroup=WORKGROUP

C:\HOLD\Browstat>BROWSTAT STATUS

Status for domain WORKGROUP on transport
\Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{1BAB579C-9DA0-491F
-9E1C-01699ECE7AC1}
Browsing is active on domain.
Master browser name is: ERELKES3
Master browser is running build 2600
1 backup servers retrieved from master ERELKES3
\\P3450
Unable to retrieve server list from ERELKES3: 71

Status for domain WORKGROUP on transport
\Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{E4F6E2F0-8874-4EB6
-AB59-A4F62D992887}
Browsing is NOT active on domain.
Master browser name is held by: ERELKES3
Master browser is running build 2600

Any thoughts?

For a given subnet and Workgroup, there should be only one "master
browser". In the printout above, that would be "ERELKES3". There
can be several "Backup Browsers", one of which would presumably take
over the master browser job should the master browser disappear from
the network. In your case above, you have one backup browser,
"P3450".

Probably a better output that would give you more information about
the devices on your subnet would be the "browstat view" command.
Depending on what version of browstat you have, one of the following
commands should give you the list of devices on your subnet as seen
by your master browser:

browstat view 1 WORKGROUP
browstat view \Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{1BAB579C-9DA0-491F-9E1C-99ECE7AC1} WORKGROUP

HTH,
John

 

[ed9213]

John,

I tried both.

C:\HOLD\Browstat>browstat view
\Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{1BAB579C-9DA0-491F-9E1C-99EC
E7AC1} WORKGROUP
Unable to get backup list for WORKGROUP on transport
\Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{1BAB57
9C-9DA0-491F-9E1C-99ECE7AC1}: The system cannot find the file specified.

C:\HOLD\Browstat>browstat view 1 WORKGROUP
Unable to get backup list for WORKGROUP on transport \device\1: The system
canno
t find the file specified.

Could there be a settings issue that prevents the browser file from being
read resulting in Explorer's crash?

Thanks.

 

[John Wunderlich]

I tried both.

C:\HOLD\Browstat>browstat view \Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{1BAB579C-9DA0-491F-9E1C-99ECE7AC1} WORKGROUP
Unable to get backup list for WORKGROUP on transport \Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{1BAB579C-9DA0-491F-9E1C-99ECE7AC1}:
The system cannot find the file specified.

C:\HOLD\Browstat>browstat view 1 WORKGROUP
Unable to get backup list for WORKGROUP on transport \device\1:
The system cannot find the file specified.

Could there be a settings issue that prevents the browser file
from being read resulting in Explorer's crash?

Sometimes problems like this occur because of a firewall program
installed on one of the computers in the workgroup. Since the
firewall prevents the affected computer from receiving broadcasts,
it thinks that it is the only machine on the subnet and forces
itself to become the browse master. The problem there is that not
only does it ignore broadcasts from other machines on the subnet
announcing their presence, but it also does not permit access to the
list of computers that it is generating - which might be what the
"cannot find file specified" refers to.

HTH,
John

 

[ed9213]

John,

Thanks for the suggestion. I turned off the firewalls on the XP machines
and re-booted them. The others don't have software firewalls. The LAN is
behind the hardware firewall in our router.

The results are identical.

BTW, I can use the other XP machines can see the share on ERELKES3, but
ERELKES3 chokes when trying to read the shares on the other XP machines or
transfer files.

Thanks.

 

[John Wunderlich]

John,

Thanks for the suggestion. I turned off the firewalls on the XP
machines and re-booted them. The others don't have software
firewalls. The LAN is behind the hardware firewall in our router.

The results are identical.

BTW, I can use the other XP machines can see the share on
ERELKES3, but ERELKES3 chokes when trying to read the shares on
the other XP machines or transfer files.

If I read this correctly, you can connect to the other machine OK but
things crash when you try to read or copy. If you are connecting OK,
then you are past the Browser portion of the protocol.

I wonder what would happen if you try to map a network drive from a
command prompt (no explorer window involved) and then access it from
its drive letter...

To map a network drive, try:
Start->run->cmd

then in the command window, enter:
net use * \\computername\sharename

It should respond by returning the drive letter that was mapped (if
successful).

Then try to open an Explorer window and try to access the network
machine from its mapped drive letter.

Good Luck,
John

 

[ed9213]

John,

I think you've hit upon something definitive here.

I was able to map to the shares via the command line and copy files in both
directions using both the command line and Windows Explorer.

(I had suffered more consistent crashes if I used "My Network Places" to
find the shares and connect to them in the past, and stopped using that
route. Still suffered crashes, but less often if mapping them directly from
within Windows Explorer: Tools|Map Network Drive| ....)

Large files seemed to choke the system more often, but this time they dd not.

So, using your instructions, I mapped to the shares via the command line and
was able to copy files in both directions without crashing.

What does that indicate? Is there a flaw in Windows Explorer or perhaps a
tweak needed somewhere?

Thanks, again.

 

[John Wunderlich]

John,

I think you've hit upon something definitive here.

I was able to map to the shares via the command line and copy
files in both directions using both the command line and Windows
Explorer.

(I had suffered more consistent crashes if I used "My Network
Places" to find the shares and connect to them in the past, and
stopped using that route. Still suffered crashes, but less often
if mapping them directly from within Windows Explorer: Tools|Map
Network Drive| ....)

Large files seemed to choke the system more often, but this time
they dd not.

So, using your instructions, I mapped to the shares via the
command line and was able to copy files in both directions without
crashing.

What does that indicate? Is there a flaw in Windows Explorer or
perhaps a tweak needed somewhere?

Thanks, again.

I wish I were good enough to answer your questions.

In my experience, crashes especially when transferring large files can
often caused by MTU problems -- especially when using VPN. (When Cisco
installs their VPN client, they lower the MTU to 1300 as part of the
install). You might want to experiment with your MTU settings. Use
"DrTCP" to make changes.

<http://www.dslreports.com/drtcp>

Good Luck,
John