home lan puzzler

[Harry Putnam]

If that isn't KB885250, then it's a ringer for the symptoms.

Only nagging worry is that the MS fix for KB885250 talks about this
happening with win 95/98 on the lan only. And goes on to say if my
symptoms don't match that.... not to uninstall.

..... 5 min

Well chub is backup after uninstalling that update. A quick test from
ansil shows the problem is still there. I'm rebooting all around once
to make sure.

 

[Chuck]

Only nagging worry is that the MS fix for KB885250 talks about this
happening with win 95/98 on the lan only. And goes on to say if my
symptoms don't match that.... not to uninstall.

.... 5 min

Well chub is backup after uninstalling that update. A quick test from
ansil shows the problem is still there. I'm rebooting all around once
to make sure.

Harry,

DOHH.

If the problem is still there, then we just have to look harder. How can we
define the scope of the problem - that may be the next step. When do you see
the problem, how long do you see the problem, is it the same files / folders
each time, how do you get around the problem, maybe you could come up with more
questions and answers, I dunno, but let's try and define the symptoms so we can
look for the causes.

--
Cheers,
Chuck
http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/
Paranoia is not necessarily a bad thing - it's a normal response from experience.
My email is AT DOT
actual address pchuck sonic net.

 

[Harry Putnam]

If the problem is still there, then we just have to look harder. How can we
define the scope of the problem - that may be the next step.

Not sure what you mean by scope here. As I see it the problem is that
chub is inaccessable via the Nework Places mechanism unless the
absolute address is typed in.

When do you see the problem,
how long do you see the problem,

It appears to be continuous.
One thing is very consistent. chub does not appear in Network Places
from any machine, even itself.

is it the same files / folders

Some drives on chub seem to be more accessable than others. I see no
problem at \\chub\chub-c\Program Files\Adobe or even deeper and in
any location on C:\ I've tried.

Oddities include: \\chub\chub-g\images\ stops right there although
there are several more layers. However any other directories on
\\chub\chub-g seem to work at any depth.

\\chub\chub-h works to any depth
\\chub\chub-d ditto

And it seem to change overtime. At one time today
\\chub\chub-e\bk1\ghost-bk1
Wouldn't display any deeper but now it does..

[...] how do you get around the problem

Typing \\chub into an explorer address locator box will make chub
appear in `entire network' listing., From there some directories are
simply not available and do not display any files. So far it doesn't
seem to be consistently the same ones. But others work ok.

I see this phenomena consistently: \\chub\chub-e\bk1\ghost-bk
Fails to display any deeper always. So I guess at least one directory
heirarch is consistently invisible below layer 3

However I've gone to chub and created actual shares at a lower depth
in that same heirarchy. That share appears on other machines display
of Network Places and will reveal the files under it.

All of chubs shares appear under Network Places but chub itself does
not. And of course other machines do appear there.

I rechecked the Registry setting for RestrictAnonymous to ensure it
was at 0, even set it to 1 and rebooted. I saw no difference to reset
to 0 and again rebooted.

I'm probably getting stumped too easily but can't really think of much
else to even try. Only maybe Malke's suggestiong of disabling sharing
and removing all shares ... then rebuild from there.

Something I haven't mentioned yet is that chub is an athlon64, the
others are intel. Chub originally was installed with winxp-pro pre
sp/2. The others original install was winxp-pro with sp/2 included.
I updated chub to sp/2 fairly recently... not sure exactly when. I
had hoped to uninstall sp/2 and see this problem go away but did that
in the last hour or so and still see the problem.

One other fact. Chub did not always have this problem. I'm thinking
its no older than 1 1/2 mnths if that. Only really noticed by me this
week.

 

[Chuck]

If the problem is still there, then we just have to look harder. How can we
define the scope of the problem - that may be the next step.

Not sure what you mean by scope here. As I see it the problem is that
chub is inaccessable via the Nework Places mechanism unless the
absolute address is typed in.

When do you see the problem,
how long do you see the problem,

It appears to be continuous.
One thing is very consistent. chub does not appear in Network Places
from any machine, even itself.

is it the same files / folders

Some drives on chub seem to be more accessable than others. I see no
problem at \\chub\chub-c\Program Files\Adobe or even deeper and in
any location on C:\ I've tried.

Oddities include: \\chub\chub-g\images\ stops right there although
there are several more layers. However any other directories on
\\chub\chub-g seem to work at any depth.

\\chub\chub-h works to any depth
\\chub\chub-d ditto

And it seem to change overtime. At one time today
\\chub\chub-e\bk1\ghost-bk1
Wouldn't display any deeper but now it does..

[...] how do you get around the problem

Typing \\chub into an explorer address locator box will make chub
appear in `entire network' listing., From there some directories are
simply not available and do not display any files. So far it doesn't
seem to be consistently the same ones. But others work ok.

I see this phenomena consistently: \\chub\chub-e\bk1\ghost-bk
Fails to display any deeper always. So I guess at least one directory
heirarch is consistently invisible below layer 3

However I've gone to chub and created actual shares at a lower depth
in that same heirarchy. That share appears on other machines display
of Network Places and will reveal the files under it.

All of chubs shares appear under Network Places but chub itself does
not. And of course other machines do appear there.

I rechecked the Registry setting for RestrictAnonymous to ensure it
was at 0, even set it to 1 and rebooted. I saw no difference to reset
to 0 and again rebooted.

I'm probably getting stumped too easily but can't really think of much
else to even try. Only maybe Malke's suggestiong of disabling sharing
and removing all shares ... then rebuild from there.

Something I haven't mentioned yet is that chub is an athlon64, the
others are intel. Chub originally was installed with winxp-pro pre
sp/2. The others original install was winxp-pro with sp/2 included.
I updated chub to sp/2 fairly recently... not sure exactly when. I
had hoped to uninstall sp/2 and see this problem go away but did that
in the last hour or so and still see the problem.

One other fact. Chub did not always have this problem. I'm thinking
its no older than 1 1/2 mnths if that. Only really noticed by me this
week.

Harry,

Welcome to Chuck's School of Diagnostic Analysis. Just a fancy term for
identifying what the problem might be related to, and what it might not be
related to.

Scope is simply a way of seeing what factors might help narrow the search for
the cause of your problem.

Please don't go deleting any shares unless you absolutely run out of patience.
We may solve this yet.

So what do we know?
- The problem is on Chub only, Ansil and Harvey no problem.
- The problem is continuous.
- The problem is suspected to have started recently (how old is Chub?).
- The problem is not related to KB885250 (DOHH).

What do I not know?
- What other patches have you applied recently? From Windows Update, look at
Installation History, and see what other patches have been applied in the past 2
months.
- How old is Chub? Ansil / Harvey?
- Compare patch history on Chub with Ansil and Harvey?
- What's different between the problematic folders and the working ones?
Creation date? Created under different accounts? Maybe accessed differently?
- Is Ansil / Chub / Harvey SFS or AFS?

How does Chub differ from Ansil and Harvey?
- Chub has Unix components.
- Chub was originally installed as Windows XP pre-SP2, the other 2 as Windows
XP SP2.

Interesting details now:
Typing \\chub into an explorer address locator box will make chub appear in
`entire network' listing., From there some directories are simply not available
and do not display any files. So far it doesn't seem to be consistently the
same ones. But others work ok.

Windows NT with NTFS (not FAT) AFS (not SFS) has a lot of ability to configure
(block access of) ability to access and even see contents of individual folders,
and you can specify that to the file level. Look at a working folder, and a
non-working one. From Properties - Security - Advanced, look at the items in
Advanced Security Settings. There's a shiteload of possible ways to fsck up
folder access - differences in Inherited and Effective Permissions create lots
of possibilities, and could relate to the directory hierarchy bit.

--
Cheers,
Chuck
http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/
Paranoia is not necessarily a bad thing - it's a normal response from experience.
My email is AT DOT
actual address pchuck sonic net.

 

[Harry Putnam]

Just some responses that may help while I try a few things.

Please don't go deleting any shares unless you absolutely run out of patience.
We may solve this yet.

One thing I'm trying right now is to disable all winxp machines
computer browser service. I thought maybe having one master browser
on the lan would have some kind of good effect. Rember there is also
a linux machine running samba that is seen as a master browser.

So what do we know?
- The problem is on Chub only, Ansil and Harvey no problem.
- The problem is continuous.
- The problem is suspected to have started recently (how old is Chub?).
- The problem is not related to KB885250 (DOHH).

Chub was built early last year and is an Athlon64 +3400 with 2.2ghz
and 1.5GB ram

What do I not know?
- What other patches have you applied recently? From Windows Update, look at
Installation History, and see what other patches have been applied in the past 2
months.

working on that now. But in general all winxp machines are up to date
on windows updates. Currently chub (as of the last hour) does not
have sp/2 installed. (This was done just now and will change soon)

- How old is Chub? Ansil / Harvey?

Ansil and Harvey were built a few mnths ago at about the same time and
are intel 3.2 Ghz with 2GB ram each.

All machines are used primarily for graphic and video work.

- Compare patch history on Chub with Ansil and Harvey?
Soon...

- What's different between the problematic folders and the working ones?
Creation date? Created under different accounts? Maybe accessed differently?

Looking at share/security on each of the inaccessable ones I see
accessable ones with the same settings. I mean exactly the same on
each screen. (However I haven't checked all players yet)

- Is Ansil / Chub / Harvey SFS or AFS?

What are SFS and AFS

How does Chub differ from Ansil and Harvey?
- Chub has Unix components.
- Chub was originally installed as Windows XP pre-SP2, the other 2 as Windows
XP SP2.

Ansil and Harvey also have unix conponents. At one time I had UWIN
(Unix for windows David Korn of korn shell fame's creation) installed
on all three but recently as in 2 days ago changed chub over to cygwin
and uninstalled the UWIN tools. Can't imagine if that would cause
this but I believe the problem was already present before making the change.

Interesting details now:
Typing \\chub into an explorer address locator box will make chub appear in
`entire network' listing., From there some directories are simply not available
and do not display any files. So far it doesn't seem to be consistently the
same ones. But others work ok.

Windows NT with NTFS (not FAT) AFS (not SFS) has a lot of ability to configure
(block access of) ability to access and even see contents of individual folders,
and you can specify that to the file level. Look at a working folder, and a
non-working one. From Properties - Security - Advanced, look at the items in
Advanced Security Settings. There's a shiteload of possible ways to fsck up
folder access - differences in Inherited and Effective Permissions create lots
of possibilities, and could relate to the directory hierarchy bit.

I found something that got me all excited... on the heirarch
E:\bk1\ghost-bk1

On properties/security/advanced I noticed that harry was listed
twice. The first one has `This directory only' and `not inherited'
along side.

Then I noticed a second Harry listing with `this directory,
subdirectory and files' `Inherited from E' along side.

I removed the first one thinking I'd really hit on something. Went to
ansil to try it out but I see the same behavior... maybe rebooting
them both will chnage that.... I'll know shortly.

 

[Harry Putnam]

I removed the first one thinking I'd really hit on something. Went to
ansil to try it out but I see the same behavior... maybe rebooting
them both will chnage that.... I'll know shortly.

No such luck....

Now I've gone to the top level of E H G the most problematic ones and
checked the box that removes all permissions done the heirarchy then
makes them all have the same as the top level.

Rebooting that change now.

 

[Chuck]

No such luck....

Now I've gone to the top level of E H G the most problematic ones and
checked the box that removes all permissions done the heirarchy then
makes them all have the same as the top level.

Rebooting that change now.

Well, if you're looking at Properties - Security - Advanced, then you must have
AFS (Advanced File Sharing). SFS (Simple File Sharing) won't give you any of
that.

Can you make a list of all the non-working folders and see if they all have the
same settings under Security - Advanced? That would confirm or deny our hopes -
maybe we'll see another direction to look in too.

I looked at the browstat logs again, and note that they're all identical -
Reader is the master browser, and the only backup browser. Did you actually
have any of the 3 XP systems running the browser too?

I don't know a lot about Samba, I can see one difference between it an Windows.
All 3 Windows systems are getting "error = -1073741809" trying to open the
registry on Reader, I wonder if that's a "error = 5" (access denied in Windows)?
Any definable difference between the Unix components on Chub and on Ansil and
Harvey?

--
Cheers,
Chuck
http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/
Paranoia is not necessarily a bad thing - it's a normal response from experience.
My email is AT DOT
actual address pchuck sonic net.

 

[Harry Putnam]

Well, if you're looking at Properties - Security - Advanced, then you must have
AFS (Advanced File Sharing). SFS (Simple File Sharing) won't give you any of
that.

OK, didn't understand the acronym Simple sharing has been off on all
three since install.

Can you make a list of all the non-working folders and see if they all have the
same settings under Security - Advanced? That would confirm or deny our hopes -
maybe we'll see another direction to look in too.

I'll work on that ...

I looked at the browstat logs again, and note that they're all identical -
Reader is the master browser, and the only backup browser. Did you actually
have any of the 3 XP systems running the browser too?

All three were set to Automatic and were running. I turned them all
off and had a look but saw no difference. They are all back on now.

I don't know a lot about Samba, I can see one difference between it an Windows.
All 3 Windows systems are getting "error = -1073741809" trying to open the
registry on Reader, I wonder if that's a "error = 5" (access denied in Windows)?

I shut down the linux box to see what effect it had. All I saw from
browstat was that a different (windowsxp-pro) machine was elected
master. I didn't think to check if the error was there.

If you think it would add to diagnostics I can turn off samba and
rerun browstat..

Any definable difference between the Unix components on Chub and on Ansil and
Harvey?

There are differences yes, but I don't really know how extensive.
Chub is running `Cygwin' the others are running `Uwin'.

Cygwin is under more active development and may be more developed than
Uwin. Also the differnce between korn shell and bash shell would be
involved but I doubt unix shell differences would mean much in this.

Both unix tool sets either make or require user to make changes in
PATH variable and HOME variables.

There may be other differences that do something to shares. I doubt it
but It does seem kind of suspicious that cygwin was installed in the
last few days. Both unix shells as installed understand UNC
addressing so user can type at a shell prompt:
cd //chub/chub-e
and go to that share.

I'll have to continue with this tomorrow... its time for me to go pick
up my wife. Then I'll be hitting the sack.

 

[Harry Putnam]

I'll work on that ...

I've been tinkering all day again on this. I'm not finding a patter
to what is or is not available. For one thing it appears that once a
share level is forced by typing the exact address, that the OS
remembers for a while or untill that instance of explorer is closed.

But on a fresh start it seem that the depth at which things get
invisible is completely arbitrary both in drive and in depth of
heirarchy.

One thing seems to remain constant chub (the troublesome one) in
`NEVER' in `Network Places' even on itself. Only if one forces it by
typing \\chub\ into an explorer locator box. The OS then remembers
for a while but not long.

I'm convinced this is not a permissions problem at all. Here's why:
I carefully removed all shares on chub in Administrative tools by
`unsharing' them. Then rebooted.

I then shared each drive with Harry, reader <=(my dummy user on
allmachines with admin powers) and system having full permissions.
Then went to the security/advanced screen and made sure all subfolders
and files was enabled. Then selected the box where you force the
permissions displayed on that screen to be the only permissions on all
subfolders and files. Again a reboot.

That should ensure that the permissions are universally the same
throughout.

None of this affected the problem in any way. It is still randomely
possible to drill down in a share all the way and not in others.

At this point it may make some sense to just try to deal with the fact
that chub never shows up in Netowrk Places. How can I force it to
show up there?

One way is to type a share name \\chub\ but its only temporary.

 

[Harry Putnam]

Chuck, are you still with me? If so do you think the problem is
likely to be something to do with the browser subsytem?

 

[Chuck]

Chuck, are you still with me? If so do you think the problem is
likely to be something to do with the browser subsytem?

Harry,

If you don't get any help from Malke, and un sharing / re sharing, I'd be
inclined IIWY to stop the browser on Reader and start it on Chub. I don't know
too much about your Unix for Intel software but I see how the browser on Reader
reacts to attempts by the XP boxes to interrogate its build info.

I suspect that the Unix / Samba browser is just enough like the NT browser but
has one little difference.

But let's see how you do with Malke's instructions, and we'll try something else
if we get a chance.

I think the browser affects the Network Neighborhood thing, but I'm hesitant to
think that it has anything to do with your ability to walk down the tree of
folders.

--
Cheers,
Chuck
http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/
Paranoia is not necessarily a bad thing - it's a normal response from experience.
My email is AT DOT
actual address pchuck sonic net.

 

[Harry Putnam]

I suspect that the Unix / Samba browser is just enough like the NT browser but
has one little difference.

But let's see how you do with Malke's instructions, and we'll try something else
if we get a chance.

I think the browser affects the Network Neighborhood thing, but I'm hesitant to
think that it has anything to do with your ability to walk down the tree of
folders.

I wondered if samba was complicating things too. But I've run this
setup for several mnths now without this problem. Anyway I'm shutting
down samba too in addition to Malke's instructions.
I'm in the middle of it now.