Master browser conflicts!?

[Jean]

According to the error logs on my computer, the three computers on my
home network (Linksys BEFW11S4 router) have a daily battle over which is
going to be Master Browser.

"The master browser has received a server announcement from the computer
XYZ that believes that it is the master browser for the domain on
transport Nbf xxxxxxxxx. The master browser is stopping or an election
is being forced."

on another day:
"The browser was unable to promote itself to master browser. The
computer that currently believes it is the master browser is ABC."

I think this is interfering with smooth connection for all machines.
Often one computer will have to wait a while for a connection, or is
noticibly slowed when the another computer is zipping along changing
connections without a problem.

Does anyone know about "Master Browsers" and what we can do here to keep
the peace?
Thank you,
Jean

 

[Richard G. Harper]

Read more on the topic here:

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/...Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/prcf_omn_mzox.asp

(The next couple articles after this one go into more detail as well.)

 

[Chuck]

According to the error logs on my computer, the three computers on my
home network (Linksys BEFW11S4 router) have a daily battle over which is
going to be Master Browser.

"The master browser has received a server announcement from the computer
XYZ that believes that it is the master browser for the domain on
transport Nbf xxxxxxxxx. The master browser is stopping or an election
is being forced."

on another day:
"The browser was unable to promote itself to master browser. The
computer that currently believes it is the master browser is ABC."

I think this is interfering with smooth connection for all machines.
Often one computer will have to wait a while for a connection, or is
noticibly slowed when the another computer is zipping along changing
connections without a problem.

Does anyone know about "Master Browsers" and what we can do here to keep
the peace?
Thank you,
Jean

Jean,

Here's an excellent read (have a large cup of coffee first) from Microsoft about
the browser service:
<http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winntas/deploy/prodspecs/ntbrowse.mspx>

Cheers,
Chuck
Paranoia comes from experience - and is not necessarily a bad thing.

 

[Jean]

Thank you for the KB article, I've read through all of them, but I am
still befuddled! Does our little home network need all that activity
going on in the background? Most of the time only two of the three
computers are on, a WinXP and a Win2000, the other is a Win98. The two
we use most hibernate or are turned off at times during the day, and
they aren't turned on at the same time in the morning. Can't these
machines use the web independently of each other? Doesn't the router
look up the addresses?
From reading the articles, I could't decide on a course of action for
our situation. We have the network in order to share an internet
connection and a printer. We never share files or use a machine as a
server to the others. Can I turn off this browsing interaction, or would
that be worse?
Jean

 

[Richard G. Harper]

Probably the best thing to do is to select one PC that is on all the time,
or that is the first one turned on, and make it the master browser; then
disable all other computers from attempting to become a master browser.

But I'm not sure the browser election process is causing network slowdowns,
though it is the cause of your event log entries. What you probably need to
do is analyze the problem carefully - for example, are only wireless clients
slow on occasion; or is it only one particular computer that's slow on
occasion; or ...

The cure for the problem depends on the cause, and based only on what we see
here to date we don't have enough information to go on.

 

[Jean]

Gentlemen, Thank you for your input!
Yes, it's complicated. I think I'm going to let it rest. Most of the
time we are able to go on the web, sometimes Win XP has to wait for Win
2000, it seems. When I read those error messages, I felt "Well that
seems unnecessary!" But I think that part of networking is outside my
ken. I can live with what I've got. I think I'll go clean my furnace's
air filters.
Thanks again,
Jean