Viewing shares = time out

I've run into a problem that started last thursday. I goto a college where we've all been issued laptops and every classroom is set up in its own network.

As of last thursday I can see everyone on the network, but I can't view any shares, I've done the following things with the following results:

I've found 1 computer I can get on, every other computer out of 30 times out after about 30 seconds with an error. I am able to get on my own computer from the network neighbourhood, no one else can though (I Wasn't able to determine if that one person I could view the shares on could see mine)

I'm unable to view shares of people who have shares, and who everyone else in the class can get on.

if I use \\(their IP address) from the command prompt I can view their shares, but as soon as I try to access them I time out again.

Between the time it was last working (last wednesday and thursday morning) I changed nothing (infact didn't even have the laptop on)

Everything else operates as normal on the network, I can authenticate with printers to print, log on with my network ID, etc.

Both the operating systems instructor and the internetworks instructor seem stumped as by whats caused this change and a solution (well the OS instructor told me to check the event viewer, which I did but nothing is jumping out at me)

My network works fine on my home network. When I plug into my broadband router I'm able to use the \\(compname) command to bring up my two home PCs and view and navigate their shares.

 

What type of OS are you running?
Is this a domain, or a workgroup, or are your trying to view them across workgroups?
What is the range of IP addresses on the network?
What is the subnet address?
Can you check the event viewer under "System" and "Application" to see if there is anything with the event ID of 6004 or 3019?

 

This became a major problem today as it began afflicting the entire class. We are all getting 3019 errors. It is a domain, the private domain of the college. however, this unique situation has come up:
All the students have Tecra A3 laptops, the instructor has a laptop but differnet model, and the classroom has a workstation which is a desktop of unknown make.
All students can access the instructors share, and workstation share without issue. This goes both ways.

We students cannot access each other's shares. All time outs, all the time.

The instructor logged onto my machine using his account and he was unable to browse the other users shares (except his own back on his laptop and on the workstation)

subnet mask for the room is:
255.255.255.128
we're using IPs in the range of:
10.163.22.129-253
our default gateway is
10.163.22.254
all machines running XP pro sp2 and updated

Whatever this is seems to be a problem between all of the Tecra A3 machines, we've checked a whole pile of settings and everything seems fine.

We can ping each other without issue, and the names seem resolved using nbtstat -A command.

Firewall is off.

The instructor has sent something into the help desk to see if they have any clue on whats going on. He seems to be leaning towards some sort of time issue and thinks our machines may not be syncing properly on the network. We ran out of time to test that though. I'm not sure that explains why would could view his shares and not each others though.

 

I'm assuming that you are using wireless connections for these laptops.
Is the instructor and workstation also using the wireless function, or are they hardwired?
I would try to first login to the local pc, (not the domain) on two of the laptops and communicate between the two using ad-hoc wireless, or if they have ethernet NIC cards, hard wire the two using a crossover cable.
Another issue I'd look at would be the router. Clear the routing table and try to repopulate the table. If the names of the PCs are stored on the router, and they are not getting released, it my be trying to find the computer on the wrong IP address.
Not sure which troubleshooting will work, but I believe all are worth a try. Please shoot me some feedback about what you think is a plausable solution and what isn't. Thanks

 

no we're all using hard connections and the wireless NICs are switch off on every machine.

We also have tried connecting to other machines using only the IP address:
i.e. punching
\\10.163.22.224 into the run command
we had very brief success with this. The first time we did it I was able to bring up the shares of teh guy next to me, and navigate them. As soon as he tried to reciprocate the functionality was lost and I could no longer navigate his shares (And he couldn't get onto mine at all)
After that all functionality was lost (even after attempting another users machine who wasn't involved in that)

I'm not sure we have any direct control over the router tables as students. But I will mention that to him on Monday if the help desk has offered no solutions.

 

I'd try to initiate a direct conection, PC to PC and see if that works. If it doesn't, you'll know that the problem is on the PCs, not the router. Also, I'd ask the instructor to provide another test router, (something as simple as a 4-port linksys) and you should be able to view the logs to gather data, as well as mess with the routing tables. This tool may help you detect where the communication is failing.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/Active_Ports_d682.html

Just curious, is this a computer networking class?

 

I'm 1st semester in a network engineering course. The actual class we ran into the problem with is workstation operating systems. I'll try some direct connections tommorrow to see if that sheds any light on whats going on.
the workstation instructor though are quite stumped as its not something they've ever run into (especially where the non-tecra A3 machines seem to work fine accessing the tecras). I haven't brought this up with my internetworks instructor yet. I don't have him again until Monday morning. I'll probably run it by him to see if he has any thoughts on it.

 

I don't see an edit button anywhere..this may help:
occasionally I get an access denied message instead of timing out (but it takes a really long time and its very rare that it actually comes to that instead of timing out the network neighbourhood)
We've tried setting permissions on the folders to give full control to "Everyone" instead of "domain users" but that makes no difference.

 

When you view the entire network, you can view all of the connected PC's, correct?

 

That's correct

 

Just wanted to let you know we sort have solved this. It seems last year at the school there was a virus that was spreading via windows shares and the IT guys on campus did something to several of the networked rooms to prevent windows shares from working in those rooms to stop the spread of the virus. They don't seem too inclined to undo it, and the instructor isn't quite sure what they did to prevent this or why he can view us and we can view him (it may be some kind of weird network policy since he's an instructor and we're students) but it seems in those classrooms we will have to do without.

Interestingly even if we make VPNs in those classrooms we still can't see each other's shares.

 

What about IPs? Can you ping each other?

 

Why bother replying if you're not going to read the whole thread?

From the 3rd message:
"We can ping each other without issue, and the names seem resolved using nbtstat -A command"

I've already explained what the problem is, and its unlikely anything can be done on the student side of things to alleviate this issue as its mostly like a network policy which we have no access to change.

 

Yes, I didn't read the entire thread. Which I should have done. My own fault there.

When you described :

Did you use a cross over cable?

All Machines are Pro, correct?

Any Policies set on these machines?

Each machine has a unique username and a password, correct?


Beside the crossover cable, can you ping the router? Does your school allow offsite browsing? Or are certain ports blocked?

In the end, if you can ping the machine, I say there is a policy issue involved.

 

Didn't need to use a crossover cable, as the shares work fine in some of other classrooms, that is when we began suspecting something was wrong with that particular classroom.
There are dozens upon dozens of wired classrooms and we only see a small percentage of them in our classroom schedule, it may be pure luck that we only have one class a week in a room that has these strange network policies on them (and why we didn't notice this right from the beginning of the semester)

We did have to use a crossover cable yesterday to use REmote assistant which was part of our lab, and that worked fine (the requests wouldn't work over the network)

The machines have standard local and then network policies. The network policies take precedence and I don't know the full details of them, we haven't gotten into exploring them completely yet. That will probably come next semester in server operating systems.

And every machine does have a unique name and password, we log onto the domain using our student ID. The network doesn't allow the router to be pinged and we can't ping any sites on the internet. We can browse easily, but they have most ports outside of 80 blocked.

Even MSN file transfers don't work. We've taken to setting up temporary FTP servers in the classroom if we need to transfer files in there for now. If the shares are required for labwork again, he's going to try and find us another classroom.