[SOLVED] Linux Mint "Widows Network: failed to retrieve share list from server

Red Squirrel · 03-30-2016, 07:09 PM

I used to always be able to just go to "Windows Network" in "explorer" and it would list the workgroup, and shared drives etc... But now I just get an error that it can't list the shares. If I do smbtree there is also no output. Nothing has changed on the system.

I can still mount manually using smbmount but that's kinda annoying.

I googled this and tried everything I found, like adding a netbios name in the smb.conf, making sure it's not firewall issue etc (there is none installed on this machine) all the obvious stuff, but no go.

I tried rebooting several times as well. Is there a way to get this to work like it used to? It feels quite ass backwards to have to do everything manually now.

Doug G · 03-31-2016, 04:52 PM

Verify nmb is running on your machine, and that the samba ports are open on your firewall. Also check that your windows has file & print sharing enabled in it's firewall.

EDIT: I read your question wrong, I think. nmb is what provides samba share names to windows, not what provides windows share names to linux.

frankbell · 03-31-2016, 09:11 PM

Is Samba server running on the Mint machine? That would be first thing to verify.

Code:

# ps -A | grep smb
 1688 ?        00:00:01 smbd   <----This is returned if Samba server is running.
 1690 ?        00:00:00 smbd
 1789 ?        00:00:01 smbd

Red Squirrel · 04-03-2016, 04:04 PM

Yep it's running, nothing changed on the client. This stopped working after the router was upgraded, it has a shared hard drive and basically uses samba to share it, and everyone else using windows is able to access it by going \\192.168.1.1 but since Linux does not have that I would go to "windows network" to see it that way. I don't know why but they have every folder setup as a share so it's kinda a pain if I need to mount them manually. I just want to be able to double click and get to it. It worked before.

michaelk · 04-03-2016, 06:27 PM

In the files explorer you should be able to access the router in a similar fashion as windows. Without knowing which file browser you are using I assume you have some option to go->computer and use
smb://192.168.1.1/

The samba server is separate from the client so it does not matter if smbd/nmbd is running or not. If the windows PCs have to explicitly enter the router's address does that mean the router does show up when they browse the network too?

What did you have to change if anything when you upgraded the router?

Red Squirrel · 04-13-2016, 09:48 PM

Cool that worked, thanks. Was able to see the folders then mount then. Not sure why but each one has to be mounted individually now and adds a temp mount entry on the desktop, was not like that before, but once I put in the user/pass it then works for all of them. Something to do with the firmware upgrade that was done on the router probably.