where is workgroup ??

[Yanmar]

Hi,

I'm using my nmt for a long time now without any problem. But this morning, workgroup is no longer available. I can see only NFS server. I have 3 nmt in the house and the problem is on each nmt. I reset everytning, router, pc... same problem.

But yamj is working fine, so my network is ok but workgroup is missing. Any idea ?

[halfelite]

whatever computer is the master browser is not working right its what controls the workgroup/pc names. Usually to solve this shutdown everything nmt all pc's not just ones used for the nmt. and start up the computer that is on the most let it fully boot then go around turning everything else back on.

[johnpoz]

Normally the pch will end up being the master browser.

You can go about finding it with nbtstat -A ipaddress
of the different machines on your network, or if you still have an xp box you can use the browstat tool from MS, but doesn't work on w7, etc..

Or you can just run this nifty script, and it will tell you which machine is your master browser.

http://scottiestech.info/2009/02/14/how-...workgroup/
LANscanner v1.3 - ScottiesTech.Info

Scanning LAN...

KIM-PC 192.168.1.202 00-23-14-61-2A-B0 LOCAL
P4-28G 192.168.1.4 00-0D-56-F0-F0-09 LOCAL
PCH 192.168.1.99 00-00-00-00-00-00 LOCAL MASTER
QUAD-W7 192.168.1.100 00-21-9B-03-AC-A7 LOCAL
UBUNTU 192.168.1.6 00-00-00-00-00-00 LOCAL

Press any key to exit...

Notice my a110, I renamed it to just pch is the master.

[Yanmar]

I tried lanscanner 1.3 and after a while have an error 53, on 2 differnet pc. I suspect my router dlink 655 but it was working before and i have change anything.

Quote:Notice my a110, I renamed it to just pch is the master.

How you did that ?

[halfelite]

install any new firewalls lately?

[johnpoz]

Yeah if you getting error 53, you have change something on the PC to prevent access to netbios, or turned it off? Which is why your having issues with your workgroup... As mentioned, firewall comes to mind.

Many antivirus suites have firewalls now, vpn software as well.

You should not be getting error 53 with a simple nbtstat -A query.

Ie do it by hand with IP

nbtstat -A ipaddress
nbtstat -a computername

as to changing then name - on the pch menus, setup, nmt applications - same place you can change the workgroup name.. As you notice mine is called local.

[Yanmar]

I have trien lanscanning on a pc windows 7 and a windowxp fresh install with any antivirus nothing else. both give me an error 53. And just for to bu sure i'm just tried pc of my son in windowsxp. 3 pc give me error 53.

This is my networkas per my router:

IP Address Name (if any) MAC
192.168.1.103 Marilyn-PC 00:26:183:f4:00
192.168.1.184 DANIEL_P4-PC 00:22:15a:bc:22
192.168.1.198 Yannick-PC 00:22:15:8d:ed:79


nbtstat -A ipaddress works!!

C:\Users\Yannick>nbtstat -A 192.168.1.103

Connexion au réseau local:
Adresse IP du noeud : [192.168.1.198] ID d'étendue : []

Table de noms NetBIOS des ordinateurs distants

Nom Type État
---------------------------------------------
MARILYN-PC <00> UNIQUE Inscrit
MARILYN-PC <20> UNIQUE Inscrit
WORKGROUP <00> Groupe Inscrit
WORKGROUP <1E> Groupe Inscrit

Adresse MAC = 00-26-18-D3-F4-00
*************************************

C:\Users\Yannick>nbtstat -A 192.168.1.184

Connexion au réseau local:
Adresse IP du noeud : [192.168.1.198] ID d'étendue : []

Table de noms NetBIOS des ordinateurs distants

Nom Type État
---------------------------------------------
DANIEL_P4-PC <00> UNIQUE Inscrit
DANIEL_P4-PC <20> UNIQUE Inscrit
WORKGROUP <00> Groupe Inscrit
WORKGROUP <1E> Groupe Inscrit

Adresse MAC = 00-22-15-DA-BC-22
*************************************

C:\Users\Yannick>nbtstat -A 192.168.1.198

Connexion au réseau local:
Adresse IP du noeud : [192.168.1.198] ID d'étendue : []

Table de noms NetBIOS des ordinateurs distants

Nom Type État
---------------------------------------------
YANNICK-PC <00> UNIQUE Inscrit
WORKGROUP <00> Groupe Inscrit
YANNICK-PC <20> UNIQUE Inscrit
WORKGROUP <1E> Groupe Inscrit

Adresse MAC = 00-22-15-8D-ED-79

Where is the master ??? by the way my os is in french like you can see.
BUT. if i do the same on my nmt's address, i have host unreachable.

And i dont have ntm application setup menu. Because i have not install nmt applications.

[johnpoz]

Well since your in french, this might be why the lanscanner is not working?? But I wouldn't think so.

but its doing a net view first, and then a ping -- so if these things don't work, it might be failing there before it can do the nbtstat -A, etc.

There is write up on its website that tells you what it does, I would try those steps by hand.

As to host unreachable -- thats a problem, so you can not even ping your pch ip address??

So for example if I do a nbtstat -A to a ip that does not exist on my network I get

C:\Windows\System32>nbtstat -A 192.168.1.23
gig:
Node IpAddress: [192.168.1.100] Scope Id: []
Host not found.

If your pch is offline, then one of the other machines should pick up the master browser role
edit: If your not running application on your pch, then it could never be the master browser for your network, and would explain the problem with nbtstat -A itsaddress, its not running samba.. So another machine on your network needs to be it.

Since you have a xp box, you can try running the browstat tool -- this will show you some good info in troubleshooting network browsing.

Here are 2 great documents in understanding how network browsing works, and troubleshooting it.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/de...laylang=en
Computer Browsing for SOHO Networks with Microsoft Windows

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/de...laylang=en
Troubleshooting Computer Browsing on SOHO Networks with Microsoft Windows

So for example here is output of browstat from a xp box on my network. But if your browsing is not working, then its quite possible that the tool fails because net view workgroupname fails, seems I have a bit of an issue at the moment

C:\Windows\System32>net view /domain:Local
Server Name Remark
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\\PCH SMP8634 Share
\\UBUNTU ubuntu server (Samba, Ubuntu)
The command completed successfully.

only seeing the pch and my linux box running samba, and for some reason the ubuntu box is the master?? As you see when you run lanscanner with this, it only is picking up the 2 boxes

LANscanner v1.3 - ScottiesTech.Info

Scanning LAN...
PCH 192.168.1.99 00-00-00-00-00-00 LOCAL
UBUNTU 192.168.1.6 00-00-00-00-00-00 LOCAL MASTER

Press any key to exit...

Which is odd, since Im pretty sure I set samba on ubuntu to NOT be the master browser.. But then again when I was playing around with it I had set the OS level to 255, so it would win any election! So maybe I did not turn that off like I though

Let me get this worked out and will be back with the output of browstat - but if you have xp on your network you can use that to run the browstat tool, you can get it from here
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/de...laylang=en
Windows XP Service Pack 2 Support Tools
The following is a list of all Support Tools in Service Pack 2:

snipped
* bitsadmin.exe
* browstat.exe
* cabarc.exe
* clonepr.dll
snipped

edit: well figured out why my ubuntu box is the master brower

local master = yes
workgroup = LOCAL
os level = 255
syslog = 0
preferred master = no

Seems the stupid webmin config of samba server where it says be master browser = no, either not working, or must only be for the preferred setting

Ok - thats better
Scanning LAN...
PCH 192.168.1.99 00-00-00-00-00-00 LOCAL MASTER
UBUNTU 192.168.1.6 00-00-00-00-00-00 LOCAL

Now just need to give it a few minutes.. To allow machines to reregister themselves.

There you go
C:\Windows\System32>net view /domain:Local
Server Name Remark
\\PCH SMP8634 Share
\\QUAD-W7
\\UBUNTU ubuntu server (Samba, Ubuntu)
The command completed successfully.

Theres one of them, wife laptop is off, just waiting for my server p4-28g

Ok -- now its been a few minutes, I fired up a xp box -- my p4-28g is listed in the browse list, and so is the xp-test box I fired up

C:\Program Files\Support Tools>net view /domain:local
Server Name Remark
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\\P4-28G
\\PCH SMP8634 Share
\\QUAD-W7
\\UBUNTU ubuntu server (Samba, Ubuntu)
\\XP-TEST
The command completed successfully.

C:\Program Files\Support Tools>browstat sta local
Status for domain local on transport \Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{DB1B1384-8180-4CE1-9192-B9C7DA796128}
Browsing is active on domain.
Master browser name is: PCH
Could not connect to registry, error = 5 Unable to determine build of browser master: 5
Unable to determine server information for browser master: 5
1 backup servers retrieved from master PCH
\\PCH
There are 5 servers in domain local on transport \Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{DB1B1384-8180-4CE1-9192-B9C7DA796128}
There are 1 domains in domain local on transport \Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{DB1B1384-8180-4CE1-9192-B9C7DA796128}

Now the samba version running the pch, browstat does not like much, no reg etc.. so kind of hard for it to get some info.. But as you can see it lists the browse master, and the number of other machines in the list, and the number of domains/workgroups in found in the list, etc.

C:\Program Files\Support Tools>browstat vw 1
Remoting NetServerEnum to \\PCH on transport \Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{DB1B1384-8180-
4CE1-9192-B9C7DA796128} with flags ffffffff
5 entries returned. 5 total. 70 milliseconds

\\P4-28G NT 00.00 (W,S,PQ,NT,SS)
\\PCH NT 00.00 (W,S,PQ,XN,NT,SS,MBR,DFS) SMP8634 Share
\\QUAD-W7 NT 00.00 (W,S,PQ,NT)
\\UBUNTU NT 00.00 (W,S,PQ,XN,NT,SS,DFS) ubuntu server (Samba, Ubuntu)
\\XP-TEST NT 00.00 (W,S,NT)

In server (or domain) list displays, the following flags are used:
W=Workstation, S=Server, SQL=SQLServer, PDC=PrimaryDomainController,
BDC=BackupDomainController, TS=TimeSource, AFP=AFPServer, NV=Novell,
MBC=MemberServer, PQ=PrintServer, DL=DialinServer, XN=Xenix,
NT=Windows NT, WFW=WindowsForWorkgroups, MFPN=MS Netware,
SS=StandardServer, PBR=PotentialBrowser, BBR=BackupBrowser,
MBR=MasterBrowser, OSF=OSFServer, VMS=VMSServer, W95=Windows95,
DFS=DistributedFileSystem, CLUS=NTCluster, DCE=IBM DSS

So you have links to documents that go over network browsing and troubleshooting. Some tools to work with, nbtstat, net view, browstat, lanscanner, etc.. So now just need to figure out why either your pch is the master browser, or why your other machines are not doing it.. Do you have the computer browser services running on the other machines.. If so there should be an election and one of them should pick it up.. I normally just turn that service off, and just leave it on 1 machine that I want to be the browse master. Since I really want my pch box to be it, I just turn it off on all windows machines, and set linux machines running samba NOT to be it either, etc.

Where you have a problem it looks like is you can not talk to your pch?? But then again, you stated your not running the NMT apps, so it would never be your browse master since its not running samba. So one of your other machines would have to be it, and would explain why nbtstat -A ipaddresspch would not work.

I have been working with windows machines for many many years, I personally don't really see much use in the browselist, but have many years in troubleshooting it and wins, etc. etc.. So if you want, and you just can not get it working... We could use teamviewer to allow me access to a couple of machines on your network, and can figure out why your browsing is not working.

[Yanmar]

thanks for your help johnpoz.

This morning i changed my router by an old trendnet. And all works fine Workgroup is available and Lanscanner works.
So i have reset my dlink router (all default setting). Just enter pppoe setting without any success. It's bizarre because it's was working before and now i have a real problem with the router. I'll trying all config possibility and i hope i'll find something. I'll let you know. thanks again

[johnpoz]

I don't see how the router could have anything to do with it to be honest.. Unless it has some sort of lan to lan firewall? Or if your machines are all wireless and it has "isolation" mode where machines can not talk to each other.

But since you said you could do nbtstat to your machines, this seems unlikely.

What dlink router do you have?

Most soho routers do not have lan to lan firewall features - so nothing is blocked between ports on its lan switch.. So it would make no sense that that could be the problem.

[Yanmar]

My router is a dlink dir-655

I tried net view /domain:Local command on a windows xp prompt and i have an error 6118.

And here is the browstat result

http://img818.imageshack.us/img818/5247/browstat.jpg

Here too i have error 53!

[johnpoz]

"net view /domain:Local"

And is your workgroup called "local" I find that pretty unlikely thats the name of my workgroup.. yours is prob workgroup or mshome, etc. use what your workgroup name is not mine. ie net view /domain:workgroupname

Yeah clearly looks like whoever your browse master is your having a problem with its name? But there is a backup server listed
m57000649-2008, did you a machine ??spade??spade?? etc..?? I would go to each machine with nbtstat -A ip address and see which one is showing as your browsemaster and fix its netbios name, etc.

And from that picture it also looks like the computer you ran it from atleast in is a workgroup called "workgroup" not local

Some weird ass name for a computer on your network?? And btw that status command is not going to show you a list anyway, you need to use the view command and the number of the transport to use

C:\>browstat vw 1
Remoting NetServerEnum to \\PCH on transport \Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{DB1B1384-8180-4CE1-9192-B9C7DA796128} with flags ffffffff
6 entries returned. 6 total. 70 milliseconds

\\P4-28G NT 00.00 (W,S,PQ,NT,SS)
\\PCH NT 00.00 (W,S,PQ,XN,NT,SS,MBR,DFS) SMP8634 Share
\\QUAD-W7 NT 00.00 (W,S,PQ,NT)
\\UBUNTU NT 00.00 (W,S,PQ,XN,NT,SS,DFS) ubuntu server (Samba, Ubuntu)
\\W7-TEST NT 00.00 (W,NT)
\\XP-TEST NT 00.00 (W,S,NT)

[Yanmar]

Quote:And is your workgroup called "local"

no, my workgroup is workgroup

But anyway... this morning, i dont know why. All is working fine. I dont like the situation because i dont know when the problem will come back!

So meanwhile, i'll do my homework. Thanks for the documentation and advice. Next time i'll be ready.

Bye!

[johnpoz]

You will find in the documents from MS, that network browsing is by their own words.

Unreliable
Periodic
Unsyncronized

If you have machines that come on and off you network, this can cause problems. If you have firewalls running that are misconfigured this can cause problems.

Your best bet for good network browsing is to pick a machine that is on 24/7/365 set it to be the only machine that can be the master browser, and disable it on all other devices.

You can have problems with wireless devices for sure, or even wired devices upon boot up they think they are the browser since not on the network.. Then get connected force an election, etc. Every time you have machines enter and leave your network you can have problems if they are all set to be able to be the master browser - which is default.

In windows you can either make a registry change, or just disable the computer browser service - it is not required unless that machine could be master or backup browser.. If you don't want it to be, just disable the service - it will still be listed in the browse list -- just wont be able to be a master or backup browser.

Now is not a requirement to have all machines in the same workgroup -- but it will make browsing easier, and make it faster for having your list get updated with all machines... So I would suggest for stable browsing make sure all your machines are in the same workgroup name.. I changed mine - this way I don't have to worry about what a device defaults too, or what a windows version (they have changed depending on OS) defaults too - I just just change any device I bring online to my name "local"