Finder can't access my networked peecee

[Buddhaboy]

I've been happily networking my iBooks with my peecee with no problems whatsoever ever since Panther came out. I even used to be able to access the peecee from my iBook via VNC.

Yesterday, the computers stopped being able to see each other.

I tried a number of solutions.

I renamed the workgroup on the peecee, and made the appropriate adjustments on the iBook's Directory Access SMB. The iBook would then be able to see the peecee but whenever I would click on the peecee, the error window "The alias could not be opened, because the original item cannot be found" would pop up.

On the WinXP peecee side, it won't even let me see my workgroup computers -- not even itself.

I know the computers can see each other, because I still get good ping results and I was also able to access my iBook from the peecee by adding it as a network place.

Turning the firewalls off does not help.

All I want is to bring things back to the way they were.

I have a strong suspicion it's on the PC side of things. Zone Alarm Pro rather mysteriously asked my permission to allow sharing to the network address 192.168.1.0 the other day. I have no idea what device is at that address since my router is on 192.168.1.1 and my other computers are between 192.168.1.2 and 192.168.1.6. Although I still don't know what it is, I allowed it access to the peecee after enabling the MAC filter on the WRT54G, just to make sure it isn't a hostile computer.

I also installed the open source Satori-4.0 v2.07.1.7sv firmware on the WRT54G the other day, but I doubt if this is the culprit.

I would like to reset/erase all the workgroups on Win XP but I have no idea how to do it.

I have two iBooks (one on Airport, the other on Airport Extreme) wirelessly accessing a Linksys WRT54G.

My peecee is a Pentium 4 1.8ghz machine running Windows XP Home Edition, with all the current patches and critical updates installed. It is connected to the WRT54G via Ethernet cable.

Can anyone help me?

[Edited on 8-2-2004 by Buddhaboy]

[Adel]

Gabe, I'm nowhere near an expert on this (MUG Genius Henjie is the one), but I've often gotten a lot of success with Occam's Razor, knowledge or no - the simplest solution is often the right one, or something like that.

Have you by any chance already checked the cables and ports? It could be the NIC of the PC, or maybe a badly seated plug, a pulled crimping, a broken wire that sends erratic signals. Swapping out things and using the process of elimination usually helps.

That concern aside, your diagnosis that it's probably on the PC side of things is almost certainly correct. And if your PC is online all the time, an undetected and unattended upgrade of the software or the OS itself could have occured that could have changed something, or a simple corruption of some critical data could have hosed the connection.

I'm sorry if I'm not much help - I just understand how frustrating it is to have a problem of this kind. Hope you find a solution quick.

[ginoledesma]

This is an annoying Panther bug (or at least behavior, if it isn't a real bug). The problem seems to be with how the Finder deals with shortcuts to Windows PCs using Windows file sharing. Have you tried accessing your PC using the manual way, that is, using "Connect To..." (press Command-K). You might have to type in the IP address of your PC instead of its name (which can be annoying, I know). If your PC's IP address doesn't change (and if you constantly access a particular share), you could mount the share first and then simply make an alias to it. So the next time you want to use it, just double click on the alias to mount it. This is one of the carry-over tips I recall from AppleTalk file sharing in System 7.x.

Thursby's DAVE seems to be a much better way of dealing with Windows-based PCs, but it is a commercial program.

[Buddhaboy]

Thanks for all your help Adel and Gino!

I didn't try checking the cables or anything of that sort because I assumed that since I can get a ping through and back, that means the connections, by themselves are alright.

Connect to hasn't been working either. I get a no response window.

What did work was accessing my iBook on the WinXP machine through Network Places... so it's alright now from the peecee side. It's now the mac side of things that I want to figure out.

My hunch, still is, of course that there's something wrong on the peecee side of things that is throwing off the finder.

I'll do a few more resets on the peecee and let you guys know how that goes.

What I would like to know though, if there is anyone out there who may be familiar with Win XP, is how can I reset all the workgroups in the network... I have a feeling this would help solve the problem.

[kibs1111]

happens to me a lot in the office.... and the tech does something and it's fixed after one yosi... next time you're at hit, look for ronnie... maybe he can help you...

[BoyG]

hey gabe, run Network Wizard on your XP machines, you can change your workgroup setting from there. Or if you want to change the IP addys right click on the "network places" icon on the XP machine....you should be able to access most of the configuration info there.

[ginoledesma]

I'm not sure if you can change each PC's workgroup from a single PC (not unless there was a program by MS that could do that). I imagine right now you could remotely control each Windows PC and then change their workgroup, but that would still involve accessing each and every PC.

By default, both Mac OS X and Windows XP belong to the "WORKGROUP" workgroup.

[Buddhaboy]

Thanks Allan!

Yes, I will look up Ronnie when I'm there next. That's a good idea!

BoyG and Gino,

The reason why I'm intent on resetting the workgroups is because I remember a few years back, when I was still completely peecee, I had more or less the same problem.

The tech who fixed it erased all the references to the different workgroups I had on my computer (i kept renaming workgroups in countless futile attempts to get it to work) and just set up one workgroup again and voila! it worked.

Problem is, it was on Windows 2000 and not on XP, so I don't quite know how to do it again.

I may decide to reformat the whole PC na lang. Hehehe.

And the truth is, I still can network in a crude sort of way. It's just that nao-OC lang ako that I can't find it on my finder.

Hehehe.

Again, thanks for all your help!

[Buddhaboy]

Here's something that worked.

I opened up the peecee, took out the NIC card, and put in an el cheapo wireless pci card (edimax). I've been meaning to do that for some time anyway. Napabilis lang ang purchase decision.

Works like a charm now.

Am pretty sure it would have worked had I just

1. taken out the original NIC card
2. restarted the peecee without it
3. shutdown and then
4. put the NIC card back in

Oh well....