Cannot access Windows 7 shared folders from Ubuntu and MacOSX

[niceday]

I have four machines: A MacBook Pro, a desktop running Ubuntu and two desktops running Windows 7 64bit. To make it easier in describing the issue I am having, let's call my Windows 7 desktops as PC-A and PC-B.

I have shared folders in both PC-A and PC-B that are accessible from all machines and there wasn't any issue with that until two days ago.

All of sudden I can't access shared folders in PC-A from my MacBook Pro (through samba mount). At first I thought it was my wifi connection dropping out but it wasn't. I tried to ping and it was successful.

Then I tried to access shared folders in PC-A from my Ubuntu desktop and I can't access them either. But I have no problem accessing shared folders in PC-A from PC-B. Also I have no problem accessing shared folders in PC-B from the other three machines.

It seems to me that there is something in PC-A that is blocking access from Ubuntu and MacOSX. I tried to turn off firewall (both windows firewall and third party firewall (Comodo)) on PC-A and that didn't help. I update both PC-A and PC-B regularly whenever windows updates are available.

Anyone can suggest how to fix or diagnose this issue? Thanks.

 

[Lemur]

Control Panel - Administrative Tools - Local Security Policy

Local Policies - Security Options

Network security: LAN Manager authentication level
Send LM & NTLM responses

Minimum session security for NTLM SSP
Disable Require 128-bit encryption

 

[niceday]

Hi Lemur, thanks for your reply. I have tried that and it didn't help.

In addition to that, the original settings for security options were the same between PC-A and PC-B. Yet I can access shared folders in PC-B from both mac and ubuntu.

 

[CreepinJesus]

I have a similar problem with a Windows 7 x64 machine sharing to a WDTV Live media player.

There are many shares on the Win7 PC, all of which I can access from the other Windows 7 laptops we have in the house, and they all work as expected (some are restricted to certain users). However, the WDTV Live player only gets access to it about 1 in 10 times, even when nothing has changed. If I reboot the PC, it will connect to the WDTV Live, but after that first connection it hardly ever works.

The WDTV Live runs off a Linux system of some sort, and I also had trouble connecting when using Ubuntu from a LiveCD, so I thnk it is a Windows <-> Linux thing.

 

[Lemur]

roll back pc-a to a date when all worked. if that restores all shares, then selectively add updates to pc-a

 

[niceday]

Will try that Lemur

 

[cluberti]

If that doesn't help, the only other real option is to capture a network trace (wireshark is good for this) from either the mac or the ubuntu box to see what the SMB requests are being denied for. Assuming you're not even getting prompted for credentials, something should at least give us a clue over the wire, so to speak.

 

[niceday]

thanks guys. Lemur is right, it is windows update that caused that. tonight after turning on my PC-A, windows 7 updates were available and I thought that they might fix my issues if they're caused by previous updates ... and that's correct ... after installing the latest updates ... my samba working again.

Thanks for your help.