Shared folders not showing up on network devices

[bill2reg]

This is strange. I have shared a folder on an external drive with "Everyone". In this folder are several other folders, and photos in each of those. When I go to my TV and open the folder, only ONE of the folders inside shows up. I have tried sharing each folder individually, and also tried selecting all of them and sharing, but nothing has worked so far. The puzzling thing is that the one folder that does show up has the same properties, sharing etc. as all the others, as well as the containing folder does show up, as I said. What might be causing this?

 

[GokAy]

Is it possible TV can't see multiple folders? Does it work if you share them at C (just create a folder with few folders inside and put 2 pictures in each)?

 

[bill2reg]

It's not the TV because other folders on other drives show up OK, and even ONE folder in the top folder shows up OK. I have tried all settings, advanced sharing etc. and they all show as shared. Even the green "progress bar" shows all the names of the subfolders and each photo while it's sharing. But no matter what, only that ONE folder (with its photos) shows up on the TV. And it's not just the TV, it's all my network devices (phones, tablets and laptop).

 

[bill2reg]

The TV sees other drives and folders fine. The TV is not the problem I'm sure. And it's not the external drive or path, because in the SAME folder, ONE subfolder is fine. But none of the others show up. I have tried all advanced settings, etc. all shared, and when I share, the notification window opens and I can see it displaying the name of every subfolder and every photo in every one of those while the "green progress bar" moves along. I can't understand why ONE folder is fine, and the others (which ALL have the same share settings) are not visible. And it's not just on the TV, but on all my other network devices (phones, tablets and laptop)

 

[Ohmster]

Hmmm, you say that these folders do not show up on the TV nor do they show up on a Windows laptop either? I was guessing the TV runs Linux and sharing is done by samba, not netbios like Windows. So stuff not showing up is common in this arrangement. You can find them by typing in the computer name like: \\BILL-PC or \\BILL-PC\Photos,
...but you have eliminated this possibility by confirming it with a windows laptop that cannot "see" the folders either. It is a Windows share issue.

I have an idea that very well may help you my friend. You DID say these folders are on an external drive, yes? Like a USB external hard drive, Western Digital or something, yes? These drives come formatted with a "universal" file system that almost any operating system can read and write to such as FAT32, ExFAT, etc. Check for me. Go into "Computer", then the external drive such as F: or whatever it is, then right click and choose Properties and see what the File System is. Windows does not "play nice" with these file systems because they cannot enforce the file and folder permissions like a more advanced file system such as NTFS which is what Windows uses for it's own file system. Check properties on drive C: you will see it is NTFS. Your external drive is likely NOT NTFS if you have not formatted it as such.

If you try to use that drive for Window Backup, it will work but you will not be able to create system image files unless you format the external drive with NTFS. Anytime I use an external drive strictly for Windows, I format it NTFS to avoid these problems.

If the external drive really is formatted with NTFS, skip this post, it will not help.

Backup your external drive before proceeding, ALL files and folders will be deleted!
To fix this or at least find out, you have to save all the stuff on your external drive to another drive, your C: drive if you have enough room or another drive. Then RIGHT click on the external drive and choose Format... Uncheck Quick Format and choose from File System NTFS. Proceed with formatting and allow it to finish. Copy all of your files and folders back again and re-share them all. Now go check again to see if all of the folders show up.

I cannot promise this will work as you have not supplied enough information, but at this point, it is the most likely suspect of the issue. Windows has to employ all of it's security to the drive and file systems such as FAT do not support this level of security. For Windows, it is NTFS. For Android or Linux, it is something else like ext3 or ext4. Use NTFS and see if that helps. It is your best shot with what information is available right now. Windows will always play nice with NTFS that is has formatted itself or is properly formatted as NTFS. But without it, you lose many features of the Windows file system. Come back and mark this thread "Solved" if this works, okay? Good luck Bill.

 

[GokAy]

If it is indeed like that great.

You can change filesystem without formatting
Run cmd: - change H: to your external drive letter: convert H: /FS:NTFS

Still you should backup just in case.

 

[bill2reg]

Thank you both, but both my external drives ARE NTFS. And like I mentioned, other folders on the same drive and are OK. They show up on the TV and I can see the photos they contain on my TV no problem.

Here is more info. I have several cameras, so I named a folder for each camera model. Then in each of those folders, I create a folder for each photoshoot (location and date). The drive letter is "L". So the path would be something like this:

L>X-S1>Royal Park_24FEB15 -or another maybe- L>X-S1>Air Show>10APR15

So this folder for Park_24FEB15 works OK, but the one for the Air Show doesn't show up, and any others don't show up either. Only one of the folders shows up on TV, phone, etc (in my example, the one for Royal Park is OK, and all others are not OK).

Maybe this will explain a little better.

 

[GokAy]

Ok, sorry if I missed it above, what about security options? Can you check the working folder and a non-working one? Select folder - right click - properties - security - see if users/groups are same in both. Also check Advanced settings down below.

Try adding Everyone to root of external drive (L) and add Everyone - full control.

 

[bill2reg]

I have already checked all that and they are the same, and I did share the root L: too. Now when I move one of the folders that does NOT show up on TV, if I put it into another folder on the other external drive (just copy it), then it shows up fine! It is really weird.

 

[GokAy]

Another diagnostic test: Move the USB drive to your laptop and share there. Check contents on TV and PC.

 

[bill2reg]

Well, I appreciate your idea, but I don't know how that would diagnose the problem, because other folders that are inside the SAME folder on the SAME external drive are fine. If the problem was with the drive or computer, NONE of my folders/files on any of the drives would share, but they do share without any problem. Just some folders show up, and some do not. And I am talking about folders that are all in the same folder with each other. The top folder is called "X-S1" and there are several sub-folders inside it. Some of these sub-folders show up on the network (TV, tablets, phones, etc.) and some others do not. But when I shared them, the windows dialog box (the one with the green progress bar while sharing) displays ALL of the names of the sub-folders and all the individual photo files in each of those. Then when it's done, it show they are all shared. That's why this is so confusing.

 

[GokAy]

well, if the issue continue on the laptop then HDD is at some fault. If not the PC is. I wonder if MFT of that drive is bugged? I guess the most experienced person regarding this is Jumanji.

Is reformatting the drive an option?

Try http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/433-disk-check.html

 

[Ohmster]

If it is indeed like that great.

You can change filesystem without formatting
Run cmd: - change H: to your external drive letter: convert H: /FS:NTFS

Still you should backup just in case.

Ahh! Forgot about that, good looking out, GoKAy. Didn't help but I should have remembered that.

 

[GokAy]

Well the only accounts of missing folders/files in shared folders involve offline shares and the like, usually business settings. Very interesting case this is.

 

[Ohmster]

Well the only accounts of missing folders/files in shared folders involve offline shares and the like, usually business settings. Very interesting case this is.

Interesting, yes. Vexing, quite. I thought for sure he had a security policy issue due to the external filesystem as I have had this before. But the OP says no. Before we even get into his TV and different OS, I wanted to know if the Windows network was alright and he says no, he cannot access these folders from his Windows laptop, either. I use a Windows laptop to troubleshoot share issues sometimes. Windows 7 treats other Windows 7 computers alright. Although I have run into credential issues where I had to login every time, even though I had password free sharing enabled. Getting into the credential manager allowed me to correct this. They stored credentials was not correct. But this does not help the OP, Bill.

I know one thing, once you go over everything and start to "narrow in", you can often "not see the forest for the trees". Then I back off and take a broader view of the issue or else I burn a LOT of hours and get very frustrated. At this point, I would beg or borrow any other external drive, even try a flash drive and setup shares on it, just to see if it is this particular drive or his PC causing this issue. I think Bill did say he put the external drive on his laptop and got the same thing from it. Why? I don't know. Firmware maybe? That is why I would try another drive, just temporarily, to check it out. A nice fat external USB drive and even a flash drive too, just to see. Whatever this issue is, I would say it is firmly connected to this particular external hard drive until we can prove otherwise. This is just my opinion, your opinion on it would certainly be appreciated. :sarc:

 

[bill2reg]

Not sure how this would make any difference because some of the sub-folders in the same main folder are fine and they show up on all my network devices. It's only some of the sub-folders that don't show up, and I don't find any difference in the share properties, and besides they were all shared together at the same time. (I selected all of them and then shared and the dialog box with the green progress bar displayed each sub-folder and also every photo file within each of those, so......I don't understand this).

 

[GokAy]

I already told my reasoning.

well, if the issue continue on the laptop then HDD is at some fault. If not the PC is. I wonder if MFT of that drive is bugged? I guess the most experienced person regarding this is Jumanji.

Is reformatting the drive an option?

Try http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/433-disk-check.html

 

[bill2reg]

I don't see how that would help, since some of the sub-folders within the main folder show up on TV, laptop, phones and tablets. But other sub-folders within the SAME MAIN FOLDER do not show up. If NONE of the sub-folders showed up, then I would possibly suspect the external drive as a problem, but that's not what's happening here.

 

[ZDog628]

Ok, sorry if I missed it above, what about security options? Can you check the working folder and a non-working one? Select folder - right click - properties - security - see if users/groups are same in both. Also check Advanced settings down below.

Try adding Everyone to root of external drive (L) and add Everyone - full control.

That fixed me up great! Thanks. I have a WD TV device and I added a second hard drive to my main PC that shares all its photos, music, videos , etc.
Well, the video files were too much so I added the second internal HD to the computer. The WD Player and my other two wired network computers accessed everything just fine. Then one day they couldn't.
I added EVERYONE to the security for the second HD as you explained and now it's back to full access from every machine in the house.
I don't know why it worked to begin with (for months) and then decided to start blocking access. But now all is good again,
Thanks
ZDOG628, Up the Irons!