My network has been driving me nuts since I decided to go all in and set up my house with a true gigabit network a year or so ago. I was cursed with stretches where it would work smoothly and then be driven completely insane by PCs dropping off the network or slow browsing between PCs and the internet grinding to a halt. I would think I had it fixed, only to discover a couple of weeks later that the same issues would pop up. I've thrown 4 routers, a wireless bridge, 3 switches, 2 modems and a few hundred feet of Cat 5e and Cat6 cabling at the situation. I've even messed with routers and alternate firmware. Moved routers and switches and modems around. I even called the cable internet company and blamed it on their equipment assigning DHCP addresses to my equipment even though I knew it probably wasn't true......... it nearly drove me to making a Cat5e noose and kicking the office chair out from beneath my feet.
So, I finally got my network issues resolved. It has been rock solid and running smoothly for a couple of weeks. Networked PCs finally pop up within seconds (instead of minutes, if at all) in Explorer and I can shuffle between shared folders on different PCs with ease. My media streaming devices don't lose the Media Libraries anymore and I don't get blocked from accessing shared folders that I knew I had set for access. I am finally realizing my dream from 18 months ago.
The solution, setting the registry on my WHS 2011 Server as the default Master Browser and making it the keeper of the Domain List.
Looking back, most of the problems occurred when I set up my WDTV Live Hub and I never figured it out till hooking up my Rapberry Pi. When I finally started digging into the issues I temporarily resolved it by disabling Samba on the Pi. Then it kept popping back up intermittently. After lots of audits, I noted that the WDTV Live Hub kept setting itself as the Master Browser when it was on and connected. For some reason, these low powered Linux devices always win the Election when they join the network and they just do a poor job.
I guess this post is just more of an FYI, but looking back, I wish that there was more content out there on this. I'm surprised that with the number of devices on networks that people aren't running into this issue more frequently. Seems like a quick check that should be in the most basic network troubleshooting.
So, I finally got my network issues resolved. It has been rock solid and running smoothly for a couple of weeks. Networked PCs finally pop up within seconds (instead of minutes, if at all) in Explorer and I can shuffle between shared folders on different PCs with ease. My media streaming devices don't lose the Media Libraries anymore and I don't get blocked from accessing shared folders that I knew I had set for access. I am finally realizing my dream from 18 months ago.
The solution, setting the registry on my WHS 2011 Server as the default Master Browser and making it the keeper of the Domain List.
Looking back, most of the problems occurred when I set up my WDTV Live Hub and I never figured it out till hooking up my Rapberry Pi. When I finally started digging into the issues I temporarily resolved it by disabling Samba on the Pi. Then it kept popping back up intermittently. After lots of audits, I noted that the WDTV Live Hub kept setting itself as the Master Browser when it was on and connected. For some reason, these low powered Linux devices always win the Election when they join the network and they just do a poor job.
I guess this post is just more of an FYI, but looking back, I wish that there was more content out there on this. I'm surprised that with the number of devices on networks that people aren't running into this issue more frequently. Seems like a quick check that should be in the most basic network troubleshooting.
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