Question Windows 10 machine can no longer connect to W11 machine, but mapped drives are fine??

[Ronstang]

This just happened in the last few days. My network was working perfectly. Now all of a sudden I cannot access any shared drive from my Windows 11 machine from my Windows 10 machine except if they are mapped drives, then those show up in "This PC". Until today the Windows 11 machine showed under network on file explorer on the Windows 10 machine but if you clicked on it the red x of death appears and says I cannot connect. Today, the Windows 11 machine does not even show up under network in file explorer on the Windows 10 machine.

BUT....the Windows 10 machine is fully accessible from the Windows 11 machine. All the shared drives show up under network in file explorer. There are no mapped drives from the Windows 10 machine to the windows 11 machine but there are 2 drives in the Windows 11 machine that are mapped to the Windows 10 machine....and those 2 are accessible from the Windows 10 machine as long as I access them from "This PC".

This is crazy, anyone with any ideas? This is causing me a ton of issues.

Thanks.

 

[Tech Junky]

This is crazy, anyone with any ideas?

W updates probably got applied and disabled a SMB function. W11 probably disabled an older legacy version and thus caused the inability to connect / browse the W10 system.

Any particular reason to keep W10? If you're just using it for network storage put Linux on it and run Samba for file sharing. Otherwise just map the root of the drive instead of the folders individually.

 

[Ronstang]

Any particular reason to keep W10?

Thanks for the info but yes, I have to keep W10 for now since this is my older HTPC and the hardware is not W11 compliant and it is not in the budget to replace a perfectly working and more than capable computer because the hardware manufacturers bought off Microsoft.

I need and use this machine every day, even though I have moved and am moving more operations onto the W11 machine. Even when I am doing most all work on the W11 machine I still need the W10 machine because it has a tuner card in it that is recording all the time and it is one of my emby servers. There is no reason to upgrade this hardware for any reason other than MS sucks.

Any ideas how I can get my network working again? It is ridiculous that an update can destroy everything.

 

[Tech Junky]

tuner card

Convert to Linux. More stable and less hassle. I use a quad tuner in mine and it worked fine until I upgraded to ADL and the didn't tune half the channels. I recently rebuilt with AMD though and pulled the card from the original system and tried it again and it works again 100%. Now I have an atsc3 quad tuner on no longer need.

I don't think it was necessarily ADL that was the problem due to some trouble with some new stuff I tried to use in that system that was a bit wonky even through other stuff worked great. Problem was probably the board not the platform. Instead of putting more money into Intel I switched.

Go into the settings for windows and check the smb settings on both and make sure they both match versions and things should work again. Smb v2 or 3 should be enabled as v1 is deprecated due to security issues.

 

[Ronstang]

Convert to Linux.

Thanks but that is not an option. This is a headless server and I use remoted desktop to use it as a second machine. I spread loads across two machines so I don't overload either. Both are emby servers, the W10 is my beta one and the test and organization server. I cannot do without it so this machine is not being converted to Linux which I know ZERO about and have no desire to mess with o host of way more problems having that deal with a Win11 machine.

I don't know what SMB is or how to check....help??

 

[In2Photos]

Thanks but that is not an option. This is a headless server and I use remoted desktop to use it as a second machine. I spread loads across two machines so I don't overload either. Both are emby servers, the W10 is my beta one and the test and organization server. I cannot do without it so this machine is not being converted to Linux which I know ZERO about and have no desire to mess with o host of way more problems having that deal with a Win11 machine.

I don't know what SMB is or how to check....help??

Search for turn on/off Windows features.

 

[Ronstang]

The W10 is checked "SMB 1.0/CIFS Automatic Removal" and the W11 Machine is checked "SMB Direct" .

I have no idea what this means LOL

Correction, W10 is checked both SMB 1 and SMB 1.0/Automatic Removal and then SMB Direct.....W11 only checked SMB Direct

 

[Tech Junky]

SMB Direct

Just make sure both match and reboot

The other thing that comes to mind is the service might have been disabled for smb.

As to Linux. I run headless as well and RDP works fine but use ssh mostly. It also uses less power than Windows and less space for the OS. Before upgrading to AMD though my system only used 2-4gb of RAM. Now, that ok testing other media conversion tools on it directly it's using a bit more but still a moderate amount. The OS though only takes up 20gb of space vs windows which easily hits 100gb. Htpc apps run fine though for media.

 

[Ronstang]

As to Linux. I run headless as well and RDP

That is cool, but at the moment I need to stick with Windows because almost all the software I used every day is Windows only. If I ever switch it so that machine is solely an emby server/DVR then I may lookk into Linux but for now I just finally got a second machine up and running, outfitted and running faster and I need to be able to parallel process for at least 6 months to catch up encoding/organizing before I could afford to have a machine down to play with.

If the day come I decide to make that box Linux I will hit you up for some advice. I do appreciate all info as I am in constant learning mode.

Thanks

 

[Tech Junky]

constant learning mode

Feels like it here as well. Switching from Intel to AMD is quite the curve as well. I'm currently working on a GPU solution to speed things up as well and have landed on the a380 for converting things directly on the server side.

 

[Ronstang]

Well that didn't take care of the problem. Both machines are set to SMB Direct and both have been rebooted yet the same issue persists. W11 sees the W10 machine but the converse is not true but W10 still has accessed to mapped drives. Windows networking is crap....MS is pretty much crap.

 

[In2Photos]

What type of network does it say you are connected to on the Win 11 PC? Public? Private?

 

[Tech Junky]

Well that didn't take care of the problem. Both machines are set to SMB Direct and both have been rebooted yet the same issue persists. W11 sees the W10 machine but the converse is not true but W10 still has accessed to mapped drives. Windows networking is crap....MS is pretty much crap.

Have you disabled the firewall on both sides? Check file sharing is enabled? Make sure both networks are set to Private?

Windows does suck if you're not apt to figuring out the not so obvious aspects they mess up with patches.

 

[Ronstang]

Thanks for all the replies....I got frustrated and forgot about this for a while because Windows being a broken POS is it's native state. My machine was acting strange for days and freezing etc. then I realized it had updated but I would not allow it to reboot because of active recordings and finally had to reboot to fix it.

Then I read somewhere in a google feed about MS changing it's network protocol blah blah blah....and light went off. Them my Windows 10 needed an update to the latest cumulative so I installed it and rebooted....and Voila! Network works again with some strange things happening that seem to have been worked out. MS never fails to break more than they fix. No wonder I haven't actually paid for an MS OS in 15 years yet I have built quite a few machines.

 

[Tech Junky]

MS never fails to break more than they fix. No wonder I haven't actually paid for an MS OS in 15 years yet I have built quite a few machines.

Same here and I block their updates both locally and by DNS because they break stuff with patches. At least if I break it I know what broke it and can revert easier than digging through hundreds of patches.