No Network sharing after update level 3

[Cavemann]

Hello All
I have 4 computers all on the same home LAN / router
Two are running LM17.3 MATE 64 bit, One has LM18.3 MATE 32 bit and the other in a Win 8 notebook.
The Win 8 notebook is not important but is/was visible on the network.
The two computers with 17.3 were happily visible and communicating on the network for more than 6 months.
I have just installed 18.3 on another small desktop yesterday did all the updates that it wanted to do and added Wine installed an XP application that worked the best it has ever worked in Wine.
In doing all the 18.3 updates there was one update that it did not voluntarily do at the time and that was a Level 3 File Manager for Cinnamon - the last on the list.
Networking still all worked perfectly between computers.
This morning I looked at the update shield and saw the Level 3 File Manager still caused an x in the update shield so I thought maybe I should do it eventhough it was not done automatically yesterday.
I did the update and now none of the computers can see each other on the network but all have internet access.
When I click on the Network Servers Icon on the desktop of any/all computer I get a Windows Network Icon in the Network Window and clicking on the Windows Network Icon I get (on all computers, forgetting the Win , a message :
Unable to Mount Location , failed to retrieve share list from server: No such file or directory.
Permissions are identical on all.
Needless to say at this moment I am very frustrated as I cannot work out what is wrong or wonder what I have done?

Any help/ guidance will be very much appreciated
Regards
Peter

[altair4]

All i can suggest is adding a multicast dns registration file to all of your Mint machines:

Create a file: /etc/avahi/services/samba.service
With this content:

Code: Select all

<?xml version="1.0" standalone='no'?>
<!DOCTYPE service-group SYSTEM "avahi-service.dtd">
<service-group>
   <name replace-wildcards="yes">SMB %h</name> ## Display Name
   <service>
       <type>_smb._tcp</type>
       <port>445</port>
   </service>
</service-group>

Your other Linux machines will show up under Caja > Browse Network and not under Windows Network since it's not using the Windows way of browsing for hosts.

[Cavemann]

Hello Altair4
Thank you very much for the guide - I will try it later today and post the result - it doesn't really matter how I browse the network and transfer files between the machines as long as I can do it simply.
I was so pleased with myself for getting everything working and interacting as I wanted and then that happened.
Thanks again
Regards
Peter

[Cavemann]

Hello Altair4
Thank you very much - solved - all working properly again.
I was thinking that I would have to reinstall everything again - not so!
Regards
Peter

[all41]

Hi@Cavemann
fwiw I have been using the altair4 suggested method for 3 years now without a hitch.
Thanks again altair4

[altair4]

Fun Fact: In Mint 19 Samba will automatically register itself via multicast (avahi ) thanks to someone at Ubuntu who finally got around to reading the instruction manual from samba and realized he should have compiled support for it years ago.

It will do it through another method but still using avahi. Older Linux machines on the network will still have to add the avahi samba.service file however.