Network Server List Doesn’t Update

[FoafFromUL]

My Network Server list doesn’t seem to update properly after switching to a new wireless router and different wireless network. These are discovered, correct? I can still make connections manually and save them. The local devices appear but it appears old information is used to access them.

I recently switched to a new wireless router. I basically have the Linux machine running Mint 20.2 and a Mac connected wirelessly. An Apple Time Capsule is attached to the router via ethernet. I had previously used the Time Capsule as a wireless router. I realized the ATT gateway wireless was MUCH faster. I now use a different wireless network name, too. The Time Machine used 10.xx.xx.xx addresses while the ATT uses 192.xx.xx.xx. The Mac has no issues with the change and sees everything, including a USB hard drive attached to the Time Capsule.

Now, the Linux machine can connect to the Mac, both by SSH and by samba shares. It can ping the Time Capsule, and name resolution actually works. All three devices are recognized by their network name as “NAME.attlocal.net.” I manually set up the SFTP and SMB connections through a Caja file window by File->Server Connection… I am using the MATE desktop.

When using the Time Capsule as the wireless router, the Network Server list listed the Mac and Time Capsule, and both smb and SSH connections worked to the Mac. I never could connect to the Time Capsule, always “connection refused”, but it did seem to try to connect.

Now, when using the ATT router for wireless (different network name and different address scheme), the Mac and the Time Capsule do show up still on the Network Servers list. The Mac even disappears from the list and reappears when it is awakened. However, trying to connect to anything gives the following error:

Error resolving “NAME.local”: Name or Services not known.

This seems to imply these connections are somehow using the old addresses. It should be looking for “NAME.attlocal.net”. The Mac used to say to access it at “smb://NAME.local.net” on the old wireless network. It now says under “smb://NAME.attlocal.net.” It updated.

I also just discovered the Mint machine now pings the other devices using IP6 addresses. That may also be an issue. Not sure when that started.

[FoafFromUL]

I have some idea about this now. it deals with Samba and version SMB1, also the Gnome Virtual File System (gvfs). Apparently gvfs wants to use SMB1 to discover the shared resources automatically. SMB1 isn’t supported by Samba by default now. There is a disconnect. In my case, I switched from an Apple Time Capsule as a router to a modern ATT&T router. I assume the Time Capsule must have still supported SMB1, while the ATT&T router does not. That is when the problem showed. The Time Capsule is no longer made by Apple, so maybe outdated on this.

There is a work around on Linux Mint. I mount the Time Capsule connected disks with:

mount -t cifs -o vers=1

vers=1 is actually specifying SMB1. This works, the external drive is accessible through caja in Linux Mint.

Another method seems to be adding back SMB1 support to your Linux smb.conf file. I have not tried that.I have manually connected to the Mac shares and saved them.

This isn’t completely solved, as it still doesn’t automatically find the network shares. I now know the apparent source of the problem.

This is discussed here. Thanks so much to altair4!

viewtopic.php?f=42&t=322404

[FoafFromUL]

There is a further complication, I think also related to this same issue, certainly with changing routers. I could no longer create new shares with the Caja file manager. I would get this error, from the Caja share creation panel. It seems to have multiple causes:

‘net usershare’ returned error 255: net usershare add: cannot convert “Everyone” to a SID. {Access Denied} A process has requested access to an object but has not been granted those access rights..

This did not happen when using the Apple Time Capsule as the wifi router. Researching this error was all over the map with multiple causes. I found it is NOT a permissions problem.

I tried to create the share manually after reading about it:

sudo net usershare add Desktop /home/dxxxx/Desktop "Dxxxx’s Desktop" everyone:F guest_ok=n

The above generated the exact same error Caja showed.

I then looked at the existing shares in /var/lib/samba/usershares. I copied the acl value (it is just ‘everyone’ in the failed attempt) and tried that. It is listed below. This worked! I do not really understand this string, but I am user 1000.

sudo net usershare add Desktop /home/dxxxx/Desktop "Dxxxx’s Desktop" S-1-1-0:R,S-1-22-1-1000:F guest_ok=n

The Desktop share showed up. Caja did NOT show it as shared. So there are TWO workarounds that got around the Caja issues.

I do believe the SMB levels allowed by the routers played a part in this. Not clear how, but at least I can share what I want to share.