Trying to browse Windows 10 SMB File Share

[jenovadelta]

Hello! I just bought a copy of this software yesterday and LOVE what it is capable of! When I pull files locally it works perfectly. I can't however for the life of me figure out how to get it to see an SMB setup on a Windows 10 machine. I can browse to and access/view the shares on ES File Explorer on my phone as well as multiple other devices on the network. I'm not 100% sure it is running SMB1 but from what I am able to understand, I went into the Windows services and verified that it was still enabled which should do the trick.

To give a rundown of what I have setup : I run a HTPC/Server named 'HTPC' (original, eh?), all on the same subnet as my Personal PC/laptop/soon to be Nvidia Shield/Android phone etc. On the HTPC, I have a share named 'Emulation'. The share is setup using the normal windows sharing setup. All devices on the network are setup using local users only and no Live login nonsense at play.

In the network settings of W10, I verified that file sharing is on and tried both Password Protected Sharing on and off, rebooting the Host PC and RetroX each time. Both times I am still prompted for a user and password. Strangely, turning off Password Protection while tinkering last night would get me to a error that would have 'MSBROWSE' failed in the first few lines but I can only get to the user and password prompt now. I have tried the user credentials and every possibly combination of the syntax I can think of but to no avail. Please help! I REALLY want to get this working as I won't actually have any physical storage on the Shield, only remotely accessing content on the HTPC. Thanks very much for any help

[fcatrin]

Hey that's plenty of good diagnostics!

In my tests, when I switch passwords on / off in my servers I've seen that Android doesn't shut down RetroX completely, and the library that I'm using to connect still has some cached info (jCIFS). I recommend that you completely close RetroX after you make changes to your network using Settings -> Apps -> RetroX -> Force Close in Android.

Also, if you get the "MSBROWSE" error again, check the IP address shown. I've seen some users that had an incorrect IP shown, for some reason another server in the network or sometimes another server in a VPN is trying to be the master browser.

(SMB/CIFS networks are more complex than they seem. Other apps have better support for these networks because they are older an have already fixed the inconsistencies probably checking a lot of corner cases, in RetroX we are just in the beginning).

[jenovadelta]

Hello and thanks for the help! So, I got doing some more digging around and think I figured out what part of my oddity was with the results changing. Turns out that the SMB prompt that I was getting was actually for my home computer on the same network/subnet. Would make sense why I was seeing that then but now nothing of the sort. I don't even have file sharing or SMB enabled on that computer though far as I know so that is weird but either way. So I turned the computer off and at least got a different result. Screenshot attached. I then went into the HTPC and Turned password protection back on but I was still getting the same error message on the phone.

Unfortunately, I only have a cell phone android device for a couple of weeks until my Shield arrives so I don't see the entire message output. Are these log files dumped anywhere to see the whole message?

Screenshot_20170803-165147.png (173.81 KiB) Viewed 9008 times

[fcatrin]

Ok, let's see if this helps:

When looking for workgroups (request for smb://), a broadcast message is sent to all the local network, all the computers that have SMB will listen to this message, and they will negotiate between themselves to become the Master Browser. The Master Browser will allocate the name __MSBROWSE__ to itself adding that name to it's existing name.

The problem that we are seeing in that screenshot is that no server turned into Master Browser, so no server is giving information about workgroups. In other devices, that name may be cached and they may continue working, or they using another version of the protocol.

Also, if that is a phone, make sure that you have WiFi only, so it doesn't broadcast to your mobile network.

[jenovadelta]

Hmmm, I disabled any mobile data usage or browsing on the phone to make sure there was nothing there and then tried again with no luck. Something I did forget to mention is that I do have a wifi extender setup as a bridge. It does no NAT'ing at all and just pushes everything to my actual router that is connected to it. While doing all of this testing today, I was connected to the wifi from my router directly. I tried connecting to the wifi that this extender is broadcasting and browsed there. I then got the error message attached. I was also able to get my home PC to stop responding by disabling itsnetwork broadcast settings altogether in the Network centre so that's something!

Could this SMB broadcast you mentioned not be replied to by my HTPC if it is not configured to use SMB1? Everything I can find indicates it is on though and I am running my home PC with the same settings which was replying properly so I don't really know where else to check there.

Screenshot_20170803-183820.png (169.26 KiB) Viewed 9005 times

[fcatrin]

The broadcast should be passed if you are using a bridge, they all are in the same local network.

I see that the error changed, now there is a __MSBROWSE__ name created and it is pointing to 192.168.148.1 but that host didn't reply for further requests. That address looks like a gateway/router, do you recognize that IP?

[jenovadelta]

I cannot for the life of me figure out what that 192.168.141.1 is. There should be nothing talking outside of the 192.168.0.x network. I tried a couple more things this morning. I setup a VM Windows XP box on my HTPC with a simple SMB share. This would make sure that there really aren't oddities with SMB version compatibility. I can see the shared directory and the virtual machine on the network (I made sure the NIC was bridged so as to be its own device, this is the 192.168.0.50 device in the LAN Viewer) but I still end up with the same error message that I posted yesterday with the MSBROWSE message in there. Like before, all other programs/devices are able to see this share and browse to it fine. I am attaching a screenshot of my LAN Viewer output in case you can see anything that would be breaking things.

Untitled.jpg (108.92 KiB) Viewed 8989 times

[fcatrin]

Can you follow these steps?

http://lifehacker.com/the-easiest-way-t ... 1586992378

That will allow you to connect from your computer to your Android device. Once there (through adb shell), run the following commands:

route
ifconfig

Those should show the info about the IP and networks available as in the example shot.

Captura de pantalla de 2017-08-04 12-59-27.png (75.77 KiB) Viewed 8986 times

[jenovadelta]

Hello, here she be. Again, thank you for all the assistance on this, I realize you aren't a Windows networking admin but I truly appreciate all the help here

cellroute.jpg (118.95 KiB) Viewed 8984 times

[fcatrin]

I do what I can Not a windows user since 2001.

I knew that adding SMB would have these kind of problems!!

The network seems fine. The only thing that seems strange is that there is no gateway IP, but it shouldn't affect in this case.

Let's change the strategy and use that adb you just installed.

Install this File Manager, it has almost the same network code used in RetroX, it will be simpler to test for you and I also enabled additional logging on it: http://arealinux.cl/apk/FileX.apk

In adb run "logcat" or from your computer run "adb logcat". You will se a lot of logs, then try to access your network from FileX and copy me what you see there.