My friends business has 4 pcs and two macs on a network. One of the pc's has a shared folder where all the print jobs are put to run on the various printers connected to that pc. However one of the macs can see the other machines on the network but is requesting a password, although none of the folders or machines need one. The other mac see's everything perfectly and can access the shared folders on the network, apart from one of the PCs running Windows 98 ! Its just used to run old cutting software so it doesn't matter regarding the macs. I am clueless with macs and have compared the two machines network settings and both look the same. Anyone have an idea what i should be looking for ?
I'm about to go through this having bought an old Mac Book. Can't say yet from experience but as long as the Mac has a Samba client (from memory that's correct but this was months ago I looked last...) I would expect it to work. First thing I would do is make sure the Mac machines have all the same updates installed. Now check the PC with the shared file and see if there is any security software installed. I found once that this blocked a new device without any reason. Check the firewall settings within it and if you can't see anything, try disabling it to test and see if the Mac can see the files. If both Mac computers are exactly the same with settings and updates then the fault is very likely on the PC though possibly hard to trace. Personally, I would put the data on at least a network hard drive or NAS device with some redundancy and that would likely solve the problem and reduce risk. I use one but I password protect it and providing anyone knows the passwords for the users they never have an issue connecting.
Hello Thanks for the reply. I changed the lan cable a few days later and we thought we had cracked it. Then yesterday bothe macs including a brand new one bought last week (which worked straight out of the box) wouldn't see the folder. After checking settings and updating the older mac, that one saw the folder but the new one still wouldn't see it. It's something intermittent but I can't see what it can be.
This makes me think it is a network issues rather than software. For example how is it cabled? Is there a single network switch and is there any long cable? Likely points of failure would be long cables which could explain intermittent access, a single switch that can't cope with the traffic, possibly not using a dedicated server though I don't and it is usually fine. Any use of power line networking can also cause symptoms like this and I found the only fix was to forward ports to static IP addresses.
We have a 24 port switch with patch panel. The pc is on the of the longer cable sockets on the network but everything else can see it perfectly and vice versa. On the network are 4 pcs, a couple of commercial printers and the two macs (one brand new) although he occasionally uses a much older mac which sees everything no problem. He bought a brand new mac a couple of weeks ago and it worked perfectly, seeing everything but then this week that stopped. When we swapped the cable on the other mac last week that worked ok too, now they both stopped at the same time but the older occasional mac when plugged in worked. The two macs could only airdrop to each other but not see any other pc on the network but could access the internet. Eventually the older of the two main macs started seeing everything after an OS update. I don't understand why they would both drop at the same time. We had this same problem before he moved and put the current network in just using a 8 port switch and with the pcs/mac closer together. It was using the same ethernet cable though between the mac and the wall socket, which he used again when we moved all the gear. Once we repaced the cable last week we thought we had cracked it. Everything else is fine. Transfer speeds, internet connection evryting working as it should, its just this intermitent problem with the macs. Even tried different sockets in the wall. No joy. Thanks again for your help. It really is appreciated.
From finder on the mac, click "go" then "Connect to Server" In the box that pops up type (without the quotes) "smb://IPofPC/sharename", then when the password box pops up, put the username & password of the PC acting as a server in there. Job done
Ah... Only one other thing I can think of is I did once have issues when I didn't have authentication setup. It could be that the Mac is for some reason being more picky over this and the shared data needs to be password controlled. If changing the cable meant different port for example that could have change IP address and led to it working for a while, but that suggests to me the problem is something on the PC. As I type this though it makes me wonder where the DHCP sever is which may for example be a router. If not already done I would make sure the PC has a reserved static IP, then try to access from the Mac by IP and not name. I have noticed at times that I can't browse to names but can to IP or mount a drive.
The post by saspro adds what I didn't know but yes browsing to IP is probably the answer. But I'd make sure you have a status IP first for the PC
IDHCP server is a BT router. Not set static address so I could try that. The password is only sometimes an issue, but when it cant see the pc or sometimes the others, then it doesn't get as far as the password. I'll try the static bit and see what happens. Thanks to both of you.
