networking woes

[kaliyuga]

I am trying to network osx 10.3.9 and xp following your excellent thread
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/54704/
Its all good until I get to the last stage, Accessing your PC from your Mac,
I am sure i am putting in the right ip address and share name but i get the message... the finder cannot complete the operation because some data in .... could not be read or written error code 36

so i can see the mac from the pc but not the other way...

on the pc the network icon in the task bar has an exclamation mark and status limited or no connectivity

any ideas?

 

[Queso]

Can you post which version of Windows you are using? It may be relevant.

 

[kaliyuga]

ah yes

I am using xp home, sp2, kerio firewall which we disable when trying to network

 

[Kelmon]

How are the computers connected to the network? Connected directly together using an ethernet cable or connected to a network switch/router?

By virtue of your statement that the PC is displaying the "Limited or no network connectivity" means that you have a networking problem that needs to be sorted out before the Mac will be able to talk to the PC. At the moment it sounds as though the PC is not connected to the network at all.

 

[Queso]

I am using xp home, sp2, kerio firewall which we disable when trying to network

By virtue of your statement that the PC is displaying the "Limited or no network connectivity" means that you have a networking problem that needs to be sorted out before the Mac will be able to talk to the PC. At the moment it sounds as though the PC is not connected to the network at all.

The "Status limited" message means that XP has been unable to locate a DHCP server and has self-assigned an IP address in the 169.254.x.x range. If the PC and Mac are connected directly, this is the correct behaviour, since the Mac will also self-assign an address unless you've manually entered one in your Networking Preferences. However, if you have a router that both computers are connected to, the router would normally assign the addresses, so the message would indicate a problem.

I'm wondering what happens to the built-in Windows firewall when you disable the Kerio one. Can you check in Control Panel that it is also disabled and not blocking the Mac?

Lastly, can you try a quick test to make sure the IP protocols are working correctly. Open a command prompt on the Windows computer and type the following command:-

ipconfig

After hitting ENTER, it should report back it's IP address. As I wrote earlier, I expect this to begin with 169.254. Now from the Mac, open the Terminal (it's in the Utilities folder under Applications) and type

ping <PC's IP address>

For example, if the ipconfig command on the PC returned 169.254.79.41 as the address, type

ping 169.254.76.41

If all is well, you should get something similar to the following back

[PowerBook:~] dynamicv% ping 169.254.76.41
PING 169.254.76.41 (169.254.76.41): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 169.254.76.41: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=4.857 ms
64 bytes from 169.254.76.41: icmp_seq=4 ttl=64 time=6.092 ms

If the computers can't see each other you will not get the lines starting "64 bytes"

Give it a try and report back the results.

 

[kaliyuga]

thanks

I did as you said in terminal and I am getting rows beginning with
64 bytes from....

when i tried to check the windows firewall I get the message "due to an unidentified problem, windows cannot display windows firewall settings" windows control centre just reports whether kerio is on or off.

and yes I am connecting directly with a cable

 

[mklos]

Did you restart both computers with the cable plugged in? On the Mac, is Windows File sharing enabled in the Sharing System preference?

Are both computers on the same workgroup? This may or may not make a difference, but with PCs it can sometimes make the difference. By default, the Mac is on the workgroup called workgroup. Sometimes in XP, the default workgroup is called MSHOME. You may want to try changing that to WORKGROUP and see what happens.

I will say that software based firewalls are a HUGE pain in the arse most of the time as can be the cause of the problem even if its disabled. I know Zone Alarm can be a pain in the arse even when its disabled.

If it doesn't work, you can get a 5 port switch for around $25 or so, or even a router for $60 and then you can get rid of those yucky software based firewalls and use the hardware firewall built into the router.

 

[Queso]

I did as you said in terminal and I am getting rows beginning with
64 bytes from....

when i tried to check the windows firewall I get the message "due to an unidentified problem, windows cannot display windows firewall settings" windows control centre just reports whether kerio is on or off.

and yes I am connecting directly with a cable

In the Finder Go to Server windows, if you only type in the "smb://<ip address>" without the share name and it prompts you for a username and password, does it take the authentication successfully?

 

[kaliyuga]

ok

when I Go to Server and only type in the "smb://<ip address>" without the share name I straight away get the error message, not the authenticate password request

but I did make sure the xp computer was in WORKGROUP and could then see the folders of the mac again so I twigged that I could transfer the files I wanted that way, just dragging them into the desktop, so they made it across and that's what I wanted...

so thanks heaps for all your help...
we did have the network working properly in the past but can't remember if it was pre kerio or what

 

[Queso]

OK. I'm not that versed in XP Home edition, so bear with me if this is a XP Pro suggestion. Bring up the Computer Management app (Right click on My Computer, and select Manage). Under System Tools there should be an Event Viewer. Open the System Log and see whether there is any warnings or errors in there for the time that you attempted to connect. Do the same with the Security log.

Post anything you find here and I'll go investigate.

 

[kaliyuga]

thanks

dynamicv i had never investigated that part of my computer before....but nothing came up in there when i tried the network

BUT ...I cracked it!

obviously it has nothing to do with limited/no connectivity because the yellow exclamation icon is still there but
I stopped trying to use the ip address of the PC and looked at the properties of the shared folder in the network places window on the pc and typed that name after smb:// in the go to server window on the mac
then the password prompt came up and when the right username and password for the pc were entered it worked...yahoo!

 

[Queso]

So just for future reference, it works if you use the PC's hostname, but not the IP address, right?

 

[kaliyuga]

yes

i typed smb://username of pc/foldername, ( just as they are shown in the properties of that shared folder in the network places window but with forward slashes not backward) and at the prompt put in the username of pc and password and it worked

 

[Kelmon]

You know, reading through all this and the mention that a direct cable connection was used, I think the problem was that the IP configuration of the PC and Mac was not set for a direct cable connection. In the case that this was the problem (and obviously this isn't necessary now) the setup can be performed as follows:

1. Manually set the Mac IP address to something arbitary, like 192.168.0.1, its Gateway to one number higher (e.g. 192.168.0.2) and Subnet Mask to 255.255.255.0.

2. Manually set the PC's IP address to Gateway used by the Mac (e.g. 192.168.0.2), its Gateway to the IP address of the Mac (e.g. 192.168.0.1) and Subnet Mask to 255.255.255.0.

3. The Mac can now connect to the PC using Connect to Server in the Finder using the IP address of the PC that you set.

Still, if this process works using just the name of the PC then that'll make this process much simpler since network settings will not need to be changed. Therefore this is something that I'll check out later today. Interesting.