New router... having problems

[biff]

I just replaced the dying router in my office with a WRT610N. All the computers in the office can access the internet no problem but now none of the computers can see each other so file and printer sharing doesn't work. I can ping the other computers but that's it. No settings were changed on any of the computers so I'm assuming there must be some setting in the router that's causing the issues. Any ideas?

[biff]

Nevermind. Is started working on it's own out of the blue.

[biff]

I didn't follow up on this but it only worked briefly, enough time to share some drives... haven't been able to see any other computers since. BTW the shares work just fine. Now I need to share a couple more drives and some printers and I can't because I can't see the workgroup.

I contacted linksys and they say that file/printer sharing is beyond their basic help and I'd have to pay if I want further assistance. They also said there is nothing to setup on the router to do with sharing... Funny it worked just fine with the other router in place.

So where do I go from here?

[BrainEater]

Have you rebooted the client machines since replacing the router ?

[Spblue]

This sounds like a browser master problem. Basically, Microsoft systems hold an election to decide which computer will keep track of the local workgroup members periodically. If you don't have a stable Windows server (or linux samba) to act as browse master, it gets ugly real quick.

Things that might happen : Cannot browse the local workgroup at all (or you just see the local computer). This is caused by the local computer thinking it's the browse master, while another computer on the network also thinks it is.

Sometimes, network browsing will just fail after a long time-out.

To see if that was the problem, you can try browsing the computer through ip addresses, as they don't go through the broken NetBIOS resolution. Type \\192.168.1.1\ (or whatever the other computer's ip is) in the Windows Explorer address bar. If this works, then it's definitely a browse master problem. You can also view a computer's shared drives by opening a command prompt and typing "net view \\192.168.1.1".

If this doesn't solve your problem, then it might be a firewall issue, but usually home routers do not firewall connections unless they go through NAT, so that's unlikely. Try the ip approach and if that doesn't work we can troubleshoot some more.

Edit: If ip works, you can solve the browsing problem by shutting down all your pcs and booting them one by one. This will force the first one to be browse master and the others will be clients. Start with the PC you reboot the least often.

[Myiagros]

Do you have a hosts file on each computer that tells them where the others are? Could be that your previous router did RIP on it's own and the new one doesn't. You mentioned that you can ping the others, is that using the IP address or the hostname? If you can't ping by name then get a hosts file which should help.

[Spblue]

RIP on a single router doesn't do anything. Also, I would assume that, in such a small office, all the computers are using the router's DHCP and are all in the same subnet...

[biff]

Originally Posted by Spblue

To see if that was the problem, you can try browsing the computer through ip addresses, as they don't go through the broken NetBIOS resolution. Type \\192.168.1.1\ (or whatever the other computer's ip is) in the Windows Explorer address bar. If this works, then it's definitely a browse master problem. You can also view a computer's shared drives by opening a command prompt and typing "net view \\192.168.1.1".

Both of these work!!

Originally Posted by Spblue

Edit: If ip works, you can solve the browsing problem by shutting down all your pcs and booting them one by one. This will force the first one to be browse master and the others will be clients. Start with the PC you reboot the least often.

I'll try this as soon as I can get everybody away from their computer for a few minutes. <crosses fingers>

[Canker]

Is your router's DHCP giving out it's own address as a DNS server, or your upstream providers DNS servers? If your DHCP is giving your upstream name servers, if your computers try to register with them it won't work.

Originally Posted by biff

I just replaced the dying router in my office with a WRT610N. All the computers in the office can access the internet no problem but now none of the computers can see each other so file and printer sharing doesn't work. I can ping the other computers but that's it. No settings were changed on any of the computers so I'm assuming there must be some setting in the router that's causing the issues. Any ideas?

[sswilson]

What OS are we talking about here?

XP has always been hit and miss for me when it comes to file/resource sharing on my internal network. It seems to work fine for a period of time, and then breaks for no apparent reason. In most cases, I've found turning file/printer sharing off and then turning it back on seems to resolve the issue.

Root cause of your initial problem is more than likely the fact that the new router assigned different ips to the PCs on the network, and the OS doesn't recognise them.