[Springymajig]

Hi,

A few weeks ago I bought a Linksys Wireless router for my home set up. I have a personal computer in my upstairs bedroom (lets call that PC1) and a sort of "work horse" in a downstairs studio (lets call it PC2), so I thought it'd be good to get a wireless set up so I don't have cables going everywhere.

Both computers are running Windows XP, service pack 3.

I got two USB TP-Link network adapters (one of them is slightly different, one is 54mbps and the other 108mbps, and have slightly different software but otherwise they're they same).

I managed to get internet working perfectly for a while now, and has been working PERFECTLY since, but I just can't figure out this network issue. I don't know a lot of the more complicated computer stuff, but I learn it pretty easily (and boy have a learnt a lot trying to sort out this mess!).

Symptoms:

For the most part, the two computers just won't connect with each other at all. Occassionally, the shared folders will show up under my network places, sometimes the computers will even show under workgroup computers, sometimes NEITHER computer shows up under workgroup computers. 99% of the time, if I click on any share folders, it'll show an error message ending with "The network path was not found". Sometimes there will be like... communication happening one way but not the other (I think it's mostly PC2 being able to access PC1, but PC1 can't get into PC2).

The other 1% of the time.... it actually works fine! I have not been able to make any connection with anything I've done to try to fix it, and it breaking, so I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

What I've done so far:

- File and printer sharing is ticked on both computers
- Firewall is set to allow file sharing
- Temporarily turned off firewall. This seemed to work once, but I've tried it several times since and haven't had as much luck.
- I wondered if maybe the distance of the router and computers was an issue, so I put both computers and the router downstairs. Nothing.
- Temporarily turned off AVG antivirus and firewall, did nothing
- Turned off DHCP on the router and set a static IP on both computers (it's still set to this).
- Enabled NetBIOS over TCP/IP (again, I left it set to this)
- I tried renaming the workgroup name, which sounded like a stupid thing to do but apparently it worked for someone. It didn't for me
- I ran the "Set up a home or small office network" wizard, just to see what would happen. I renamed the workgroup for a 3rd time here. Now... this seemed to work for a while, and it was glorious. I took my PC upstairs, hooked it up again, and then the network stopped working. I screamed.
- I ran the "Set up a home or small office network" wizard again... and it.... worked again... for a little while. I can't remember at what point it stopped working but it was probably less than an hour later.


I think I might have tried a couple of other small things after that but I can't remember. Sorry for the long post, I really hope someone out there can help me before I book myself into a mental health clinic.

Thanks.

[JohnWill]

Turn off any firewalls for debugging. If the firewall is the problem, you'll have to configure it to allow access to "trusted zone" addresses. Note that some firewalls must be completely uninstalled to stop them from affecting your networking.

Hold the Windows key and press R, then type CMD to open a command prompt.

In the command prompt window that opens, type type the following commands:

PING each remote computer by IP address, and if successful, PING by name. Open a command prompt as described above and type.

PING <ip address>
or
PING <computer name>

Where:
<ip address> - is the x.x.x.x IP address
<computer name> - is the computer name

A failure to PING is almost always a firewall configuration issue. Any failure to PING needs to be corrected before you go any farther.

Note: You can obtain the IP address and computer name of a computer by opening a command prompt (DOS window) and typing IPCONFIG /ALL. This should work for any Windows version. The IPCONFIG /ALL display will provide a wealth of useful information for debugging your network connection.

Check your Services are Started on all PCs:

• COM+ Event System (for WZC issues)
• Computer Browser
• DHCP Client
• DNS Client
• Network Connections
• Network Location Awareness
• Remote Procedure Call (RPC)
• Server
• TCP/IP Netbios helper
• Wireless Zero Configuration (XP wireless configurations)
• WLAN AutoConfig (Vista wireless configurations)
• Workstation

Note: You can check the services in Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Services.

All of these services should be started, and their startup type should be automatic.

If a service is not running, open it's properties and check the dependencies. Check each of the dependencies and see which one is preventing the service from running. Checking the event log is also a good idea here, there may be clues to what is failing.


All computers should be in the same workgroup for computer browsing to function properly. File & Print Sharing has to be enabled on any computer you wish to share files or printers from. You also need to actually share the resource in question from My Computer, right click on the drive/printer/folder, and select sharing.

If you encounter difficulties accessing computers that are visible in Network Places (Network and Sharing Center in Vista), make sure the computer being accessed has an account with the same name/password as the system connecting to it uses to login. NOTE: Vista's default is to require a password on the account to enable file/print sharing.

While the default NetBIOS setting is correct for normal network configurations, it's possible for it to be altered, and it costs nothing to make sure it's correct. NETBIOS over TCP/IP must be enabled for normal network browsing. You can open a command prompt as described above and type the following command: nbtstat -n. This will display the status of NetBIOS or indicate it's not configured.

[Springymajig]

Hi,

Thanks a lot for your reply.

First of all, while all those services were "started" some were set to manual, so I changed them to Automatic. This didn't solve the problem BUT....

I turned off the firewall on both computers and was able to successfully ping each other, both with IP address and by name! I tried accessing files over the network and it worked fine.

I turned the firewall back on and 5 minutes later I got the "network path was not found" message.

So it seems to be a problem with the firewall but the problem is how do I fix it? It's just the standard, built-in windows firewall. I have "file and printer sharing" ticked under exceptions, when I click "edit" on that, it has 4 boxes saying TCP 139, TCP 445, UDP 137, UDP 138. All those boxes are ticked, and under scope on all of them it says Subnet.

That's all I know. I don't feel confident fiddling around the advanced tab very much so if there's anything that needs to be done there you'll have to guide me through step by step.

Thanks a lot, you've been very helpful so far, I feel like I'm making progress...

[JohnWill]

Actually, the plain Windows firewall shouldn't do that, I'm surprised it's giving you that problem.

I have to believe it's something else that is affecting the configuration of the Windows firewall in this case.

Have you reset the Windows firewall to defaults? Maybe something odd going on there.

[Springymajig]

Do you mean I should restore it to default settings, or are you asking if I have at some point? I don't think I have... I've never touched the firewall till I started having problems with the wireless network (I never had problems with a wired network, and in fact I'm pretty sure I connected both of these computers via the router with ethernet cables and the network worked fine...)

[JohnWill]

There's a setting in the firewall to reset to defaults, I'd try that first.

[sdikevin]

wait you have a windows firewall and an avg firewall right..... Running two firewalls can cause crazy problems. I would disable the windows firewall and test the avg firewall settings to see if you can get it to work better. But really, if your behind a router that has a firewall there really is no need for a software firewall.

[Springymajig]

Well I rest the firewall settings and it seems to be working now! Thanks SO MUCH JohnWill! I have to admit I'm still a little worried something might go wrong... but hopefully you won't see me again (at least not for the same problem).

But right now I just want to give someone a hug (where'd my cat go...)

sdikevin: Thanks for the tip but I'm using the free version of AVG and I don't think it comes with a firewall. I'll keep that in mind though.

[JohnWill]

Gee, I find the problem and the cat gets the hub. Where's the justice in that?



You can mark your own threads solved using the button at the top of the first page of the thread in the upper left corner.©

[Springymajig]

*SIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGH* I knew this was too good to be true...

It stopped working again. Network path cannot be found.

So I tried restoring the firewall to default settings and it still didn't work.

Turned the firewall off again, and now they can't even ping each other.

It really feels like someone's out to get me, reprogramming my computer every time I'm not looking so whatever I do to fix it, it won't work a second time.

[JohnWill]

This sounds like you have more going on that just network configuration issues. There's no reason for stuff like that to change without help.

[Springymajig]

Do you think I should just bite the bullet and hire a professional?

[JohnWill]

Did you try booting both of them in Safe Mode with Networking to see if this is some application or service running in normal mode that's causing the issue?

[Springymajig]

Ok.... I did some safe mode tests, in short:

The network worked fine with both computers in safe mode, and both computers could ping each other by name and IP address.

I also tried testing the network with one computer running in Safe Mode and the other in Normal Mode, here with the results (I can't really figure out form this if only one of them is at fault or if it's both of them):

PC1 (safe mode) -> PC2 (normal mode): No network, could not ping.

PC1 (normal Mode) -> PC2 (safe mode): I tried pinging by name first, and it failed, then I tried pinging by IP address and it worked. Then I tried pinging by name again... and it worked. The Network worked fine.


PC2 (safe mode) -> PC1 (normal mode): Could not ping by name, but could ping by IP address. No network.

PC2 (normal mode) -> PC1 (safe mode): No network, could not ping.


I hope that's not too hard to follow... dunno if it's helpful.

[JohnWill]

PC2 has a firewall blocking your access. PC1 may have one as well, but the results indicate that for sure there is one on PC2.