'Shared' missing from sidebar in Finder??

I was having the same "problem" but now believe it to be user error. Not fully understanding how this feature has been implemented we all think it is broken but today I think I solved the issue. When I opened a new finder window at the top level of my computer, I was surprised to see I was still connected to the machine that was no longer showing in the sidebar. By disconnecting, the computer instantly showed again in the shared area on the sidebar. It would be nice to have shared show even for computers that you are connected to currently, but in my testing it seems that whenever I connect to a machine, it disappears from the sidebar.

Shawn

Update: I may have been mistaken before. My missing shared tab in the sidebar was a "perfect storm" of events.

As you know, when there are no shared devices, the tab is missing. Well, it just so happened there was a power outage a couple of hours before my post. For some reason (problem with my iomega drive) it didn't remount after the power outage, as a result, the shared drive wasn't there. All my other computers were "sleeping" at the time. So I thought there should have been a shared device, but in fact there was not. So that's why rebooting didn't help.

The problem I'm having now is that even though I can see the airport shared drive, I can't connect to see its contents. I'm still working on that issue.

I think I have a solution for this problem, or at least for some people experiencing this issue... Go to preferences -> network -> airport -> advanced -> WINS (or the equivalent, if not using wireless) and set the Workgroup to the same as your PC's (you should have them configured to use a workgroup, not a domain). Log out, and then back in. This brough back the shared section in sidebar for me!

PS: My guess is Leopard somehow auto-discovered the workgroup, and then lost the setting. There's about a million things i could've done in the first few days to cause this, I have no idea which it actually was...

I don't have a work group set up anyway. Even if I did, I wouldn't know how to set it to the same as my computer's workgroup name, if that's what you mean. Do you mean set it to the computer's network name? I don't see what that has to do with a workgroup.

Anyway I have the same problem as many others here. Servers don't show up in the side bar, but then did for the first for hours I ran Leopard (and it was great for those few hours!).

Same problem here....

I, too, cannot see my other computers in the sidebar since upgrading to X.6

Ran across a similar post under the Networking thread. I'm not exactly sure how this feature is supposed to work. But a ran across a solution (well sort of) on Mac OSX Hints. Here's a link to my response on that thread. Hope this helps.

http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=5824242#5824242

I'm having the same problem. The shared devices were there and now they are not. The only thing I can think of is that I changed the computer name of the macbook. I still still connect to everything fine by using go->connect to server

I even added the services to avahi in Ubuntu and they aren't showing up. By default the samba and vnc service showed up.. until it suddenly dissapeared.

Same story here... works on the same computer on another account but not mine. Also works on my account (shared preferences) on other computers on the network. I'm thinking bug.

Just noticed that if I turn off the computer's airport and turn it on again (reset the computer's connection to the network) the shared computers pop up again.

Yes, mine did that once or twice, then.... nothing.

Just read at MacRumors (http://www.macrumors.com/2007/11/12/apple-continues-work-on-first-leopard-update -10-5-1-build-9b16/) that 10.5.1 is addressing some "DNS resolution fixes" that may help this problem.

I have exactly the same problem as everybody else here. Your solution or restarting didn't work. It started approx. a week ago. When mounting a server/computer using command-K and the network adress, it would show up and the shared tab would re-appear.

Very annoying.

Another thing - I'm using the NetGear system for a home-network: it uses the electricity network in the house to transfer data: plug the NetGear ethernet-adaptor into a wall-socket and you have internet, twice as fast as when using wireless. Since Leopard was installed, this connection will no longer start up automatically: Leopard doesn't 'see' it until I unplug it, wait for several minutes and then replug it back in.

Also very annoying.

Strangely enough, I just upgraded the firmware on my fios router, restarted, and suddenly the finder sidebar is showing all the items correctly. When I restart Avahi on my Ubuntu machines the shares automatically disappear and reappear without restarting.

A simple command in the terminal will save you the restart process.
On a terminal window simply type:

'killall Finder'

And open a Finder window. The Share now shows up.