Snow Leopard not showing computers on network

Update note:

The weirdest thing happened today, and I don't understand it.

My network "magically" started working. I see all 3 systems in my finder, both on my sidebar and in my network view - my wifes (Vista ultimate 64), my droboshare, my home theater Mac.

I need to note - per this entire thread, until today I HAD NOT SEEN A SINGLE MACHINE in my sidebar, EXCEPT for on occasion I could get to see the home theater mac.

What has changed? well - only three things changed today:

1) my droboshare got accidentally power cycled (due to problem #2 when I was yanking power cords to stop something)

2) My Brother 6490cw smoked today (yes, it was smoking with the wonderful electronics burning smell - hence why I was yanking cords - I thought I had grabbed the right one first, but I had accidentally unplugged the droboshare). I have replaced the 6490 with a new 6490 (I had it for less then a month, so the place I bought it took it back and swapped it out for a new one) it is configured on the same IP address as the old one was with all network settings set)

3) During the unplugging period, I had disconnected the wifiN bridge that connects my main network to my PS3 and Mac mini Home Theater system.

I don't know which - if either - of the three things that were changed, prior to changing could have affected my network effectively breaking it. The funny thing is for some reason, my mac mini (the home theater mac) has somehow taken over being browse master.

Suspicions on the drobo: The Droboshare refused to see any machine except for my wifes as a browse master. Although I can't imagine that breaking browse master elections, I guess anything is possible. The Droboshare runs a stripped down linux implementation - I assume with a 0 or close to it computer rank setting for browse master elections

Suspicions on the printer: What if the printer was sending out some sort of packets that it normally wouldn't / shouldn't that was causing some sort of strain on the network or interference with smb networking? I can't imagine it happening, but I guess anything is possible, I'm not sure how its print server is designed to work - I know it has entries for WINS - but the printer did smoke, although I don't know exactly what part of it smoked, something did, and where the smoke came out was near the network jack (although the entire display was blank and none of the buttons that light lit up).

Suspicions on Mac Mini or WIFI bridge: I guess it's possible that the mini was causing browser contention preventing everything from working, then when disconnected everything else cleared, then when reconnected it managed to get elected to master. Wifi bridge: well, all it does is bridge the two sides, the PS3 is (and has been) off for over a week before SL was released, and is still off. The only other thing on the bridge is my DirecTV box I guess it could have been doing something - I know it is viewed as a network media source for the PS3 and windows.

Questions one might ask:
Did I change anything on the Mac Pro today?
No, no changes since my last set of comments.
Did I change anything on the Mac mini today?
No, I haven't even switched on the TV to watch anything today so I haven't even looked at the minis interface nor back end.
Did I change anything on the vista box?
Nope, wifes box is as it has been for several months.
Have you powercycled ANYTHING?
* printer - replaced
* Droboshare
* Wifi bridge

Like I've basically implied, too many things have occured today that I can't determine exactly what was causing the issue breaking network browsing. But it does appear to be working at this moment in time. If I see it break again, or can narrow down where the issue was I'll post back here again.

Although your issue is similar, it's a bit different because you are using all Macs on the network instead of a mixed network using Samba and the systems belonging to a workgroup.

But - my first thoughts on your issue:

1) Firewall - either changed, or was turned on when it was off when you moved to SL land. Check if the firewalls have changed. If they are on and you can't figure out what's wrong (and as long as you have another firewall between you and the internet) you can try turning the firewall off temporarily on a system that is offering a share and the system that wants to remote access that share and see if that fixes the problem - if it does, then your firewall is blocking traffic required for the sharing protocol you are using (SMB/AFP/NFS/etc)
2) Check in the sharing tab, make sure they all sharing via the same protocol and that they are actually sharing a folder. If sharing is turned on, and the firewall is set to pass sharing (or the firewall is turned off) you may want to try to cycle file sharing off and on and see if by restarting the sharing processes you're then able to properly connect to your other machines.

No worries, you're not offending me or anything by adding to this thread, I'm just concerned you won't get the appropriate attention your issue needs. In theory, since you are using all Macs you should be able to have File Sharing with just AFP selected (although I don't know what protocol time capsule uses, I don't have one) and be able to see other macs on your network and access them...