Snow Leopard not showing computers on network

I am able to see all Macs on my network. My Macbook Pro using airport is able to see the Vista machine fine. My Mac Pro is connected via ethernet and it can see only the Macs. If I switch airport ON on the Mac Pro I can see the Vista machine immediately. How come I cannot see Vista via Ethernet but airport works fine?

Hi, I'm no expert on this but I think you need to turn on the "Share files and folders using SMB (Windows)" under the options button in the file sharing pane for it to be able to see the ethernet connection. I haven't used Window for quite some time but I know the connection protocol is different.

You might also have to check the ethernet set up under your network preference. Hope this helps.

Upgraded to 10.6.2 today, and lo and behold, my networking shares started showing up automatically in Finder. Both Windows 7 and XP machines showed up fine after a few minutes, and I was able to connect to their shares through the finder.

Just wondering if anyone else's networking started working with the upgrade to 10.6.2?

I was also able to run the command "Nmblookup -M -- -" in terminal and it returned my Mac as the Master Browser, which it didn't do before.

My networked PCs are also showing up in the Finder Shared folder since upgrading to 10.6.2. Apple doesn't list this in it's listing of 10.6.2 improvements.

Good to hear networking's working for someone else with 10.6.2 too. Like you, I also noticed that it didn't seem to be included in the list of official fixes given by Apple, although I don't know what area this would come under, or what caused this problem in the first place?

I'll check mine tonight to see if 10.6.2 has brought me joy.

Nope, doesn't work for me. 😟

My Windows 7 desktop is the master browser, and the mac can't see it under shared. I can of course manually connect, as has always been the case.

Have you tried disabling the Window machine as Master Browser and, instead, making the Mac the Master Browser?

I only say this because I've had trouble in the past, with Shares showing up in Finder, if I use a Window's Master Browser.

At least if it works with the Mac as Master Browser, you can track the problem down to Windows.

I just did the "toggle solution" and it worked great. All local Macs on the network are showing up in the sidebar as "Shared".
Go into the System Preferences, go to the Sharing folder and deselect and then select File Sharing and Remote Management. I also chose ALL USERS just to get it kick started. Once they showed up as "Shared" then I refined the Users.

From Day 1 of SL and my new machine early September, I never had this problem. However, a few days ago I suddenly started to get connect fail to my PCs. Having tried everything restart-wise, I finally installed the last bit of 10.6.2 updating I'd been holding off - the airport client patch. Suddenly I could re-connect to my PCs. That didn't last for long though as I was soon back to no connect to Finder-VISIBLE PCs. After much experimentation, I found that the default name lookup wasn't working (? Finder must be doing a Netbios lookup to display entries but that is not used int he connect operation). I confirmed the validity of my hypothesis as a name lookup issue by dig & nslookup fail and nmblookup working for the PC names. I tried connecting using ip address from Finder Go>Connect and that worked in the manner I was used to (apart from the name of course).
So a bit off thread but perhaps related if anyone can offer suggestions please ?
btw I tried hacking master browser etc in smb.conf following on ideas in this thread but that didn't seem to help so undid all that.

...and why did the airport patch give me temporary respite ? __ Some pref files wiped maybe ?
A 2nd install of that patch didn't give respite - maybe it "knew" there was nothing to install :-{

...still couldn't figure this one so hacked /etc/hosts file not expecting that to be used by Mac OSX for connect ... but it turns out that it currently is.
So I have a work-around with which I am not happy. Oh well that wasted my holidays.

I've tried the various recommendations here and my Win7 machines are still not showing up unless I do a "Go To Server". Can anyone provide instructions on how to get the Mac to be the Master Browser?

_*To jgdiablo*_:-
If you have the only Samba / OS X computer on your subnet, then I guess you could try editing your '/etc/smb.conf' config-file, by adding the following settings at the bottom so that they override any prior ones:

\[global\]
domain master = no
local master = yes
preferred master = yes
os level = 65

(Note: These settings are lifted straight from '[The Official Samba 3.2.x HOWTO and Reference Guide > Chapter 10. Network Browsing > Example 10.2. Local master browser smb.conf|http://www.samba.org/samba/docs/man/Samba-HOWTO-Collection/NetworkBrow sing.html#lmbexample]'. Also, just a reminder that, to edit this protected config-file, you'll normally need to use escalated privileges, e.g. via 'sudo', to run as root either a command-line editor or GUI editor.)

_*To all*_:-
In addition to the "local master browser" option, just another reminder that there are also other things you could try if you're having firewall-related problems (as also discussed in earlier posts)... For instance, if your subnet's computers are using their own firewalls (for internal-traffic filtering), and all the usual NetBIOS / SMB ports (TCP 139 & 445, UDP 137-138 & possibly others) have already been opened up, but your Macs are still not seeing any networked Windows PCs' names, you could try opening up UDP port 1900 (SSDP / MS-mDNS) on your +Windows PCs'+ firewalls. Also, double-check that your Macs' firewalls (if they're 2-way port-based such as the built-in 'ipfw' via a WaterRoof front-end) do accept incoming UDP traffic with source NetBIOS / SMB ports, not just destination ones.

{I realized the possible importance of SSDP "local-DNS" broadcast queries the hard way, after recently upgrading to a new Mac which came with OS X 10.6.0 (now updated to 10.6.2). At first I couldn't get any of my household's networked XP PCs to show up in the new Finder's Network browser or its Sharing sidebar-section. Also, the 'findsmb' util couldn't see any of the PCs' names. However, I could still connect via raw IP-addresses just as I always used to on my trusty old PM G4 (MDD) under Tiger, so I knew that my particular case was just an SMB name-resolution issue. I ended up analyzing a 3rd-party firewall's log on one of the networked PCs, where the SSDP incoming traffic immediately stood out. I'm not sure whether Samba is directly issuing the SSDP queries, or some other service's client is doing that and Samba is just (usually?) able to access the resulting local-DNS records. Or then again, the SSDP traffic could turn out to just be sheer coincidence after all! So far, the PCs' visibility has survived some reboots of both Mac and PCs, so I guess I'll keep my fingers crossed. ;-)}

Anyway, good luck to everyone,

--P

I am afraid that with SL what you don't see is what you get. Computers show up under shared only sporadically under SL.

🙂 Ya, thats what I find also, after coming from 10.4.xx and everything working great. Sometimes rebooting everything seems to work, but days later some will disappear. This and what they did to file sharing and permissions, to me is 5 steps backwards. I keep saying that they must have hired some MS layoffs, and set them to redesign a few things.

Just wanted to add my post here too; I am experiencing the ability to see all my mac's and other "smb nas devices" but I am not able to see a windows 7 machine.

No firewall enabled on router, no firewall enabled on adapter on either my mac or the windows 7 machine; turned off password protect and have followed all recommendations here in this thread, I have added the SMB preferences under global in the smb.conf files, etc. am on 10.6.2 as well...

I can connect fine IF I USE THE IP ADDRESS; I can authenticate and maintain connection perfectly, just that the SMB client is not seeing any windows boxes (I have 4 of them)