Having problem accessing MacMini over network with PC's Windows 7

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Having problem accessing MacMini over network with PC's Windows 7

Hi all,

I have a Mac Mini with 10.6.x

Onec in a while, especially when restart Airport Extreme for upgrade or something else (both are connected with ethernet cable cat5e) ALL PC's on the network having problem accessing Mac Mini Server while All MACs are fine and can access all folders no problem. Usually takes about 3-4 min for PC to connect to server. Then once it is connected (it loads all folder and files in that current window on the PC) i can go from folder to folder with no delays. However if i close the window with all folders then again i have to wait for around 3 min. to load everything all over again. AFP and SMB are ON. Today i made an experiment and turned SMB off and the problem still excist with the difference that after 3-4 min delay no folders were shown.

It seems that the PCs have hard time establishing connection with the server which is weird that Macs don't have that problem. It must be something with the setting of Mac MIni. Other wise i have no problem accessing Internet so the routher is working fine. DHCP is ON on the AP Extreme.

The only way i have found out to help is to restart the Router and Server and that usually fix the problem 😕.

Could you please help me figure what is going on there?

Mac mini, Mac OS X (10.6)

Posted on Apr 10, 2012 3:58 PM

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Answer 1

immigranta Author

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Apr 10, 2012 4:54 PM in response to immigranta

Maybe Firewall problem?😕

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Answer 2

BDAqua

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Apr 10, 2012 5:37 PM in response to immigranta

I don't think it's a Firewall problem since it does connect in the first place.

SMB is notorious for slow speeds, add the fact that the Mac Forks & Metadata further complicate things, but...

Is the PC displaying it in Icons or Text like List? What mode display of files is the Mac Windows set to?

Maybe a slight speed bump...

To configure a Mac OS X user account so that .DS_Store files are not created when interacting with a remote file server using the Finder, follow the steps below.

Note: This will affect the user's interactions with SMB/CIFS, AFP, NFS, and WebDAV servers.

1 Open the Terminal.

2 Type:

defaults write com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteNetworkStores true

3 Press Return.

4 Restart the computer.

If you want to prevent .DS_Store file creation for other users on the same computer, log in to each user account and perform the steps above—or distribute a copy of your newly modified com.apple.desktopservices.plist file to the ~/Library/Preferences folder of other target users.

These steps do not prevent the Finder from creating .DS_Store files on the local volume. These steps do not prevent previously existing .DS_Store files from being copied to the remote file server.

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Answer 3

immigranta Author

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Apr 10, 2012 6:08 PM in response to BDAqua

Everything looks normal as for icons and everything else just the slow connection when i connect pc to mac mini.

what is .dc_store file? how will this have anything to do with pc establishing connection to mac mini file server?

thanks

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Answer 4

BDAqua

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Apr 10, 2012 6:37 PM in response to immigranta

It won't have anything to do with establishing the connection, just maybe save a little time in those transfers.

You must use SMB unless you PCs have something like MacDrive that allows reading HFS+ Drives... not sure if that works for Network drives though come to think of it.

DS_store files store info about the folder settings and File notes on the Mac end.

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Answer 5

immigranta Author

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Apr 10, 2012 7:59 PM in response to BDAqua

It is weird cuz when i restart the router and server that problem goes away. Something gets reseted and that problem disapear .........

Again, when i update the Airport Extreme something gets mess up on the server side and PC's can communicatquite well with mac mini. What setting should i look into to see if set the right way?

I guess it is the right way since works the most of the time other those mention above?

Thanks

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Answer 6

BDAqua

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Apr 10, 2012 8:09 PM in response to immigranta

As a test, without changing anything else, log out of the Mac & back in, do the PCs regain connection?

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Answer 7

immigranta Author

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Apr 10, 2012 8:28 PM in response to BDAqua

I will try tomorrow when i have access to it.

Does logging out of the server stop all running services?

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Answer 8

BDAqua

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Apr 10, 2012 8:50 PM in response to immigranta

I don't know how many Services will be interupted, sorry.

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Answer 9

immigranta Author

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Apr 11, 2012 8:31 AM in response to BDAqua

So,

Since all PC's users got tired of waiting to access the server i ended up restarting it and that again fixed the issue.

After that i needed to reboot the APExtreme and the problem with delayed connection appeared again.

Then i restarted the server and the issue went away.

Any other options folks that might be useful to troubleshoot?

Is there anything to do with the setting of the server that might get mess up after restarting the router which could cause that delay?

Thanks

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Answer 10

immigranta Author

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Apr 11, 2012 9:15 AM in response to immigranta

I came across as i was searching for this issue and it seems that authentication might be the issue in the whole mess. Do you guys think that this might be the case ?

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Answer 11

BDAqua

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Apr 11, 2012 12:18 PM in response to immigranta

Sounds quite possible.

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