Spooky Network Problem........

[Skywatch]

So this is the situation.

This has happened a few times in recent months and it's always down to the same cause.......a raspberry pi running xbian.

I am sat at my win7 (yeah, I know already!) laptop and open up windows explorer to browse the network. Only thing is that nothing is showing. No NAS, No pi's, nothing. All network devices can be pinged successfully but don't show at all in explorer. I can HTTP into the server too, but just can't see it in the network window!

When I unplug the network cable from the offending pi, suddenly everything appears in the laptops explorer window. No SSH login is available on the pi when this happens. It seems like the network function has just died. Reboot the pi (locally) and all is well again, for a while at least. It can take many weeks or months to happen again!

This has happened 4 times now, all at random and with both UK and Chinese manufactured pi's.

To see my set up click on my user name above and see the profile.

Can anyone suggest what might be causing this and how to fix it? Is it a master browser issue? Something else? - It has me scratching my head!

Cheers

Skywatch.

[IriDium]

So according to your profile you have the same issue with Beta 1.1 and Beta 2 - Ethernet and WIFI.

Google shows lots of problems Win 7

I've seen problems with unable to ssh but this has been caused by high CPU load/wait but it does eventually log in. This could explain why unplugging the network cable resolves the issue. (But what about PI2 which is WIfI)

Also, As the NAS is unreachable, this is not connected to the PI? So it's a route from Win7 to router to NAS - RPi is not involved. So unless the RPi is blocking all traffic from the router, it's something else.

Your only real course of action is to eliminate each device one by one.

Also attaching a normal monitor, KB and screen to the RPi would assist as you could tell if the RPi was unresponsive, and not just via the N/W.

[Skywatch]

Hi,

Thanks for posting that.

I have updated my profile as both pi's are now wired. Both pi;s were running 1b1.1.

Seems that *something* happens on the pi that stops win7 explorer seeing network devices whilst retaining the ability to ping them and http into them. All devices go to a patch and then to gigabit switches.

The solution is always to find the offending pi, and reboot or remove the network rj45 plug. Then the laptop can suddenly see everything in explorer again.

I have searched and searched on this but not yet found any definitive info on it. I'll see on the pi forums if any one else is having this happen.

Cheers again...

Skywatch