SMB share, connection timed out

[Gavin Craddock]

Hi, I have two Raspberry Pis running Xbian (one in the lounge, one in the bedroom) and all of my videos are on my main PC (running Windows 7). I have the Windows folders containing the videos shared for "everyone" and I've connected using SMB on the Pis.

For months now, I've been streaming videos using this setup but all of a sudden I've started to get the message "Connection Timed Out" whenever I access the shared folder from either Pi. I can see the name of the computer, It shows me the folder names, but then says "connection timed out" almost immediately after I select any of them.

Both Pis have a wired network connection, they both have static IP addresses, both respond to my remote control app on my phone (which works via the network, so I assume the network connection is good), I can SSH into both of them using Putty and I can ping both of them from my computer and can ping my computer from both of the Pis. My laptop (also running Windows 7) is able to connect to the shared drive without a problem and watch the videos.

Two questions :

1) What on earth could be the problem?? Any ideas of things to try or do gratefully received, I've no idea beyond what I've done...

2) Is this the best way to share my files, or should I use this opportunity to try something else. What do people recommend?

Thanks in advance!

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As is often the case with these things, as soon as you post a question, the answer hits you smack in then face... I'll post it here in case anyone else googles the same problem and finds this thread.

When I'd set static IP addresses up on the Pis, I'd somehow got the default gateway and nameserver wrong (I had 192.168.1.1 instead of the correct (for me) 192.168.1.254). No idea how it worked for so long with the wrong values in, but it works again now.

Thanks for the hlep you would have given!!! :-)

[IriDium]

Ah the famous "All of a sudden" - "I didn't touch anything - honest guv" scenario.

Glad you got it working without any assistance.