!SMBV1 and Network Discovery Problem

[Laxarus]

Hello guys,
I wonder if any of you are having the same problem.
384.19 with rt-ac5300.
When you enable Samba whereas on windows, you don't enable deprecated SMBv1 support, you stop seeing network devices on "My Network Places".

The logic here is like this. You enable Samba and even if you don't enable master browser, when no windows machines are present, router automatically becomes master browser. When it becomes "Master", even if I select SMBv2 as minimum protocol, the "WORKGROUP" machines(Especially NAS devices) is still not visible from windows machine.
Restarting the router temporarily makes the windows machine as "Master" and makes "WORKGROUP" visible. However, when you shut down the windows machine, the router becomes Master again.
There are couple of options here to fix the issue to a certain degree.
- Disable SAMBA on the router.
- Change the domain of the router from "WORKGROUP" to something else. (In theory, this should work but didn't try yet.)
- Use a dedicated windows server machine.
- Enable SMBv1 on the windows machines.

These are all the options I could test to make things work again but they are not satisfactory
first method loses the functinality.
second method loses the visibility
third method is ridicilous.
fourth method is not safe and a lot of work if you have lots of machines. (Not to mention windows turns it off arbitrarily when updated.)

Am I missing something here? Do you guys also have the same problem or this is a specific problem for my network? Is there a definite fix for this?

 

[ColinTaylor]

... on windows, you don't enable deprecated SMBv1 support, you stop seeing network devices on "My Network Places".

If you disable SMBv1 on a Windows client it will not be able to discover Samba shares. SMBv2 does not support browsing "My Network Places".

... even if I select SMBv2 as minimum protocol, the "WORKGROUP" machines(Especially NAS devices) is still not visible from windows machine.

The only reason you can browse to the router's Samba share when SMBv2-only is selected is because the router also supports WSD. Unless your NAS devices are also running WSD you will not be able to see them.

 

[Laxarus]

There is something conflicting with what you said.
I have currently 1 raspi, 3 NAS and 1 win pic on the same workgroup.
Router samba and windows smbv1 are disabled.
I can see all the devices with no problem.
When I enable only Samba v2 on the router and restart my router. I can still see the devices in addition to the router samba share (because I think the win pc is still the master?)
However, when I restart my pc, all the devices are gone even though WSD is enabled on all the NAS devices. According to your logic, they should still appear under "My Network Places". If what you said is correct, where is the problem in this setup that exhibits this kind of behavior?
Update: Forgot the mention, the other pc's on the same network exhibit the same behavior. And I double checked with clean windows install too.

 

[ColinTaylor]

I don't know anything about your NASs so I can't really guess what they're doing.

I would start by confirming what Discovery Method your Windows client is using to find the other devices. And of course make sure Network Discovery is turned on in Windows.

 

[L&LD]

@ColinTaylor, what file manager are you using on which OS?

 

[ColinTaylor]

Windows Explorer. My screenshot was from Windows 7 but Windows 10 is the same. Just make sure you've set it to "Details" view.

 

[Laxarus]

All of my devices seem to be using NETBIOS instead of WSD.
What I wanted was pretty simple, I wanted to see and access my devices using "My Network Places" without depending on a deprecated platform. Why is Microsoft hell bent on making this so hard and complicated?
Anyway, why can I see NETBIOS devices even though SMBv1 is disabled?
Should I disable SSDP and WSD on those devices and enable it again?
I am pretty frustrated.

 

[ColinTaylor]

How are you disabling SMBv1 on your Windows clients?

 

[Laxarus]

using control panel and uninstalling smbv1 client.

 

[ColinTaylor]

using control panel and uninstalling smbv1 client.

Then apparently that hasn't worked properly because if you have uninstalled SMBv1 it can't then be using it to discover the devices on your LAN.

 

[RAH-66]

run gpedit.msc & enabled guest logons

 

[Laxarus]

After intensive testing, I've concluded that WSD is totally unreliable and useless when you have NAS devices on your network. I don't know where the fault lies (Microsoft or Synology). But the synology WS-Discovery is totally unreliable. Sometimes it works and other times it doesn't. What I've found that definetely works without a problem is enabling SMBv1 on windows clients and assigning router as master browser. I appreciate all the suggesitons you guys gave me especially @RAH-66 and @ColinTaylor . Thanks a bunch guys.

 

[ColinTaylor]

But the synology WS-Discovery is totally unreliable. Sometimes it works and other times it doesn't.

Thanks for the update. I'm not that surprised to hear about the Synology problems. I remember when RMerlin first tried to implement wsdd2 he found the code to be buggy and unreliable. He and themiron had to make some significant changes to get it to work properly.

 

[Laxarus]

Thanks for the update. I'm not that surprised to hear about the Synology problems. I remember when RMerlin first tried to implement wsdd2 he found the code to be buggy and unreliable. He and themiron had to make some significant changes to get it to work properly.

Totally agree.
I am hoping they fix these kind of things on DSM 7. Fingers crossed.