XYplorer Beta Club

I didn't used to have any problems with XY being able to browse network volumes. But in the last month or so, I've noticed that XY is no longer able to access anything on the network at all.

Mapped volumes say that they're inaccessible. I can't access a network address directly via Go To or the Address Bar. The general Network tree item yields nothing.

XY is completely blind to anything on the network. But Windows Explorer still works perfectly fine.

I'm on Windows 10, so maybe one of the updates is responsible for changing something that caused XY to no longer be able to function with network locations. This is causing significant issues, so I hope a solution is found soon.

May be small comfort, but am having similar issues - signed into Forum today to look for possible solutions.

Solution?

1) Look for the post on "Odd Network Behavior" - there are suggestions for changes to XY Config file.
(I had done those earlier, but worth a try).

2) ALSO - and FWIW - try the Tools / Tools Special / Browse for Network Server option from within XYplorer: that DID "wake up" the network connection on my Win10 desktop.

Hopefully I will remember to try that the next time XYplorer glitches on connecting...

Original reply has not posted yet, so will add this info here:
XYplorer running on a Windows 8.1 laptop has no trouble seeing my Windows 10 Desktop system.

MS File Explorer on the Win10 system can see the 8.1 system - but XYplorer on Win10 cannot see the 8.1 system.

Good to know. I'll have to try the "Browse for Network Server" option to see if it does anything.

But right now on Windows 10, XY is just completely useless for any network volumes. To clarify for the admins, I'm not talking about person-to-person shares (although those might be gone as well) - I'm talking about formal network volumes through Active Directory.

Given the symptoms, I can only imagine that it was a Windows update that broke this.

Is this issue being looked into?

Did you try "Browse for Network Server"? This a shell interface to look at the network.

admin wrote:Did you try "Browse for Network Server"? This a shell interface to look at the network.

I did try it, with odd results.

So, if I just try to look in the "Network" tree item, it comes up empty. If I use "Browse for Network Server", I see a list of top-level shares. Now, the network addresses I'm trying to get to are not there - but that's not unexpected. I'm not seeing server volumes, I'm seeing what looks like user shares - that might be perfectly normal. More importantly, this is more than I was seeing in the tree.

However, if I try to go into any of those top level user shares, I get the same error that the address is not accessible. So ultimately, we're still dealing with the same problem.

Ensure this is UN-ticked:
Configuration | General | Controls and More | Network | Assume that servers are available

admin wrote:Ensure this is UN-ticked:
Configuration | General | Controls and More | Network | Assume that servers are available

I'll confirm it when I get on that machine, but I'm 99% certain that that's already set that way.

I confirmed that I recalled correctly, that setting was already unchecked.

Could you try a fresh instance (= factory default settings) of XYplorer. Simply type fresh; into the address bar of the current XYplorer and press ENTER. Does the fresh instance see the network?

admin wrote:Could you try a fresh instance (= factory default settings) of XYplorer. Simply type fresh; into the address bar of the current XYplorer and press ENTER. Does the fresh instance see the network?

Already tried (one or two beta's ago). No difference.

Bummer. Currently out of ideas.

I've been watching this thread since I have the same problem.


I found a similar report for a completely different app where access to a Windows network share was broken after an update:

https://en.community.sonos.com/troubles ... te-6792917

This references an MSDN article on "SMB 2 and SMB 3 security in Windows 10: the anatomy of signing and cryptographic keys".

Looking further into this, I found the following Microsoft support article:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/hel ... in-windows

...which states that SMBv1 is not installed by default in the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update. Not only that, but if an existing system updates to that version, if SMBv1 isn't used for 15 days, it's automatically uninstalled.

An interesting excerpt from the above article:

Because the Computer Browser service relies on SMBv1, the service is uninstalled if the SMBv1 client or server is uninstalled. This means that Explorer Network can no longer display Windows computers through the legacy NetBIOS datagram browsing method.


So I'm thinking that if SMBv1 got disabled after that Windows 10 update, and XY uses it whereas Explorer is able to use SMBv2 or SMBv3, that could explain the problem.

What do you think?

Well, could be. I don't go deep enough here to know. I just use the API that Windows provides for network enumeration. I always try to use the latest API available, but since Win10 is so poorly documented you can never know...

Quick update.

I found that there are definitely a lot of people experiencing network issues after the Win 10 Fall Creator's Update.

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Fo ... networking


I tried something mentioned in the thread and found that I could access network shares if I used the IP address instead of the server name:

\\123.123.123.123\ShareVolumeName


I thought it might be a useful tidbit to have. If nothing else, it lets people have a useable workaround until this issue is properly resolved.