Cannot access network folders

[pengster]

Hi folks,

I cannot access my network folders via TotalCommander (v6.52)
but I can via Windows Explorer.

I have a Workgroup at home. There are certain folders that TC cannot open/browse. When I double-click on them, the folder icon just opens and shuts immediately in the blink of an eye. No error or message is issued. TC is not hanged or slow. TC just continues on as if I hadn't tried opening the folder.

I have 4 PCs networked. All are Windows XP SP2. I run zonealarm 5.5.094 on all of them. My firewall rules allow all my PCs access to each other.

Each PC has at least one drive partition shared. All my partitions are NTFS. I have the same user/password on all the PCs. I have no problem accessing the shared drive/partitions on all PCs and from every PC. Just that when I drilldown thru the folder structures. Some folders exhibit this problem. Sometimes new folders exhibit this problem, even ones created by TC. I have TC installed on every PC as well. The local TC is able to access the problem folders.

I have tried changing permissions, share security and ownerships to no avail. This problem causes me to switch to Win Explorer. I have searched the forum but haven't found a post with a similar problem. Has anyone got a solution?

[Sheepdog]

In the share dialog you can restrict the number of shares that may access a folder at once. Maybe it is related to this.

sheepdog

[ghisler(Author)]

Please check this entry:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=896427

My comment: You should not set the option NtfsDisable8dot3NameCreation when using Total Commander, it also prevents TC from accessing Unicode names from different codepages.

[pengster]

Sorry folks I've finally got this problem resolved.

First thing. All my shares have unlimited access to everyone.
Thanks Sheepdog, but that wasn't the solution.

Ghisler's solution pointed to the MS knowledgebase. There they said that the solution requires a hotfix from MS support. So I contacted Support and waited for their hotfix. I waited, and waited, and waited, and gave up.

The registry key NtfsDisable8dot3NameCreation is already unset. I made sure it is unset in all my PCs. That didn't work. Tried several more things with folder permissions, group policy and shares. Nothing worked.

Finally, on a whim I unset the key Win95TruncatedExtensions which is on the same registry path HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem.
I unset it because it was the only key still set in that registry path.
Rebooted my PC. Rebooted all PCs. And it worked.

Now TC can access all folders on my workgroup PCs.
I think the solution is the combination of unsetting both Win95TruncatedExtensions and NtfsDisable8dot3NameCreation keys.

thanks folks. Hope this helps somebody else.

[ghisler(Author)]

Thanks for reporting your findings here!

[AlecRoth]

I am having a similar problem. When I move files to my Shared Folder on my laptop (Windows XP Home) with Total Commander, I can not access those files from my desktop via the network (also XP Home). However, if I use the program PowerDesk Pro (not nearly as good as TC, but great in this instance), I can now access the files. Even if I just move the files up or down one directory with PowerDesk, it makes them accessible via the network. No amount of movement with TC gets the needed result.

Are there some permissions TC is not handling properly? Iwould like to take the solution in this thread, but I want to make sure it actually addresses my problem.

[ghisler(Author)]

Are there some permissions TC is not handling properly?

Permissions are handled by the operating system, not Total Commander. I recommend that you try pengster's solution.

[AlecRoth]

I will attempt his approach, but I don't understand why another software package (PowerDesk) is able to manage shared folder contents as expected with the current settings while TC can not.

[AlecRoth]

I installed the patch available via http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=896427 ("Update for Windows XP (KB896427)"), and it did not fix my problem. However, as before, if I simply moved the shared subfolder to a parent directory and then back to where it was using PowerDesk, it became available over my network.

[AlecRoth]

I have now unset (set to 0) Win95TruncatedExtensions on the machine with the shared folders I'm trying to access. NtfsDisable8dot3NameCreation was already unset (set to 0) on that machine. I rebooted for good measure, and I still can not access shared subfoldders and their files. When I attempt it, I get no error. I simply get a error noise and quick blink of the screen. Since my problem may be a little different and the iniator of this discussion had his issue resolved, I will start a new thread describing my problem and attempted solutions.

[ghisler(Author)]

It may be a permissions problem. Please create a button with the command
cm_editpermissioninfo
place the cursor on the folder and press the button. Are the permissions different for the folders which you can access, and the folders which you can't access?

You probably need to do this on the target machine locally, not via the network.

[sahumani]

I have a similar problem. TC (6.0) freezes when accessing a XP SP2 network share when firewall on that machine is on. ZoneAlarm access log (on other machine) says TC is trying to communicate on port 80. WHAT THE HELL DOES IT WANT ON THAT PORT? When I allowed incoming communication on port 80, I got the results immediatelly. Once more: WHAT THE HELL DOES IT WANT ON THAT PORT?

[SanskritFritz]

2sahumani
WHAT THE HELL PLUGINS HAVE YOU INSTALLED?

[sahumani]

No addons, plugins or whatever. Just the tc v6.0.
I have now installed the 6.53 over the old one, used old configs and it doesn't behave that way anymore so I guess it has to be some weird 6.0 feature. Maybe I should try the newest one anyway...
Never mind as update solved the issue and I can remove the weird 'allow incoming on port 80' rule in the firewall setings.

[SanskritFritz]

I guess it has to be some weird 6.0 feature

I seriously doubt that. It could have been a trojan attached as dll to TC or a plugin, but not TC itself. Knowing the project for years, i dare to say that.