SOLVED Urgent Network Assistance Requires - SMB

[EddieT]

Hi Guys, please assist. I am not an IT professional. We have been using Truenas for years now, currently on Truenas Core 13 U5.3

We are a small consultancy office and use a SMB share for data storage purposes with about 8 Windows 10 and 11 pc accessing the data. no problems for years.

Since the last couple of weeks the windows pc's just randomly cannot access the share, although I can ping the server and the web ui works perfectly. i then have to wait until 12 at night when the server indicates reload configuration and then everything works for a day or two, and then the same issue.

 

[EddieT]

anyone? this is still going on

 

[sretalla]

Do you mean that the server is no longer visible in the "Network" part of Windows Explorer? or that mapped drives disconnect?

Have you tried restarting the SMB service (and does that fix the problem)?

Or have you tried under Network | Global Configuration turning off WS Discovery (save) then back on again (save)

 

[EddieT]

The drives are visible in Windows, but cannot be access. Everything just hangs when I click a shared drive. i have restarted the smb service and no change. according to the ui everything is up and running. there is a message in green at the bottom indicating:

wsdd warning, no interface given, using all interfaces

the drives in windows show green as being connect, but clicking on then returns nothing

 

[EddieT]

Or have you tried under Network | Global Configuration turning off WS Discovery (save) then back on again (save)

This worked! why would that be?

 

[sretalla]

This worked! why would that be?

Because the mDNS service is responsible for the network function that allows Windows systems to see the server.

Restarting it causes it to work again after for some reason becoming stuck.

I can't tell you why your network setup is resulting in that situation in the first place... things like jails or VMs running on the server? Network equipment issues? not using a bridge when you should be?

 

[EddieT]

Thanks so much, you can mark this as solved! Just on a side note, we are only running a simple smb share. no jails or vm's

 

[sretalla]

we are only running a simple smb share. no jails or vm's

So that leaves something weird in your network setup as the only "obvious" explanation.

 

[adam25131]

@sretalla Thankyou!! this problem has been plaguing me for days as well and this solution worked!!
I see in your response earlier that Jails could have caused this, I do run a plex server, have I set that up incorrectly or something different I should set up to stop this happening again in the future?
Many Thanks

 

[sretalla]

Manually setting up your jail bridge can help avoid some network quirks, so might be worth trying.

Stop your jails and VMs.

Remove the IP address from your NIC in Network | Interfaces. Turn off Hardware Offloading. Save but don't test it yet.

Create a new bridge (bridge0), taking your NIC as a member. Assign the IP of your NAS here. Save and test the changes, make sure to come back within the timeout to Save/confirm.

Start your jails... should work as normal.

VMs will need to have their NIC changed to the bridge interface.

With a bridge in place for the host, broadcast (and mDNS) should work properly while jails and VMs run.