[Bug 375593] [NEW] cannot browse samba shares without editing smb.conf

[Martin G Miller]

Public bug reported:

Binary package hint: samba

I maintain 2 networks with mixed ubuntu / Windows XP SP2 machines and this problem started suddenly in September of 2008.  All of my Ubuntu machines whether they are clean installs of 8.04 or 8.10 or 9.04, 32 or 64 bit or upgrades from earlier versions all exhibit the failure to display or browse smb shares. The only fix is to edit etc/samba/smb.conf:
# What naming service and in what order should we use to resolve host names
# to IP addresses
 ; name resolve order = lmhosts host wins bcast

remove the leading ; from the name resolve order line and change the order of the entries to read:
   name resolve order = lmhosts wins bcast host

Save the file, log off and back on.

This change fixes the problem for all my machine in both networks.
The problem remains unresolved in Jaunty unless I do this. This problem appeared suddenly in September of 2008 on 8.04 machines that had been working normally and has persisted through 8.10 and now 9.04.

Clicking on the Places > Network to bring up the network browse gui will
take a fairly long time to appear and it will not display any of the
machines on the network, whether Ubuntu or Windows XP.  It may display
an icon for "Windows Network", but if that is clicked, the system times
out with nothing displayed after about 60 seconds.

This happens on all machines whether clean installs or upgrades with
8.04, 8.10 and 9.04, both 32 And 64 bit.  IT also does not matter if the
Ubuntu machines are static IP or DHCP.

After editing the smb.conf file as noted above, the network gui works
quickly and as expected & displays all shares on all Windows XP and
Ubuntu machines on the local network.

Additional info: until I found the fix noted here, I installed the kde
3.x network browser.  I forget the name of the package, but that worked
instantly.  Once I got gnome working, I uninstalled it.  I have not had
to do this on the new 9.04 installs, I just edit smb.conf and everything
works as expected.

** Affects: samba (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: New

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cannot browse samba shares without editing smb.conf
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/375593
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