DarkSerge Posted April 4, 2011 Share Posted April 4, 2011 (edited) HiThe last couple days, I've suddenly been getting an error when accessing my network drives. I have a couple drives on my Windows XP system shared on my network so I can access them on my Windows 7 laptop. Recently, I keep getting an error telling me "The local device name is already in use." It's fine upon first starting or restarting my system, but it seems after a while I loose the connection and I get that error again. My Windows XP machine doesn't show up as a networked computer when I get this error.This is a recent error. Just started a couple days ago. Can't think of any changes I've made to the system recently. Edited April 4, 2011 by DarkSerge Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goretsky Posted April 4, 2011 Share Posted April 4, 2011 Hello,Do the drive volumes in the local and remote computers have the same names?Regards,Aryeh Goretsky Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkSerge Posted April 5, 2011 Author Share Posted April 5, 2011 (edited) yeah, they do, and the same drive letters. It's always been that way though, and the problems only came up within the last few days. The XP machine disappears completely off the network when I have this error. The XP machine can still see the 7 machine, but the 7 machine cannot see the XP machine.update: when I went to the XP system and viewed the 7 computer, the XP system suddenly showed up on the 7 machine again and the drives are working again. Edited April 5, 2011 by DarkSerge Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkSerge Posted April 8, 2011 Author Share Posted April 8, 2011 (edited) I don't really know how to do that actually.My question is, why is it suddenly a problem? My computers have been getting along on my network for a good year now without this frequent problem. I found that disconnecting my wireless connection then reconnecting fixes it.update: it's barely been an hour and I've already lost the network drives again. and tonight i can't access the Windows 7 system from the XP system. So about an hour online and the networked computers stop communicating. They can still show the other on the network, but cannot access each other.this is odd. i never had these frequent problems before. once in a while a restart of this or that might be needed, but never like this. Edited April 8, 2011 by DarkSerge Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkSerge Posted April 10, 2011 Author Share Posted April 10, 2011 (edited) Recently the XP system and the 7 system stop seeing each other on the network completely now.... I have to disconnect and reconnect one of them from the network to get it working.update: i have considered that maybe the problem is the router, cause along with these errors, i've noticed the wireless connection on the laptop randomly goes out now as well. It still raises the question as how the issue formed seemingly from nowhere, since the router would go through less changes than either OS. Plus, the router is restarted on a mostly-daily bases (at least 5 times a week, I turn it off when I leave for work or long periods of time.)another update: i'm trying a wired connection on the laptop to see how it goes. Edited April 11, 2011 by DarkSerge Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zlim Posted April 12, 2011 Share Posted April 12, 2011 the router is restarted on a mostly-daily basis (at least 5 times a week.. By you? What is the reasoning behind stopping and starting the router? Mine has been in service almost continuously since June 2004. The only time I pull the power is during a MAJOR thunderstorm and if we are going away for more than 4 days in the summer. I worry about lightening taking the tv and internet cable so I pull everything. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RichardKR Posted April 12, 2011 Share Posted April 12, 2011 (edited) My wife's Windows 7 System loses it's connection to not only my XP machine, but to the router. I have to go to "hardware devices" and disable then re-enable the NIC card and then it's ok. She has started leaving the machine on all the time because of this. Tried many suggestions but none work the next day with a cold start. Lots of solutions fix it for that session, but turning off the machine for awhile, and restarting causes her to not connect. It tells her the network cable is unplugged. Of course, it's not, but shows that Windows 7 is speaking to the NIC properly, but the NIC is not connecting to the cable.In searching around for an answer, I found I was not alone on Windows 7 losing it's connection to the network. Lots of folks out there are looking for a solution to this problem. It manifests in different ways, but always boils down to Windows 7 dropping it's network connection.Maybe service pack 2 or 34 or something will fix it.BTW, Windows shows the NIC is enabled, and operating fine in hardware devices. Edited April 12, 2011 by RichardKR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest LilBambi Posted April 12, 2011 Share Posted April 12, 2011 Richard, sometimes that kind of problem can be corrected with an updated network device driver. I would check the manufacturer's website to see if there is one. Windows Update may have it as well. But be careful there. Make sure you have a copy of the old device driver or updated device driver from manufacturer on hand in case it doesn't work right. Although you could get it from your computer if it doesn't work right too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkSerge Posted April 13, 2011 Author Share Posted April 13, 2011 I believe something is wrong with the wireless. I've been on a wired connection with my laptop the last couple of nights and not had a single problem. So I'm guessing the problem lies somewhere with the wireless.The router is restarted mostly daily simply because when I'm away at work all day, I put any running computers to sleep and figure there's no need to keep the network running.My wireless driver is up-to-date and hasn't changed since long before any problems, and I haven't made any changes to the router settings in a long time as well. I really can't think of anything that changed with either the router or wireless drivers when the problems started. Even the firmware on the router is up-to-date. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest LilBambi Posted April 13, 2011 Share Posted April 13, 2011 Maybe the wireless is getting flaky and it's time to get a new router? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RichardKR Posted April 13, 2011 Share Posted April 13, 2011 Richard, sometimes that kind of problem can be corrected with an updated network device driver. I would check the manufacturer's website to see if there is one. Windows Update may have it as well. But be careful there. Make sure you have a copy of the old device driver or updated device driver from manufacturer on hand in case it doesn't work right. Although you could get it from your computer if it doesn't work right too.Thanks for that info. I checked and there is no new update available for the NIC. I will keep checking though, because I believe you are right. Certainly sounds like a driver problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkSerge Posted April 14, 2011 Author Share Posted April 14, 2011 Earlier tonight I reinstalled my wireless card. I uninstalled it and restarted and let the system use whatever default driver it has laying around and so far tonight it's been working just fine, no problems. I can still see the XP machine and access the network drives. And my internet connection hasn't gone out either.My router isn't that old, I just replaced it a little over a year ago, like maybe 14 months ago.So it seems to be working. I'll give it another day and see how things go. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest LilBambi Posted April 14, 2011 Share Posted April 14, 2011 Excellent! Maybe a corrupted driver, or you got hit with something? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tushman Posted April 14, 2011 Share Posted April 14, 2011 (edited) My wife's Windows 7 System loses it's connection to not only my XP machine, but to the router. I have to go to "hardware devices" and disable then re-enable the NIC card and then it's ok. She has started leaving the machine on all the time because of this.RichardKR,At first I was going to suggest looking at your power management settings (control panel applet) but then I noticed your statement above and made me wonder if she is using sleep or hibernate mode on that PC. In the device manager, right-click on the network and UNCHECK the box that says "Allow this device to turn off the computer". My wording may not be 100% right but it will display something similar. If this does not rectify the problem, I would probably try another NIC -- they're so cheap these days, it seems like a easy thing to try out and see if it will work. Edited April 14, 2011 by Tushman Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest LilBambi Posted April 14, 2011 Share Posted April 14, 2011 Great thought Tushman! Hibernation, Standby, Suspend are a bloody nuisance when it comes to networking (and often USB too can be a pain with it).Also, if it's a laptop, might want to make sure that it is set NOT to allow disabling networking to save power. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RichardKR Posted April 14, 2011 Share Posted April 14, 2011 RichardKR,At first I was going to suggest looking at your power management settings (control panel applet) but then I noticed your statement above and made me wonder if she is using sleep or hibernate mode on that PC. In the device manager, right-click on the network and UNCHECK the box that says "Allow this device to turn off the computer". My wording may not be 100% right but it will display something similar. If this does not rectify the problem, I would probably try another NIC -- they're so cheap these days, it seems like a easy thing to try out and see if it will work.Thanks for the advice. I will check that. However it does not shut off during use, it just doesn't connect when first turned on. Computer is only about 8 months old with a built in NIC. Might disable that one and put in a NIC card to test. Good point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkSerge Posted April 16, 2011 Author Share Posted April 16, 2011 Changing drivers made it okay for a few days, but the problems have come back today suddenly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tushman Posted April 17, 2011 Share Posted April 17, 2011 (edited) Changing drivers made it okay for a few days, but the problems have come back today suddenly.So it's probably not a driver issue then. It could be a buggy software application. Did you look in the event viewer for any clues? have you made any software updates? OS updates?Edit:I seem to recall during one of my daily online article readings, that there was something related to the MS .NET framework release (update) that causes this same weird behavior. What version of .NET framework do you have on the XP/Win7 system? Maybe try updating one of them to see if that will cure the problem. Right now you've gone nothing to go by other than ruling out a driver issue. (It could still be a driver issue actually) If you had more information - such as gleaning the event veiwer for information - you might be able to take a different approach, but for now that's all I can think of. Edited April 17, 2011 by Tushman Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkSerge Posted April 17, 2011 Author Share Posted April 17, 2011 (edited) Does this tell us anything? I believe this event in the system log happened the last time I lost the drives while on wireless: The client was unable to validate the following as active DNS server(s) that can service this client. The server(s) may be temporarily unavailable, or may be incorrectly configured. 192.168.0.1I still have Internet access when I have network problems. I get surf just fine, it's accessing other computers on my network I have problems with. After that I tried to diagnose it and all this is the next event in the log:The Network Diagnostics Framework has completed the diagnosis phase of operation. The following repair option was offered: Helper Class Name: DnsHelperClassRoot Cause: Windows can't find a computer or device named "valentine-xp"Windows can communicate with the name resolution server but can't find the host name. Root Cause Guid: {c7796413-27ba-4abd-85ae-c69a406d0c2e} Repair option: Make sure the computer or device is turned on and connected to the networkWindows can’t find "valentine-xp". If the computer or device you are trying to reach is nearby, make sure it is turned on and connected to the network. Otherwise, contact your network administrator for assistance. RepairGuid: {68960525-4ae8-4cfc-85e9-3e5e8e373d54} Seconds required for repair: 0 Security context required for repair: 0Interface: ({00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000})"valentine-xp" being the name of my XP system on the network. It was definitely online and running. As soon as I switch to a wired connection, there are no problems. Problems only appear while running on wireless.I don't recall any recently changes in the OS or any software other than Windows updates. The last update for .NET according to my Windows Update was for .NET 3.5.1 but that update was after the problems started. The only major update prior to the problems was Service Pack 1. I estimate that was maybe 3 or 4 days before I had any problems. Edited April 17, 2011 by DarkSerge Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tushman Posted April 17, 2011 Share Posted April 17, 2011 Does this tell us anything? I believe this event in the system log happened the last time I lost the drives while on wireless:he client was unable to validate the following as active DNS server(s) that can service this client. The server(s) may be temporarily unavailable, or may be incorrectly configured. 192.168.0.1....Problems only appear while running on wireless.I don't recall any recently changes in the OS or any software other than Windows updates. The last update for .NET according to my Windows Update was for .NET 3.5.1 but that update was after the problems started. The only major update prior to the problems was Service Pack 1. I estimate that was maybe 3 or 4 days before I had any problems.192.168.0.1 is the address of your router. You're running a wireless router? You might have left that out in you original posting.In that case, go into the admin control panel on your router, and verify a few settings. (It's been a while since I've looked into manually changing the settings on a wireless router.) I can't remember exactly word for word, but you should see a menu item for manually assigning an IP address for each device on the network. You might want to consider updating the firmware on the router (if there is one available).I'm sure there's a lot of other settings you could adjust in the control - hopefully someone else will jump in with more ideas. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkSerge Posted April 18, 2011 Author Share Posted April 18, 2011 (edited) Yes, I'm running on a wireless router. I've already checked for firmware updates, and there hasn't been any new firmware in a year or so. The router settings haven't changed since I got it. (Well, since I set it up. I've been on the same settings since.) Edited April 18, 2011 by DarkSerge Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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