Solved Windows 8.1 Pro SMB Sharing problem

Hi,



Would love some help.



I have a file server that I recently upgraded from Windows 8 to Windows 8.1. Problem is, it broke my smb share to 2 Dune Media players and another PC running XBMC on the Openelec platform. I have spent days scouring forums for information and tried every reg hack and security/sharing fix I found but to no avail. I have since refreshed windows 8.1. I did however just have a breakthrough.



The problem is that the 3 devices above all worked great before the update, now I'm getting errors when ever I try to access a file on the smb share. On my Windows 8.1 file server I have am running storage spaces with about 8 discs amounting to about 16TB of storage, plus an SSD with the operating system. What I just discovered is that if I share a folder on the C drive, it can be scanned and accessed from any of the media players. Therefore it's only the 'storage space' drive that won't authenticate an smb client.

Thanks
Allan Phillips

This is a Linux issue, not Windows. Suggest you ask in the Openelec forums. Samba is finicky. I have found that if you just leave the workgroup as "WORKGROUP" on all machines. There is no issue with it.

broe23 said:

This is a Linux issue, not Windows. Suggest you ask in the Openelec forums. Samba is finicky. I have found that if you just leave the workgroup as "WORKGROUP" on all machines. There is no issue with it.

Click to expand...

Thanks for that. I don't believe I can make changes to the Dune devices.

All devices connected flawlessly 3 weeks ago to Windows 8 though. What changed in 8.1 that would break it?

Allan Phillips

Again, make sure Workgroup on all devices is "WORKGROUP". Also if you are using any kind of firewall or Internet Security software. It can interfere with things properly working. But really it is a Linux Samba issue, due to distro's are still using the older version of Samba.

Thanks again.

All devices are on "WORKGROUP" and no firewall or internet security installed.

Solved

It's been 3 weeks of searching for a solution but I have finally found it. Below is what fixed it for me, extracted from a WD forum.

Re: WD TV Live does not see shared windows USB drives that are connected via hub




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‎01-24-2014 12:46 PM
Well, nobody offered any opinion so far, but I was able to solve the mystery.
It is all about the old IPRStackSize of the LanmanServer (Windows NT is greeting us again).
I was taken off, because access seemed basically to work (at least with Windows machines).
But the Windows 8.1 event log then told me very clearly : event 2011, irpstacksize not large enough, please increase.
This event occurred whenever I tried to access the shared drives from my Android devices or especially from the WD TV Live. The only difference netween these 2 systems was that on the Android devices I could at least see the drives (but could not really open them), while the WD TV Live did not even boither to show me the drives.

Now, I have no clue about the actual limits for the IRPStackSize in Windows 8.1 (the values changed from Windows version to Windows version). So I finally used the limit I found for older Windows systems : 32 (x20).
And it works now like a chram as it seems.
By the way - I found stories about older Windows systems, where people increased the value to 20 (x14). So I tried that value first. With the result that I could not access any drive from other network units at all. So, the default value for this in Windows 8.1 must be even higher than that. I don;t know what it is, but 32 (x20) is obviously higher.

Long story short : it is a Windows 8.1 (possibly already Windows 8) problem. And it can be solved by creating manually an entry in the Registry to add the IRPStackSize parameter with the higher value (as you know, when this parameter is missing, Windows uses a default value, which is obviously too small for drives connected to a hub and accessed by any kind of Linux systems.
I still don't have a clue, why the access request by a Linux based system requires obviously more stack size than a request by a Windows machine. That is still something that makes me shake my head.

Here a little procedure copied from Windows NT solutions :

1. Run regedit.
2. Navigate to the following key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Parameters
3. In the right pane, double-click the IRPStackSize value.
4. In the Value Data box, type a value that is larger than the value that is listed.

If you created the IRPStackSize value using the procedure described in step 4, the default value is 15. It is recommended that you increase the value by 3. Therefore, if the previous value was 11, type 14, and then click OK.
5. Close the Registry Editor and restart the computer.
If the problem persists after you complete the preceding procedure, try to increase the value of IRPStackSize even more. The maximum value for Windows 2000 is 50 (0x32 hex).


NOTE: If the IRPStackSize value does not already exist, use the following procedure to create it:

a.	In the Parameters folder of the registry, right-click the right pane.
b.	Point to New, and then click DWord Value.
c.	Type IRPStackSize. IMPORTANT: Type "IRPStackSize" exactly as it is displayed because the value name is case-sensitive.