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Nautilus is displaying 2 icons/items for some, but not all systems on the network. Here is how I got where I am.

The original problem was Nautilus would display only the two NAS devices on the network in the "Network Servers" windows and nothing in the "Windows Networks" window. This resulted in one RaspberryPI (running openhab) and a few Windows systems not being displayed in Nautilus. The Windows systems could display all devices on the network in the Windows network window. The 18.04 system could ping all systems on the network by name as well as IP address.

This particular 18.04 workstation system was a clean install, not an upgrade. I have another system running identical hardware (other than drives) that was an upgrade from 16.04 which does not have this issue.

This is what I've done to try and resolve this problem:

  • Installed Samba not the samba client initially just Samba. I'm not sure what the difference is between the two.
  • Compared the smb.conf of the working system with the non-working system - they are the same.
  • Then I found and followed the suggestions in "Nautilus fails to see shares in 18.04". That corrected the problem of not seeing everything on the network.

"Nautilus fails to see shares in 18.04" - Introduced the following issues:

  • Duplicate entries in the Network servers window.
  • Every network device shows up in the root of then "Network Servers" window when only Linux type shares should be displayed (I think).
  • Only Windows based systems are displayed in the Windows networks window, which I think is correct but they are also displayed in the root of the "Network Servers" windows.

Any suggestions would be great. Thanks.

TroyT
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1 Answers1

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Given the types of hosts you have in your network there isn't a real good answer to your dilemma.

There are two ways a Linux smb client can "discover" hosts on the network.

  1. The old netbios way which in 18.04 is pretty much broken and can only be fixed if you add "client max protocol = NT1" to smb.conf.

  2. The modern mDNS way which works for Linux, macOS, and any device designed to work with them.

A server ( like Ubuntu 18.04 ) can and does broadcast itself to the rest of the network using both methods except for Windows since it doesn't use mDNS for this purpose.

A Linux client can discover both which is why you see duplicates for those machines that brodcast using both methods. One of them will resolve to a-host-name ( netbios ) and one to a-host-name.local ( mDNS ). Any host that uses mDNS will show outside the "Windows Network" label because they aren't using netbios.

But, a further complication is that often used servers using netbios can show up outside the "Windows Network" because they have already been resolved and remembered.

EDIT: I offer here a possible way around this issue which might work for you: Don't browse for these hosts / devices. Bookmark them instead.

Browse to the server in Nautilus as you normally do but when the list of shares available shows up for that server bookmark it: Click on the "hamburger" icon in Nautilus and select the "Bookmark this Location" icon.

That will create a link on the side panel labeled "Windows shares on xxx". You can rename that if you want by right clicking the link.

Then when you want to access a network resource you select the bookmark instead of going through Network / Windows Network.

Morbius1
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