Newest WD TV Live cant see shares, older ones can

Ive got two of the older model WD TV Live (the one with the tiny remote) and never had issues with them seeing the shares.  Ive always made sure one of my main servers was always the master browser and those two WD TV Live’s had no issue seeing the servers under Network and connecting to them.  I just got the latest updated WD TV Live (WDBHG70000NBK) with the built in wifi and it seems to have more issues trying to see the network shares.  Its always just sitting there in the spinning circle arrow never seeing a server, one time I saw it for like 5secs then it went back to spinning arrow again. 

It never has any issues seeing the Media Server side of it (same server Im looking to connect on the Network share side). 

Below is my net view and nbtstat showing that there is only one server (my main one) with the Master Browser.

C:\Users\Administrator>net view
Server Name Remark

--------------------------------------------------------------
\\BROTHERPRINTER
\\HPWHS2 My home server
\\WDTVLIVE WD TV Live
\\WHS Suthar WHS
The command completed successfully.


C:\Users\Administrator>nbtstat -a brotherprinter

Local Area Connection:
Node IpAddress: [192.168.0.100] Scope Id: []

           NetBIOS Remote Machine Name Table

       Name Type Status
    ---------------------------------------------
    BrotherPrinter <00> UNIQUE Registered
    BrotherPrinter <20> UNIQUE Registered

    MAC Address = 0C-EE-E6-BB-9C-D4


C:\Users\Administrator>nbtstat -a hpwhs2

Local Area Connection:
Node IpAddress: [192.168.0.100] Scope Id: []

           NetBIOS Remote Machine Name Table

       Name Type Status
    ---------------------------------------------
    HPWHS2 <00> UNIQUE Registered
    WORKGROUP <00> GROUP Registered
    HPWHS2 <20> UNIQUE Registered

    MAC Address = 00-1B-FC-52-F0-0C


C:\Users\Administrator>nbtstat -a wdtvlive

Local Area Connection:
Node IpAddress: [192.168.0.100] Scope Id: []

           NetBIOS Remote Machine Name Table

       Name Type Status
    ---------------------------------------------
    WDTVLIVE <00> UNIQUE Registered
    WDTVLIVE <03> UNIQUE Registered
    WDTVLIVE <20> UNIQUE Registered
    WORKGROUP <1E> GROUP Registered
    WORKGROUP <00> GROUP Registered

    MAC Address = 00-00-00-00-00-00


C:\Users\Administrator>nbtstat -a whs

Local Area Connection:
Node IpAddress: [192.168.0.100] Scope Id: []

           NetBIOS Remote Machine Name Table

       Name Type Status
    ---------------------------------------------
    WHS <00> UNIQUE Registered
    WORKGROUP <00> GROUP Registered
    WHS <20> UNIQUE Registered
    WORKGROUP <1E> GROUP Registered
    WORKGROUP <1D> UNIQUE Registered
    .. __MSBROWSE__.<01> GROUP Registered

    MAC Address = 00-22-4D-50-54-01


C:\Users\Administrator>

Yet my new WD TV Live still cant see anything. 

I also have Popcorn hour devices and they obviously have no issues since its not looking for a master browser, you literally just map a drive to it and its always able to see that share when its online.  I wish WD TV Live’s did that as an option, sometimes this Master Browser issue is a nightmare.  In my case clearly no issue from a Master Browser or WORKGROUP name but it still has issues.  I dont want to use the Media Server side of it since it doesnt see my entire library of files and cannot show MKV files.

Dixit

Try this:

From HPWHS2, issue the command

net view whs

and vice versa.

Post the results.

From the HPWHS2 server

C:\Users\Administrator>net view whs
Shared resources at whs

HPWHS2

Share name Type Used as Comment

------------------------------------------
1TB Disk
500GB Disk
Documents Disk
MacOSX Disk Mac Files
Main Disk Main files
Movies Disk
Music Disk Music
Pictures Disk Pictures
Public Disk Public files
Recorded TV Disk
Users Disk
VideoCaptures Disk
Videos Disk Videos
The command completed successfully.

C:\Users\Administrator>

From the WHS server

C:\Users\Administrator>net view hpwhs2
Shared resources at hpwhs2

My home server

Share name Type Used as Comment

----------------------------------------
750GB Disk
Documents Disk Documents
Movies Disk
Music Disk Music
Pictures Disk Pictures
Recorded TV Disk Recorded TV
Videos Disk Videos
The command completed successfully.

C:\Users\Administrator>

Both of these are Windows Home Servers 2011 boxes.  The WHS was forced to be the Master Browser by using the “IsDomainMaster” registry setting as well as “MaintainServerList” setting.  The HPWHS2 is set FALSE and No on the two settings (respectively) above.

Dixit

I “think” I may have this solved.

Turns out there was a “rogue” machine lets call it that was jacking this whole thing up.  There was a desktop in a room that was sitting in Shutting down mode for the past 2-3days I think now.  On another laptop I noticed it was pointing to that “rogue” machine (as Im calling it now hahaha) as the Master Browser but it wasnt showing up on the hpwhs2 or whs machines.  It was a standard Win7 machine.  So I shut it down, turned it back on, forced the IsDomainMaster to False and MaintainServerList to Auto and restarted it again.  Now it seems fine I believe.  The WHS server shows up as the only Master Browser.  Im going to assume this is the fix for now.  We’ll see how this goes.

Dixit