Win 11 networking

[dilwyn]

Strictly off-topic this one.

My QXL.WIN backups are on a hard drive connected to my router's USB port, which worked fine until Tuesday's updates. I need to access one of the QXL.WINs to restore something accidentally deleted.

If I unplug the drive and connect it to the PC via a spare USB slot, it works fine. So I've already restored from the backup.

I just can no longer access the drive when it's connected to the router. All other network connections to both Windows 10 and 11 computers are working fine.

I've tried all the googled "solutions" (that word is a joke when it comes to fixing PC problems), nothing has worked. Gone through everything from the basics of ensuring Network Discovery is on and following all the online advice about ensuring certain Windows services are on, restarting them, restarting router, restarting PC. It just looks like I will never be able to access this ever so convenient drive ever again.

If I go to 'Network' in File Explorer on my PC, double click on the router, the drive is shown as in this screen dump so clearly there and working:

Drive on router

So the PC sees the router, the router in turn sees the drive, but I can't get the PC to see the drive like it did before Tuesday's update. I have no intention of rolling back 24H2 (known to cause this problem with stopping seeing network drives) as it takes hours to download and install.

(This is not one of the PCs which were upgraded to Windows 11 by the Flyby11 software BTW, this one upgraded naturally some time ago).

When I try to connect to the drive it says :

"<router name>
Microsoft Windows Network: The specified network name is no longer available. This connection has not been restored."

Anyone have experience of this and how I might restore the connection to that drive? It was so convenient having it on the router accessible to all the PCs.

So sick and tired of computers nowadays, I spend more time trying to solve needless problems than getting anything done.

[martyn_hill]

Hi Dilwyn

I sympathise Something you've probably already explored, but thought to share...

Like most Routers, your EE SmartHub will be running an embedded Linux-variant and exposing any USB mass-storage via the SMB protocol. Typically, the version of the SMB protocol supported by these embedded Linux systems is well behind the latest MS version (currently SMB v3.1.1 IIRC) and each later version introduced further security-like features/restrictions.

Likely as not, your Router only supports SMB v1, whereas, on this PC, SMB v1 has probably been disabled following the update and only v2 or v3 left enabled. Re-enabling v1 is generally not recommended (it has some serious security flaws), but should still be possible. Just be aware of the risks before doing so...

To see whether or SMB v1 is enabled on this PC (and to compare to any other of our PCs that still appear to connect to the Router's shared drive), from a Powershell command you can run:

Code: Select all

Get-WindowsOptionalFeature –Online –FeatureName SMB1Protocol

(I just copied the above from https://www.thewindowsclub.com/check-sm ... on-windows)

What did you try already? Probably included the above, I'm sure...

[dilwyn]

Thank you Martin.

It was one of the things tried throughout the time wasted googling "solutions" which didn't work. I remember seeing that article.

SMB1 is disabled on all of the Windows 11 PCs. The Windows 10 PC says SMB1 is enabled, but even it can't see the hard drive on the router's USB port now.

Time to give up on this I think and stop wasting time with Windows networking and accept it doesn't work properly, based on the number of people I see online having similar problems, all complaining "solutions" don't work.

[XorA]

Thank you Martin.

It was one of the things tried throughout the time wasted googling "solutions" which didn't work. I remember seeing that article.

SMB1 is disabled on all of the Windows 11 PCs. The Windows 10 PC says SMB1 is enabled, but even it can't see the hard drive on the router's USB port now.

Time to give up on this I think and stop wasting time with Windows networking and accept it doesn't work properly, based on the number of people I see online having similar problems, all complaining "solutions" don't work.

This was unfortunately one of those situations where MS were damned either way. Shitty embedded routers should be on SMB3 as samba has supported it for over a decade I think.

But SMB1 is unfixably insecure so you can basically choose have viruses or not have viruses by enabling or disabling it!

[dilwyn]

On top of that, we have had no mobile signal for days yet again, so locally we have got the politicians in on the act as to why Vodafone are neglecting us. It's been intermittent for months. I'm on Asda Mobile which uses Vodafone as its underlying network, so affected like all local Vodafone customers. My Motorola phone doesn't support wifi calling. So an example of the things I can't do is make online banking payments, since I can't and haven't been able to receive the OTP texts to authorise payments. Santander will only let you change to email OTP codes if you call from the phone currently receiving the OTP payments, which is a catch 22. Every time I want to authorise a payment I have to drive out of the area to get a signal to be able to authorise any payment out of my account. (When it works, there's a strong signal in the house).

Constant short duration power cuts in the village are another ongoing problem. By "short" I mean shorter than the few seconds needed for their automatic monitoring systems to detect, so they have no record a power cut happened when you report it.

How I hate living in an area so neglected and forgotten by the big nationals. You really do spend more time around here trying to sort out problems than getting anything done. Nothing gets done unless it affects a tourist or a Tory politician. Really makes me want to move away or just do away with technology altogether.

[dilwyn]

What is samba, another of those completely meaningless and non-intuitive Linux-isms?

(Don't bother replying, I have looked it up)

[swensont]

I did some research into the router and found this from 2022:
"The EE Smart Router is based on the BT Smart Router 2. You might want to peruse Search "BT Smart Router 2 USB" to see what the BT Community have to say on the subject, incl. Linux. They do confirm that it supports SMB 1.0 only."

Either the router is using a very old version of Samba or it was designed to only support SMB1 (which is a bad decision). At my last company, our NAS came out in 2015 and we supported SMB 1,2 & 3 and we were using Samba. For safety reasons we did turn off SMB1 and a few customer were still using SMB1 clients. We manually turned it back on for them. We did this about 4 years ago.

If you have shell access to the router, it might be possible to get SMB2 up and running, but that might difficult.

For my own purposes I've looked at smaller NAS's and they usually don't a drive that is pre-formatted. There used to be some USB-to-Ethernet NAS adapters some years ago, but I can't find them now.
Maybe your best option is to use of your existing windows systems. Hook up the drive it it, go into Windows Explorer and "publish a share". You will need this PC running to access the share. I did this years ago with a Windows desktop (WinME IIRC) and just left it on.

Tim

[dilwyn]

Thanks Tim. I'd come across some similar information about the EE Smart Hub.
It seems you can either have things secure, or you can have them work. Seems to be the way with technology at the moment.

More problems: my Seagate 3TB external backup hard drive has failed just now. It doesn't work when plugged into any of the computers and makes a horrible noise when you power it up.

And my trusty old Epson Stylus Color 880 printer seems to have packed up too - it no longer recognises colour ink cartridges, and won't work without recognising both cartridges (so I can't use it black-only). Done the usual manual resetting in case of inbuilt obsolescence conditions like service time. If anyone can make use of a new pile of Epson compatible T019 (black) and TO20 (colour) ink cartridges, they're yours for the cost of posting them to you. This printer deserves a State Funeral. It's seen me through so much for so many years with both QL and PC.

2025 really has been absolute shit year so far.

[XorA]

Thanks Tim. I'd come across some similar information about the EE Smart Hub.
It seems you can either have things secure, or you can have them work. Seems to be the way with technology at the moment.

More problems: my Seagate 3TB external backup hard drive has failed just now. It doesn't work when plugged into any of the computers and makes a horrible noise when you power it up.

And my trusty old Epson Stylus Color 880 printer seems to have packed up too - it no longer recognises colour ink cartridges, and won't work without recognising both cartridges (so I can't use it black-only). Done the usual manual resetting in case of inbuilt obsolescence conditions like service time. If anyone can make use of a new pile of Epson compatible T019 (black) and TO20 (colour) ink cartridges, they're yours for the cost of posting them to you. This printer deserves a State Funeral. It's seen me through so much for so many years with both QL and PC.

2025 really has been absolute shit year so far.

For the printer try cleaning the contacts for the cartridges inside the printer with IPA (not the beer) it might be they are just a bit coated on old ink.

[dilwyn]

Certainly no harm in trying that. Haven't got any IPA here so will have to order some.