Can no longer connect to SMB share

TrueNAS General
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1

Firstly: I have searched around and read through several similar/same problems without being able to find a solution, I will even be mentioning some of these later in this post as a preliminary to the ‘what I have tried so far’ section.

Quick tl;dr ‘checklist’
truenas dashboard & jellyfin connectable
stored media still exists (usuable through jellyfin)
can view local smb shares in file managers
can connect manually to smb shares
stored media is RAIDed
stored media is backedup

Situation

Around July of the previous year I got my first NAS and installed TrueNAS Scale on it, set up an SMB share for media and established Jellyfin. It all worked, including the smb share revealed on local network file browsers on other machines and truenas.local (as well as jellyfin.local) worked as domain names for the truenas connection & jellyfin port.

Several months ago now, without any setting changes, the smb share ceased being displayed on viewing the local network on file managers. I use linux mint (desktop) & steamOS (steamdeck, desktop mode usable), & both their default file managers use to display truenas & truenas/Media as a connectable share. Take note of this as it suggests it really isn’t a client setting being the problem.

While weird, I could still connect by manually using file → connect to server. I definitely remember adding new media by connecting this way after the network listing disappeared. Yet now I can’t seem to complete that step.

I also did not think of testing the .local domains at that point, I launch the trunas dashboard in browser through a website link in a password manager which has the static local IP address, not ‘truenas.local’. The .local domains probably broke at this time though, they definitely do not work today.

To come back to the end of the 2nd previous paragraph, ‘complete that step’? Am I saying I can partially connect or something? Well, yes. I think anyway:

File → connect to server → put in static truenas IP (192.168.0.8); type: windows share (term used for smb) → click connect = the user details ‘domain name (WORKGROUP)’ & ‘user name’ gets auto completed. Is this not proof that the file manager is connecting to truenas?

It fails, as I have not put in my truenas user password. I have an admin account for use in the dashboard & a ‘user’ account I use for everything else including smb connection. I have tried both accounts, and believe me that I have the passwords correct.

The error that comes up is: ‘Failed to mount Windows share: invalid argument’

putting ‘Media’ as the share to connect to gives the same error message (this is the accurate share name) & ‘/’ as the Folder (as in, root Media folder).

Weird, since I could connect this way before.

I do use jellyfin on several machines in the home and they connect to the port and display all the media that they should display. I can open the truenas dashboard and log in using the admin account and fiddle around.

I have new media to put on, but I will also soon buy a DAS + a drive that will be large enough to finally backup the media on my truenas storage (currently mirror RAIDed between 2 drives, but not backedup in case of deletion).

I definitely need this fixed if I am to finally backup the media folder for some rest-easy.

Pages I Have Read

[ links redacted due it ‘cannot include links in post’; so instead: ]

truenas_server_sometimes_only_reachable_via_ip (reddit post)
new-problem-since-update-smb-shares-do-not-show-up (post on these truenas forums)
windows-11-network-browser-with-truenas (Windows, but same problem. Remember linux mint & SteamOS do not work.) (post on these truenas forums)

the last ‘link’ has within replies a link to the truenas docs on global configuration screens.

Plus I’ve read a few other places but with less usefulness (not like any of these have fixed it for me).

Things I Have Tried

  • Deletion of SMB share & recreation.
  • Changed hostname alone, domain alone, & both together.
  • Toggled each of the 3 service announcements on/off in varying orders & combinations in global configuration screen.
  • Looked at my router settings (I’m with Sky and use the box they give out).
    NOTE: yes, truenas does have a static local IP, don’t worry about that.

Initial Conclusion

I am now at a lost & asking for help. My biggest fear is buying a DAS + a HDD big enough to finally backup the NAS media but not being able to actually copy it over despite being accessible through jellyfin. That’s a bigger worry here than sitting on media I want to add to jellyfin but being unable to.

For this wondering: the DAS won’t be connecting to the NAS, but instead my main desktop (so the NAS backup will be on a different machine).

Thanks in advance for any replies people write in attempts to help :slight_smile:

2

Earlier I attempted to go straight to (by typing in a file manager) smb://truenasip/Media which prompted the expected dialogue box and it didn’t work after entering password etc.

I just reattempted connecting this way and it worked. Who knows why.

That said, I want the share to work how it should (connect every way it should, come up in network shares etc) so this isn’t the whole problem fixed and aid would still be appreciated to iron this whole thing out.

3

When dealing with these kind of issues the place I start is the command prompt to make sure the basics are working

Is the TrueNAS on a static or dynamic IP, it should be on a static

ping will tell you if you can resolve to correct IP

if that fails you can try to figure out why

nbtstat -[IP] will tell you want names the server has

net view \<> or \[IP] will show the shares

then try a net use {drive-letter} \name\share [password] /user:[user] will let you map a share proving access

4

I think you’ve suggested windows commands rather than linux, but I’ve gone ahead and found linux alternatives to what I believe those commands do.

pinging what’s suppose to be the truenas ip works.

instead of nbtstat -[IP], nslookup [IP] outputs:


$  nslookup 192.168.0.8
8.0.168.192.in-addr.arpa        name = TRUENAS.

Authoritative answers can be found from:
info.portmaster text = "accepted: allowing dns request"
info.portmaster text = "freshly resolved by 192.168.0.1 (dns://192.168.0.1:53#system)"
info.portmaster text = "record valid for 23h59m59s"

the authoritative sources refer to safing’s portmaster which I have installed for network use. I wasn’t expecting that section but I don’t think it’s important anyway.

What is interesting is name = TRUENAS.

On the truenas dashboard I have the hostname in lowercase, this uppercase is from the router itself as the ip reservation has the name as TRUENAS, without the .; is ‘local’ suppose to come afterwards and is this an indication of something being off? Why else is the period added automatically? And if so, why did this break randomly after several months of working?

netview alternative to show shares I believe is nmblookup -S __SAMBA__ with nmblookup -S WORKGROUP having the exact same output too:

$ nmblookup -S __SAMBA__
192.168.0.8 __SAMBA__<00>
Looking up status of 192.168.0.8
        TRUENAS         <00> -         B <ACTIVE> 
        TRUENAS         <03> -         B <ACTIVE> 
        TRUENAS         <20> -         B <ACTIVE> 
        ..__MSBROWSE__. <01> - <GROUP> B <ACTIVE> 
        WORKGROUP       <00> - <GROUP> B <ACTIVE> 
        WORKGROUP       <1d> -         B <ACTIVE> 
        WORKGROUP       <1e> - <GROUP> B <ACTIVE> 

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

I have no idea what to do with this other than it looks like its detecting something? Maybe I’ll read the nmblookup man page when I find time; but it does detect TRUENAS & WORKGROUP for sure.

Finally, I tried smbclient to list then connect to the share in the terminal

$  smbclient --list=192.168.0.8 --user user
Password for [WORKGROUP\user]:

        Sharename       Type      Comment
        ---------       ----      -------
        IPC$            IPC       IPC Service (TrueNAS Server)
        Media           Disk      
SMB1 disabled -- no workgroup available

$  smbclient //192.168.0.8/Media --user user
Password for [WORKGROUP\user]:
Try "help" to get a list of possible commands.
smb: \>

I can list, navigate, and more in the terminal at that point (after entering password).

That concludes finding the linux alternatives to what I believe those windows commands are suppose to do. I did test one more thing:

I added the truenas IP in my machine’s /etc/hosts file to alias the IP as truenas.local, this worked to allow me to use truenas.local in a web browser for accessing the dashboard & using the file manager to go to smb://truenas.local/Media allowed me to connect to the share.

It did not allow the share to appear on the network tab automatically as it should, and this is just a workaround to streamline something broke that should be listing under network anyway but isn’t; so nothing is ‘fixed’ by doing this.