Comment 2 for bug 316862

Can't use Jaunty - flaky with my hardware. Am using Intrepid on live CD (same behaviour with Hardy) and Intrepid on two installed machines, one of which is an LTSP server. These have latest updates.

On live CD machines I connect by clicking Places, Network, then double-clicking Windows Network, Staff (the name of the workgroup). When browsing is working properly, this displays the contents of the workgroup. When browsing isn't working, the address bar shows 'smb://staff/' and Nautilus reports '0 items'. When browsing is working properly, the hosts on the workgroup are displayed.

On the fully installed machines I connect by clicking Places, Network. When browsing is working properly, this displays the contents of the Staff workgroup because of Workgroup=Staff in smb.conf. When not working the behaviour is as above.

I can always browse the student network and see and browse the student server. (There is nothing else to see because the other machines are on a different VLAN.)

If I type smb://172.19.53.n/, where n is the machine number, I can see the machine in question and browse it.

I cannot browse a machine by typing smb://staff/hostname/ in the address bar.

I observe that Nautilus, heirachically:
WILL browse a Windows network and see the workgroups,
WILL NOT (always) browse a workgroup to see the hosts on it
WILL browse a host on the network once it is contacting it via its IP address.

Smb4K will always browse the workgroup.

The behaviour is intermittent. When it occurs, none of the Ubuntu machines will browse the workgroup. This leads me to think it is a change in the Windows 2000 network that initiates the problem and the way that Nautilus interrogates the Windows browser service for a workgroup.