"Network is Busy" Error Message

[Steve McClary]

I have a Samba server on a Dell Poweredge 2300 running RedHat 5.2 . About 
20 users, all on Win98, connect to  this server, most of them with mapped 
drives but not all. System has worked fine for over a year.

Recently, many of the users (but not all) are getting a "Network is Busy" 
message from Windows when they boot up in the morning and try to connect to 
Samba share, though most of them don't get the message every time they boot 
up.  I haven't been able to isolate anything peculiar to those users that 
encounter the error, and it is erratic enough that I can't get it to repeat 
on any consistent basis. Usually, the user can connect successfully to the 
Samba share as soon as their machine finishes booting up.

Can anyone help me with this error message and how to correct the problem? 
It only happens when the users connect to the Samba share, not to any other 
server (there are a few Win98 machines acting as limited-purpose servers on 
the network).

Thanks



Steve McClary (scm at mrwassoc.com)

MRW & Associates, Inc.
Oakland, California