[Samba] Win95 sees files; XP not

[Douglas Germann]

Hi--

Since about 2007/12/11 we have been having trouble getting our XP box to see all
the files on our Samba server. A Win95 machine on the same network can see them,
as of course can the Ubuntu boxes.

There have been no changes to this system in those two days--other than the XP
box reported that Microsoft had done an automatic upgrade of some kind. Is it
possible that has introduced this kind of an anomaly?

Server: About 6 years old, running Red Hat 9.0 and Samba version
2.2.7a-security-rollup-fix. This system has been working as a server for at
least 4 years without major problems.

XP box is fairly standard and has been on auto update since day one, about 4
years ago, so it should be up to date.

Symptoms: In one directory on the 11th we had 6 files that started with the file
name "20071210" with varying names after that, and 3 files starting with
"20071211". The XP box could only see in either Windows or DOS 5 of the first
set and 2 of the second. One of the invisible files was created on the XP
box--it was an OOo Writer file.

Tonight, it can see all of these sets, but now it cannot see one of three files
that start "20071213" and cannot see the file that starts "20071214"--these last
are the last two files created in this directory, a couple of hours ago.

Checking permissions directly on the server, all the files had the same
permissions the other day if I recall correctly. Tonight, the two problem files
were 764, while the visible files were 664. Thinking I was on to something, I
chmod the invisibles to 664, but that made no difference in the WinXP box, even
after refreshing the display. And tonight DOS can see these files, but windows
GUI display cannot!

Any idea why this weirdness has just popped up?

Thanks for your help!

:- Doug.