Norton Anti-Virus is always the cause, isn’t it?
Got this message trying to browse a computer on my network. I can access the computer via UNC \computername or even IP address, but cannot access a share and permissions are all good.
On the target machine I checked NetBIOS setting under WINS tab in network adapter > properties > TCP/IP > advanced. It is set to default, which uses the value assigned by the DHCP server. With all my network-fu, it didn’t make a ton sense but I set it to enabled anyway. Now I get a new error when trying to access a share:
“not enough server storage space is available to process this command“
Checking the event logs on the target machine, I see Event ID 2011, Source SRV, and a message about IRPStackSize is too small, which leads me to this MSKB article: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;177078
My IRPStackSize value didn’t exist. In fact, it didn’t exist on any of my perfectly functional machines, which means Windows should be managing the value.
My non-functional machine is the only one I setup to run anti-virus, ahem, Norton of all things. I installed it to test it out, hearing of the super duper speed increases and ultra tiny memory footprint in the 2009-2010 products. In short, I wanted to see if I had one less point to argue against the product for my Norton fanboy customers, and I do… actually 2 because NAV doesn’t but you like it used to…. but all the other same old arguments still apply (horrible virus detection, tons of false positives with legitimate power-user and support utilities like those from nirsoft.net, and well, screwing with your network activities…)
Remembering back in the day, Norton always seemed to screw with network functionality, even the stand-alone anti-virus product not the internet security/systemworks product. Uninstalling Norton always fixed the issue. It would have in this case as well. In any event, if you don’t want to do that, refer back to that MSKB.
Creating the DWORD IRPStackSize with a default of 15 decimal (2K/XP/2003) probably won’t fix the issue as this is, well, the default and probably what Windows uses when the value doesn’t exist. The MSKB recommends increasing it in increments of 3, and warns that the max value (2K/XP/2003) of decimal 50 may still cause the issue, so I plugged in a value of 18 and restarted the computer. Bingo!
I also reverted my NetBIOS value back to default and things are still working fine.
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