Mac to WinXP: Autentication Failure with correct password

M

MidnightJava

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I'm pretty sure this was working for the week or so that I've had my Mac, but I can't swear to it, since I've mostly shared the files from the Mac to the PC. But I've got the Mac and PC set up properly as far as I can tell, and I enter the correct username and password for the PC, and the Mac says the password is incorrect.

Details:

Mac OS 10.3.8 connected to WinXP/Pro SP2 via wireless hub.

The PC is sharing a folder from user account "User1" with password "pword" (don't know why I'm masking my username and password, since it apparently doesn't do any good to know them :) )

From Mac: Go=>Connect to Server; enter "smb://<ip address of pc>"

In authentication window, I enter Workgroup name as displayed on PC, user1 for username and pword for password. User1 and pword are identical credentials for the account I'm using on the Mac when I do this. I can log in directly to PC with User1 and pword credentials.

Mac says: "Could not connect to server beause the name or password is not correct"

The PC can see the Mac files and printer, and the Mac can see files on another Mac on the LAN.

Windows firewall turned off. BlackIce firewall on PC turned off. Mac firewall turned off. ZoneAlarm configured to allow Mac to PC connection, and log files show no connections being blocked. No other software or hardware firewalls between Mac and PC.

Based on a thread I found when searching here, I increased the value of Lanmanserver/Parameters/IRPStackSize in registry to 18. (It was unspecified, meaning it was defaulted to 15.) Previous thread suggesed increasing it might solve the problem, but I wasn't getting any Windows events that indicated this was the problem.

Still the Mac insists I've got the wrong password. This is crazy. I've beat my head against the wall for hours on this. I can just exchange files from the Mac share seen on the PC, but this is supposed to work, and I have this mind disease which compels me to solve the problem on principle (if you let your computer get away with the little stuff today, tomorrow it'll be the big stuff that doesn't work). It seems that this works for everyone else except me (and like I said, I think it used to work for me also), and there's got to be a reason.

Any ideas?
 
i've been having the same problem lately. and i have zonealarm too. have you tryed it with zl off?
 
Just curious, but have you tried browsing to the XP box? Try using the Network browser built into the Finder to see if you can see that machine and connect that way. I have actually seen that make a difference! :)
 
When I do that, I get the autnetication window, and when I enter my credentials I get the dreaded "The alias <alias_name> could not be opened because the original item could not be found." This is what led me to try the IRPStackSize fix I mentioned earlier, since it was indicated by that symptom; but from my one week browsing Mac issues in this and other forums it looks like that error occurs for a wide variety of causes.

Every platform has its infamous errors that it likes to throw up on the screen when it doesn't know what else to do, and it sounds like this is one of the Mac's favorites.
 
MidnightJava said:
I enter the correct username and password for the PC, and the Mac says the password is incorrect.
Click to expand...
Are you sure you are not being asked for your Mac username and password? When I access folders on our XPs from my iBook, I am required to enter my iBook username and password. And, have you tried pinging the PC using Network Utility?
 
Yes, I wondered about which computer the account was supposed to be on. I figured it was the PC, or maybe both the PC and the Mac. So to cover all the bases I created an account on the PC with identical credentials (username and password) as the acount I'm using on the Mac. And just to be sure, I created the share on the PC while logged in under the account I'm trying to log into from the Mac.

The only other variable here is the Workgroup name. The PC is configured as a workgroup, and I got the Workgroup name from the "System" control panel on the PC, and entered that in the "Workgroup" field of the authentication window presented by the Mac (actually it was already defaulted to the correct value).

Not sure if this matters, but it's interesting that both the Mac and the PC show up in Windows Explorer on the PC under

My Network Places\Entire Network\Microsoft Windows Network\Workgroup.

But when I click on the Mac's icon there, the PC says it's unreachable (but the PC can reach itself from this path). I can reach the Mac, however, by clicking on the icon for the drive that I mapped it to under My Computer. This pertains to the PC seeing the Mac, which is working properly, but I wonder if it has a bearing on the problem in the reverse direction.
 
Have you tried to access the PC by going Dock > Home Folder > Network? If you try this approach, don't give up if the network does not show up immediately. That is, keep trying "Network" if you don't see it inmediately. Also, have you tried using an ethernet cable? The problem might be the wireless hub (somehow).
 
Can you elaborate what you mean by going to Dock => Home? If that's the same thing as going to the home folder in the FInder, then I did try that and I got the error "Can't access the alias because the original is gone" or somehitng like that. If you're referring to somehting else, please explain. I don't see any way to get to the home directory from the Dock.

The Ethernet cable is worth a try. It'll be tomorrow before I can try it, and I'll let you know. Thanks for your suggestions.
 
You are very welcome. By using the Dock, I mean accessing your network by going through your home folder (the little house) in the Dock and then selecting "Network" in its sidebar.
 
Okay, I see. I don't have the home alieas in my Dock, but I did try the equivalent of what you're suggesting, navigating directly in the FInder. Ethernet cable didn't help either. Oh, well... Mac 1, MidnightJava 0.
 
I have the same problem with Win 2k SP4, when connecting to a shared drive on my PC from my trusty iMac running 10.2.8. However, if I connect to smb://my pc ip addy/c$ and supply my windows uid and password, it works. Go figure!

Paul
 
Thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately, no dice. This is really maddening. If it were failing to connect, I could try to see where it's breaking down. But getting an authentication failure when you know you're entering the right password- what do you do with that? It's just flat broken, I guess.

I'm going to update to 10.3.9 in a few days, as soon as I back up some files. Maybe that will fix it. Not getting my hopes up.
 
Another thing I have just thought of, it could be incompatibility in the MTU settings between Windows and your Mac. Differences in settings can cause all types of weird glitches.

The easiest way to fix this is to change the PC to match the settings of the Mac, as follows.

On your mac, open Terminal and type

ifconfig en0 (or whatever your ethernet card is called)

the top line returned will be similar to:
en0: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1492

In this example, my Mac's MTU is 1492.

On the windows pc, run regedit and goto the key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters

If there is a setting for MTU, change it to a decimal value equal to your mac's MTU.
If there is not a setting for MTU, create a new DWORD called MTU and set its (decimal) value to your mac's MTU.

you will need to reboot your pc to make the change effective.

Having just done this on my Win2k laptop, I can now connect to any share drive I have on the PC from my iMac.

Hope this helps.

Paul
 
Paul,

Thanks for the suggestion. As it turns out, I actually discovered a different problem that fixed it, just a couple nights ago. I need to do a little more investigating to figure out exactly what fixed it, but here's an interim report.

I was troubleshooting a different issue on the PC, and I was looking over the mapping of security rights to users and groups in Administrative Tools-->Local Security Policy. I came across several rights that weren't assigned that I thought might be relevant to the Mac connectivity issue, so I assigned them to my account. And whadayaknow, it actually worked. I've been busy with a development project and haven't had the time to go in and disable them one at a time, to see which one(s) did the trick.

Being on a system at work where I don't have privileges to look at the rights table, I don't recall exactly what I set. The one that sticks in my mind as being most likely was something along the lines of allowing non-windows network clients to connect with unencrypted passwords. This was defaulted to being not assigned to my admin-privileged account. I'll report back when I have a definitive answer.
 
I know that this topic is almost a year old, but i'm having the exact same problem. I'm almost positive its related to the fact that there is some sort of newly installed virus scanning/firewall software on the windows machine, that some how edits the runnins services. But, i can't for the life of me find out which one needs to be running in order to communicate with macs. Hopefully someone is still looking at this post and has an idea><
 
Hi there,

After my last post, I discovered that our corporate VPN client software was the main culprit for all my mac to pc connectivity issues. I realised this when I set up a website on my windows laptop and no-one at work could connect (also from windows machines). Stopping (and setting the service startup option to Manual) the VPN client software service immediately resolved all my connectivity issues with both PC and Mac clients.

Is your PC running XP SP1 or higher, as that has be default an enabled firewall?

Please let me know how you get on.

Cheers,

Paul
 
Well, i have no VPN software, and the windows firewall is disabled. My McAfee firewall is running and taking its place. As a test, i completely uninstalled mcaffe to make sure it wasn't blocking anything i didn't want it to. And i still get the same error. I can check the security logs on my windows machine and it shows my attempts, and marks them as "failed to authorize". This all started when i installed mcafee, so i think it enabled/disabled some vital service that normally allows macs and pcs to get along. Any other ideas?
 
Try launching Settings->Control Panel->Local Security Policies. Then look at the policies under Local Policies/Security Options, and see if you can find a setting that looks like it needs to be changed. I think I changed something here to get mine to work a while back.

Be careful here and make sure you're okay with the implications of whatever you change. You should also keep track of what you change. Then you can change everything that seems even remotely likely to work, since you can change them back afterwards.
 
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