I am currently managing our company’s file server, and the specific problem is as follows: When client machines access the file server using the full path \\hostname\shared or \\IP\shared\, they can view and access the folder contents without any issues. However, if they only enter the root path \\hostname or \\ip, the window displays empty content.
The shared folder is currently formatted in NTFS. Furthermore, some specific computers even receive a ‘Network path not found’ error message when attempting to access the file server.
Is there a way to resolve this? It is quite inconvenient for my system because we have a large number of users accessing it via Guest permissions. They need quick and seamless access, rather than having to type a long, complicated, and hard-to-remember path.
Any advice or solutions to fix this problem would be highly appreciated
This sounds like the SMB share itself is working, because \\hostname\shared and \\IP\shared can open correctly.
The issue appears to be with SMB share discovery / browsing at the server root level, meaning Windows can reach the share directly but is not listing the available shares when only \\hostname or \\IP is entered.
A few things I would check first:
-
Confirm the SMB share is not hidden.
If the share name ends with $, Windows will not show it in the root browse list.
-
Confirm the share is visible/browseable in the ZimaOS SMB settings.
Some SMB configurations allow direct access but hide the share from network browsing.
-
Test from one affected Windows machine using:
net view \\hostname
net view \\IP
If this shows an error or no shares, then the issue is with SMB discovery/listing, not the folder path itself.
- Check whether the affected Windows computers can resolve the hostname:
ping hostname
nslookup hostname
If \\IP\shared works but \\hostname\shared fails on some computers, it is likely a hostname / DNS / NetBIOS discovery issue.
- Because the disk is NTFS, also confirm the folder permissions and SMB permissions both allow Guest access. Direct access may still work, but discovery can behave differently depending on the share settings.
As a workaround, you can create a simple shortcut for users pointing directly to:
\\hostname\shared
or map it as a network drive, but I agree the root path should ideally show the available shares.
I would suggest sharing screenshots of the ZimaOS SMB share settings and the output of:
net view \\hostname
net view \\IP
from both a working Windows PC and one that shows “Network path not found”. That should make it much easier to confirm whether this is a ZimaOS SMB browse setting, Windows discovery issue, or hostname resolution issue.
Well you would normally install wsdd and open port 3702 and 5347
In Ubuntu, we just:
sudo apt install wsdd
sudo ufw allow 3702/udf
sudo ufw allow 5347/tcp
sudo ufw reload
sudo systemctl enable --now wsdd
But I don’t know how this would translate in this OS or wsdd might need to be brought in and compiled.
I’m new and haven’t messed with the OS side of ZimaOS but I imagine its some derivative of Debian or Arch.