How to fix shared file access errors?

Question

We are a small company and we share files thru file sharing in Windows 10. Sometimes its working and sometimes not. We are not that tech savy. So here's what's happening, PC1 shares a folder to everyone, PC2 and PC3 can access them inconsistently. There are days that it works and sometimes it doesn't and gives us this error that says "\PC1\Shared Folder is not accessible. You might not have permissions to use this network resource. Contact the administrator of this server to find out if you have access permissions. Invalid access to memory location".

For PC4 we haven't accessed the shared folder, it keeps giving the error message "We cant sign you in with this credential because your domain isn't available. Make sure your device is connected to your organization's network and try again. If you previously signed in on this device with another credential, you can sign in with that credential."

We have tried to redo the file sharing, checked the permissions, the advanced file sharing and the SMB feature. We have tried all that was suggested in the reference below and still getting the same issue.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/file-sharing-issue-on-a-local-network/52ad969e-c20a-404d-bb01-10cbcc5b7208

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/windows-client/networking/cannot-access-shared-folder-file-explorer

Is there anything else that we can try aside from those above? Any suggestion will do. Thank you.

Answer 1

I'm going to ask this directly, with an understanding that your computers can all ping each other and can access the router/switch fine (I also can't load the links you shared for some reason):

Have you tried checking with the IP Address?

On PC1:

Click Start, type CMD and press enter. In Command Line, type 'ipconfig /all' (without ') and press Enter. Lots of stuff will show up, most can be ignored, look for anything like "Ethernet adapter Ethernet" or some kind of LAN Adapter with numbers in it similar to this:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :

DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes

Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.130(Preferred)

Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0

Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : //

Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : //

Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1

DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1

DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1

                                   0.0.0.0

NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled

I can't remember the DNS setup for my test environment so ignore the 0.0.00 in there, your numbers may be like 10.0.0.0 or 172, but most likely similar to above. If your DNS has the first number as literally anything other than the first number as your IP address halt stop, skip to the quick fix as it's definitely a dns problem (you'd be using your internet provider's DNS or a public DNS server and nothing in the next section will help you)

Take note of the IPv4 Address AND the DNS Servers, so I'd write down 192.168.1.130 and 192.168.1.1

Head over to On PC2 type this into the File Explorer Address Bar:

\192.168.1.130\Shared Folder

If it worked, your DNS server (192.168.1.1 in my example) doesn't always know the IP for PC1, might be only set during reboot of the router/dhcp server

There's a bunch that can be done to further test DNS but that's quick and dirty (I'll post quick and dirty fix, but if you grow as a company this will be a pain, best to fix DNS lol - we have 30,000 computers in my org, so trust me....)

PC4 is another story, at my company we often get that when there's a stored credential, there's places in the registry but hands off that unless you know what you're doing.

On PC4, Click Start, type Control Panel and press Enter

Click on the User Accounts heading, then click on Manage Windows Credentials. Look for "Windows Credentials, if there is anything listed here or in possibly Generic Credentials, make sure it's not a credential from another machine where it might be listed as:

PC1 Modified: (some date)

This is where your trouble is, click the drop down arrow on the right and click Remove and confirm.

That should stop it from popping up

---

Quick and dirty fix for the small network (if you expand FIX YOUR DNS):

Do this on all machines (assuming 4):

Click Start, type CMD and press enter. Type 'ipconfig' without the ' and press Enter, note the IPv4 Address (there will be a lot less info this time that's fine)

Click Start, type Notepad, RIGH CLICK the app Click Run As Administrator (click yes or enter password for the admin account for the PC, likely just the password being used to login to the computer).

Press File, Click Open. Type this exactly as I'm entering it here and press enter:

C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts

A REALLY scary looking file will open, ignore everything in this file and go to the very bottom. For every PC you do you're going to include the name and IP for the OTHER 3 machines, so PC1 would have PC2, 3 and 4's info entered. PC3 would have 1, 2, and 4, etc. You will do it like this for PC1: (NOT case sensitive, 192.168.1.101 pc2 is the same as 192.168.1.101 PC2, just as \PC2 and \pc2 are the same)

192.168.1.101 pc2

192.168.1.110 pc3

192.168.1.105 pc4

PC2:

192.168.1.130 pc1

192.168.1.110 pc3

192.168.1.105 pc4

Continue on all 4 machines, save the file and close it. This will give you a definite hostname to IP to use when you try to browse to the shared folder. Now, if you ONLY access the shared folder on 1 PC you only need that pc in the other network computers, but if it's a shared folder on all machines you have to do it as I described.

Basically with an SMB share that fails like this does this:

Lookup the hostname pc1, nothing found!

Lookup the hostname PC1, nothing found!

Show Error "Cannot Access".

Otherwise, with working DNS or the hosts file like above (and permissions etc):

Lookup hostname pc1, found 192.168.1.130!

Request Access to list Shared content from pc1, access granted!

Request Access to enter and list the contents of "Shared Folder", access granted!

Display Folder Contents to the UI

There's tons more you can do to properly troubleshoot the DNS but I suggest you have a contractor come help with that, that's a slightly more advanced thing with nslookup and logging into your router/DHCP/DNS server

Thanks (didn't think this would take this long to write...) for reading. As you probably can tell I work for an IT Helpdesk for a living - 25 years of experience troubleshooting networks. What I wrote here should almost definitely help you at least in the short term, if it's DNS fix the DNS...trust me - 4 PCs is a nightmare to do this way let alone if/when IPs change (rare but you'll need to update the hosts file with the new address