SleepyCatten<p>Hey lovelies 🩷</p><p>Question for any of y'all who have more knowledge than we do in relation to fixing networking issues within Windows 11 :Windows_11_Logo: </p><p>One PC on our network had been having intermittent networking issues on Windows 10, so we did an in-place upgrade to Windows 11 24H2.</p><p>This did fix <strong>some</strong> issues, but we're still having 2 major issues:</p><ol><li>The PC can see, but refuses to connect to, our Synology NAS (DS220J). It keeps asking for a username and password, like it's failing authentication.</li><li>Other Windows-based PC can connect to it, and it can see them, but Kodi on a Fire TV stick (4K Max, 2024 model) refuses to connect to it over SMB (Samba), giving a "no route to host" error message.</li></ol><p>We've reviewed guides such as:</p><ul><li><a href="https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/filecab/accessing-a-third-party-nas-with-smb-in-windows-11-24h2-may-fail/4154300" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Accessing a third-party NAS with SMB in Windows 11 24H2 may fail</a></li><li><a href="https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/storage/file-server/smb-signing?tabs=group-policy" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Control SMB signing behavior</a></li><li><a href="https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/storage/file-server/troubleshoot/detect-enable-and-disable-smbv1-v2-v3?tabs=server" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Detect, enable, and disable SMBv1, SMBv2, and SMBv3 in Windows</a></li></ul><p>... and made some settings tweaks. We've also gone through common troubleshooting tips such as:</p><ul><li>Making sure the connection is private;</li><li>Making sure that filesharing is enabled;</li><li>Tweaking SMB connection settings in Synology NAS;</li><li>Deleting and manually re-entering the login details for the Synology NAS under the credentials manager;</li><li>Changing the minimum (no minimum, 1, 2) and and maximum (3) SMB level on Kodi;</li><li>Updating Windows and drivers;</li><li>Using DISM and SFC;</li><li>Group policy updates;</li></ul><p>... but sadly to no avail.</p><p>We're trying to avoid a clean install, as there's a lot of stuff we'd need to reinstall, and we don't have the time, executive function, or (most importantly) and patience and emotional regulation to do that right now 🥺</p><p>Any thoughts?</p><p><strong>Update, 2025-07-11:</strong></p><p>With the help of suggestions from lovely folks, it looks tenuously like both issues have been resolved on the PC 🤞🩷</p><p>We didn't make it clear above, but both versions of Windows are the Pro versions. (Used a Home version of WIndows - XP Home - only once. Never again!!!)</p><p>In case it helps anyone else, here are the additional steps we took, based on comments, to resolve the issues described above:</p><ul><li>Checked router (RX-AX88U) to check no DHCP issues.<ul><li>Realised that the MAC address on the static IP address section for the PC was for the onboard NIC, rather than the PCI-E one we'd previously installed. This hadn't caused issues previously, but we did take the time to update this.</li></ul></li><li>Reset the IP stack.</li><li>Uninstalled SMBv1 by removing from Windows Features.</li><li>Disabled SMB1 and verified that SMBv2/v3 enabled (per guide <a href="https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/storage/file-server/troubleshoot/detect-enable-and-disable-smbv1-v2-v3?tabs=server" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">here</a>).</li><li>Disabled SMB client signing requirement and enabled guest fallback protection (per guide <a href="https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/filecab/accessing-a-third-party-nas-with-smb-in-windows-11-24h2-may-fail/4154300" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">here</a>).</li><li>Deleted saved credentials for the Synology NAS again under Credential Manager<ul><li>We'd done this previously, but it hadn't worked by itself.</li><li>Interestingly, when we deleted it once, it then reappeared, so we had to delete it twice.</li></ul></li><li>Rebooted.</li></ul><p>On the Fire TV Stick (4K Max, 2024), we'd also checked that the Kodi settings showed a minimum SMB protocol of V2.</p><p>Under the Synology NAS (a DS220J), we'd previously also gone into <strong>Control Panel</strong> > <strong>File Services</strong> > <strong>Advanced Settings</strong> > <strong>General</strong> and set:</p><ul><li><strong>Minimum SMB protocol</strong> to <strong>SMB2</strong>; </li><li><strong>Transport encryption mode</strong> to <strong>Client defined</strong>;</li><li><strong>Server signing status</strong> to <strong>Forced</strong>;</li></ul><p>... per recommendations we'd read online.</p><p><a href="https://cultofshiv.wtf/tags/AskFedi" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>AskFedi</span></a> <a href="https://cultofshiv.wtf/tags/GenuinelyAsking" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>GenuinelyAsking</span></a> <a href="https://cultofshiv.wtf/tags/FediTechSupport" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>FediTechSupport</span></a> <a href="https://cultofshiv.wtf/tags/Windows11" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Windows11</span></a> <a href="https://cultofshiv.wtf/tags/SMB" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>SMB</span></a> <a href="https://cultofshiv.wtf/tags/Samba" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Samba</span></a> <a href="https://cultofshiv.wtf/tags/networking" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>networking</span></a> <a href="https://cultofshiv.wtf/tags/tech" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>tech</span></a> <a href="https://cultofshiv.wtf/tags/software" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>software</span></a></p>