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"File Sharing could not be enabled" - why??? please help!

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Mike Levin

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Dec 31, 2002, 1:33:36 PM12/31/02
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Hi all -

I have a 2000 Macintosh G4 desktop model running MacOs 9.1. It lives in
my office, connected to an Ethernet network (mostly PCs and internet
access). Everything was working fine, and before I went on a 10-day trip, I
shut the machine down. When I returned and rebooted it, everything started
up ok but after about 5 minutes the file sharing panel gave an error which
said "File Sharing could not be enabled". This has no error number on it so
I haven't been able to figure out why. I depend on the file sharing to
access my desktop's hard drive from home, so this is killing me. I don't
think anything else changed - the machine was shut down during this time, so
I don't know why it worked before but is not working now. Does anyone have
any ideas how to trouble-shoot this issue (find out what the problem is) or
even some common reasons why the file sharing refuses to be enabled? I've
trashed the preferences directory's File sharing folder, restored the PRAM
to a previously-saved state (using TechTool Pro), and checked the owner and
other permissions in the File sharing folder. Please help! If you have any
thoughts, please cc: them to mlev...@attbi.com. Thanks!!

Mike Levin

nick

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Dec 31, 2002, 5:20:24 PM12/31/02
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I get this sometimes, I delete the desktop file and sometimes optimize the
start up disk, this always sorts it out.

Regards, Nick.

Thomas Vincent

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Dec 31, 2002, 6:35:09 PM12/31/02
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Have you determined if the correct extensions are not loading? PRAM
generally does not have anything to do with filesharing.

Cheers,
Thomas Vincent

Mike Levin <mlev...@attbi.com> wrote in message news:<BA374D31.A023%mlev...@attbi.com>...

Mike Levin

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Dec 31, 2002, 8:27:50 PM12/31/02
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in article d38c0814.0212...@posting.google.com, Thomas Vincent at
tho...@mac.com wrote on 12/31/02 6:35 PM:

> Have you determined if the correct extensions are not loading? PRAM
> generally does not have anything to do with filesharing.

Yes, all the extensions seem to have loaded ok. I know the PRAM shouldn't
affect this, but that's what someone suggested to me (said it fixed his
problem), so I tried it. It didn't help in my case...

Thanks,

Mike

Rob Stearn

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Jan 1, 2003, 7:14:04 PM1/1/03
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Hi,
A few things to try...
-Anything else using the networking port?
-AppleTalk and TCP/IP setup OK?
-ummmm run out, will try to think of more...

Rob


Mike Levin

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Jan 1, 2003, 8:05:50 PM1/1/03
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in article Pine.OSX.4.44.03010...@robs-ibook.local, Rob
Stearn at r...@robs-ibook.local wrote on 1/1/03 7:14 PM:

Hi Rob -

> Hi,
> A few things to try...
> -Anything else using the networking port?

how do I determine what processes might be using the port?

> -AppleTalk and TCP/IP setup OK?
> -ummmm run out, will try to think of more...

the setups seem fine. If you come up with anything else, I'd love to hear
it.

Thanks!

Mike

Tom Sharp

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Jan 2, 2003, 4:16:00 PM1/2/03
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Mike Levin <mlev...@attbi.com> wrote in message news:<BA38FA9C.A451%mlev...@attbi.com>...

Mike - this mystery has happened to me a few times and here's what I
finally tracked it down to. You need to open the file sharing
control panel and make sure that your name, computer name and
password are all still entered. And then that file sharing is on
(though I am sure you tried this first of all). Sometimes, the
computer name gets erased, usually if there was something done with a
clean system install or something like that. The "unable to
fileshare" error message never tells you to check your control panel
for this little tid-bit that is easily overlooked.

Maybe that will solve it for you.

Hey, whether or not it does, I have a question, that perhaps you can
help me with. It sounds like you have a desktop at work and another
at home, and you access the hard drive at work from home. I assume
that you do appleshare/file share over the internet, and that the
computer at work is on a firewalled router. How do you do that? I
have a little LAN at home that goes through a linksys router, and I
would like to access my computer from my laptop, which I take with me.
I'm not sure how to punch through my router to get to my specific
computer, since it is not a static ip address, but one that is
assigned DHCP by the router. How did you set yourself up, and can
you point me to an explanation for port-forwarding, or setting up my
router to allow a secure connection with a password from an outside
machine?

thanks
-Tom

Rob Walker

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Jan 8, 2003, 6:23:22 AM1/8/03
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I had this happen to me once , tried all of the suggestions posted in
various places, tore most of my hair out and the cure turned out to be
unlocking a folder which had been locked. Locked files/folders and
file sharing don't seem to be very compatible. There is a utility
called Golden Key which gives you much better control over
locking/unlocking files which I found useful (saves you going into
info for each individual file).

Good luck!

Rob

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