Can't access Win 7 PC via Android phone over WiFi

[D M]

Hello, this is my hardware set-up;

PC: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit.
Phone: Nexus 5 Android 4.4.2.
Modem Router: Netgear D6300.

My problem is that I can't access my PC via my phone over my wireless network, I have added the Nexus 5 as a Trusted Device in the Netgear settings so my phone can access the router and browse the internet and use email without any problems.

My PC is hard wired to my router modem, and I'm not trying to connect to my PC remotely (I heard you can't do this with Home Edition) just with my Wi-Fi network.

However when I try to use apps from the Play Store like AirStream, ES File Explorer, Astro File; and others the phone can't find or connect to my PC. I have the Shared Folders set to Everyone, Password turned off, Sharing and Printing enabled, plus an exception in the Windows firewall for the desktop software for AirStream, but still nothing.

I used to be able to connect to my PC with my Nexus 4*, both with AirStream and ES File Explorer to make use of the shared folders in Windows 7. I've tried disabling the Windows firewall for both private and public networks yet it still won't connect. I've also tried turning off the security in the router settings, and again it still won't connect.

I'm now at a loss as to why I can't connect my phone to my PC, especially as I used to be able to with the older phone*. I can only think I must have changed a setting either on my PC or Router but I don't know what as I've been through everything, even contacting the app developers.

*This phone is now broken so I can't try it any more.

This is driving me insane, any help fixing this would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

 

[Zasmatic]

Id put my money on a firewall blocking you somewhere. This can either be on your p.c. (normally windows firewall.) or on the phone .... Or on the router its self ( very unlikely). Hows the phone broken out of curiosity ? I may be able to help

 

[D M]

Id put my money on a firewall blocking you somewhere. This can either be on your p.c. (normally windows firewall.) or on the phone .... Or on the router its self ( very unlikely). Hows the phone broken out of curiosity ? I may be able to help

I don't see how it could be a firewall issue; I don't have one on the Nexus 5, also when I disable Windows firewall I still can't connect, and how would I know if it was the router firewall? What settings should I look for? The settings look normal to me. I've also noticed the official Android Net Gear Genie app won't connect either, it mentions something about disabling IPv6, but I don't see an option to do that.

The problem with my other phone is that the screen is cracked and the touch screen no longer woks, I then messed about with ADB and it no longer boots.

Thanks.

 

[Zasmatic]

Sorry it shouldn't be your router firewall. The chance of that is slim to none. However to access and to turn off any automatic ipv6 settings you need to login to your router. Under Network > Interfaces in Frontview have you tried setting IPv6 assignment to off? You dont have any 3rd party antivirus that could be acting like a firewall on the pc?

That sounds really bad about your phone. It sounds like the booting issue may be fatal, but it would be hard to tell without the screen working. If the touch screen isnt working then the digitizer is broken. If its the nexus 5 then a new sceeen will be expensive. Like i learnt with my s4.

 

[D M]

Sorry it shouldn't be your router firewall. The chance of that is slim to none. However to access and to turn off any automatic ipv6 settings you need to login to your router. Under Network > Interfaces in Frontview have you tried setting IPv6 assignment to off? You dont have any 3rd party antivirus that could be acting like a firewall on the pc?

That sounds really bad about your phone. It sounds like the booting issue may be fatal, but it would be hard to tell without the screen working. If the touch screen isnt working then the digitizer is broken. If its the nexus 5 then a new sceeen will be expensive. Like i learnt with my s4.

Under 'Advanced Settings' Internet Connection Type is set to Auto Detect. Then it says;
Connection Type 6to4 Tunnel.
Router's IPv6 Address On WAN
Not Available

LAN Setup
Router's IPv6 Address On LAN
Then a long string of code beginning with 2002:57f2:b2c6:e472

I have PeerBlock on my PC, but again I can disable that but it doesn't make any difference.

It's my old Nexus 4 that broke that could connect to my PC over my network, it's my Nexus 5 that I can't connect up.

Thanks.

 

[Zasmatic]

Pair block normally doesnt cause me any issues. I do the exact same as you, i constantly connect to my pc via my phone. Hmmm can you set it to something different then auto detect? Because if its set to manual it may allow you to have access to Router's IPv6 Address On WAN

 

[D M]

Pair block normally doesnt cause me any issues. I do the exact same as you, i constantly connect to my pc via my phone. Hmmm can you set it to something different then auto detect? Because if its set to manual it may allow you to have access to Router's IPv6 Address On WAN

I tried changing it from Auto Detect to Auto Config and then Disabled, but I still can't connect to the Net Gear Genie app and I also tried connecting ES File Explorer again but I still got the usual message, 'Error can not find server.'

In the IPv6 settings page there is a drop down menu that says; Auto Detect, 6to4 tunnel, Pass Through, Fixed, DHCP, PPPoE, Auto Config. Each one has it's own subset of settings, and to be honest I have no idea what any of this means. I've now set it back to Auto Detect.

I've not heard any other Nexus 5 owners having this issue, I don't know what to make of it all, could the phone be faulty? I don't see how but at this point I have no idea where the problem is based. PC, router, phone.

Thanks.

 

[Zasmatic]

I can see theres lots of problems with the wifi on the phone. But nothing about connecting to servers. It seems really odd and im running out of ideas what it could be. Try put the phone into air plane mode, then out again. Try it, if not repeat and then restart and see if that helps

 

[ashfadlk]

Once you have created a new file or a file which you have already on your pc what you have to do is you have to give full permission (Read/Write) access to the file you need to share. probably you must to be the admin to do all that and
In ES File Explorer on your Android device, tap the globe icon in the upper-left hand corner, then navigate to Network > LAN and then On the menu at the bottom, tap "Search" to look for available network shares on your LAN. If you don't see any, make sure that your Android device and the Windows computer are connected to the same local network and try again. If successful, you should see your Windows computer listed with its IP address.Tap on the icon for your Windows PC, then enter your Windows username and password.
As i knw you should try with a password when sharing a file in win 7 just try it.

 

[D M]

I can see theres lots of problems with the wifi on the phone. But nothing about connecting to servers. It seems really odd and im running out of ideas what it could be. Try put the phone into air plane mode, then out again. Try it, if not repeat and then restart and see if that helps

I tried that and it unfortunately doesn't work either.

Once you have created a new file or a file which you have already on your pc what you have to do is you have to give full permission (Read/Write) access to the file you need to share. probably you must to be the admin to do all that and
In ES File Explorer on your Android device, tap the globe icon in the upper-left hand corner, then navigate to Network > LAN and then On the menu at the bottom, tap "Search" to look for available network shares on your LAN. If you don't see any, make sure that your Android device and the Windows computer are connected to the same local network and try again. If successful, you should see your Windows computer listed with its IP address.Tap on the icon for your Windows PC, then enter your Windows username and password.
As i knw you should try with a password when sharing a file in win 7 just try it.

I have shares and everything set-up on my PC and the Nexus 4 connected just fine, same thing with ES File Explorer and AirStream. When I tap Search for a network with ES File Explorer it just says "Scanning .... Successfully", but nothing happens.

As I already mentioned even the official Android Net Gear Genie app can't login, it says "Net Gear router is not found or is not supported. Also make sure the device is not connected to the guest network of the router, and no IPv6 is enabled." It isn't connected to the Guest network, and it connects to the Net Gear router for the internet and it shows up in a list of Trusted Devices along with my PC. And I have no idea what IPv6 means but as I've already mentioned I've tried those settings.

I think it's either a fault with the Nexus 5 or my modem/router, both are only a few months old and the router worked just fine out of the box as did the Nexus 4, but the Nexus 5 has never been able to find my PC.

I'm paying to get my Nexus 4 fixed and if it connects like it did before then I know the problem is with the Nexus 5 and I'll return it Google as faulty, if however it can't connect then I know it'll be a problem with the modem/router.

Thanks again.

 

[Zasmatic]

Soory i couldnt be more help. Espessially now that im out of ideas.

When you get the phone back you should let me know if it made a difference. Im really interested to know what happens

 

[D M]

I have an update: I got my Nexus 4 back with a new screen and case which cost about £95 all in.
The phone came back with the original Android JB 4.2.2 that came with the N4, and I tried to connect to the PC but sadly the same problem exists.
I then updated to JB 4.3 and tried again, and sadly the same problem exists.
I then updated to KitKat 4.4.2, and again the same problem exists.

This is the phone that could originally connect to the LAN/Server, but now can't.

Am I right in thinking it must be the modem/router where the problem lies, and not the PC? If so I'm going to do a reset of the modem/router to see what affect, if any, that has on the problem. If that doesn't fix it then I'm at an even bigger loss as to what or where the problem is.

 

[D M]

Well on Sunday I finally got everything working how I want, although I'm not sure how.

As I said earlier, I decided to try and reset the modem router which then created the problem of having no internet access at all on my PC, it seems I wasn't doing it properly. I was turning the modem router off before pressing the reset button, once I tried pressing the reset button whilst everything was still turned on, I got my internet access back on my PC.

Then when I tried the apps on my phone, they recognised and connected to my PC straight away, including the Netgear Genie app, AirStream, and ES File Explorer.

I just wish I knew exactly what settings were causing the connection problems. The only thing I can see in the settings is that, in Mode it is now set to Auto, Wireless Isolation is turned off, and IPV6 is set to Disabled - No Internet Connection.

However, there must be other settings that are different as I'm pretty sure I tried all those.

It also looks like my Netgear D6300 doesn't fully support IPV6 despite a firmware update late last year.

Anyway, I'm just here to say that my problem is fixed, I'm not fully sure how, but it is. Thanks to those who offered advice and who tried to help, and I hope the thread can be of some use to others.

Cheers.

 

[Zasmatic]

Lol thats really odd. Its crazy that all it needed was a reset. Im finding more and more often i have to say that things just randomly started working like it should for absolutely no reason.

But thats awesome to hear, really glad you finally got it sorted after all of that

 

[Asgher Hussain]

I am having the same problem,
But i don't think it could a router or firewall settings issue because i can access all shares hosted on a linux machine. But i am unable to access any windows share.

 

[btrotinel]

Hi everyone!

I think the problem is from the ES File Manager. If you try setting a password for your windows account and then connect to your computer via ES File Manager, search your computer on network then try to connect to it using your username and password you just set and it should work. It did for me and I didn't had to share the drives or folders from windows to access them from my mobile. Not sure why it worked but I think it's a bug from ES.

Good luck!

 

[btrotinel]

I am having the same problem,
But i don't think it could a router or firewall settings issue because i can access all shares hosted on a linux machine. But i am unable to access any windows share.

Try the way It worked for me, I posted the solution.

 

[barleysinger]

Id put my money on a firewall blocking you somewhere. This can either be on your p.c. (normally windows firewall.) or on the phone .... Or on the router its self ( very unlikely). Hows the phone broken out of curiosity ? I may be able to help

Actually it is a very common problem. People all over the world hate it, especailly in Android 4.2. I am having the very same issue (and have been reading about it for hours) on a PIPO M6 phablet. Our phone can see every share on every PC, the tablet can see the shares on 1 PC and not the other (they are set up the same).

*** I have yet to find an answer that ACTUALLY WORKS on getting my Anrdoid 4.2 tablet to see that ONE desktop machine's shares (even though it is set up exactly the same as the laptop is - what the hell)

---- off topic but sort of related --------------

Note also that WIN7 machines when left on for a while, tend to have their shares just "disappear". There are registry setting that can fix this PC to PC problem, and it is a problem that was introduced ON PURPOSE in the release of WIN7.

Essentially when they made win 7 MickySloth chose to change a default behavior that everyone relies on and has been in place since WIN95. They changed the numbers in two registry settings, and that caused your PC-to-PC shares (in your home network which has no server) to disappear. This was essentially a way to try and get people to by Windows Server.

You can find the information below all over the web. It has nothing to do with the DROID issues at hand.

By changing the registry *BACK* to normal settings, you essentially tell it to act like all the other versions of Windows did.

The recomened settings for a machine that has shares in use, is

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\LargeSystemCache=1
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Parameters\Size=3

 

[sheppy]

I've recently had a problem with ALL of my Android devices not seeing my Win 7 shares after upgrading my home server from XP (on XP they all managed to see them fine using ES File on the devices, for years) - all clean installs and shares all defo setup correctly but no matter what i did all the android devices would either keep asking for a password or just keep spinning. After a few attempts at rebuilds using both 32/64bit versions of Win 7 and alternative android apps with varying success I tried a fresh install with NO MS updates installed - magically everything worked fine. Installed my BitDefender suite - still all OK for days. Then ran the MS updates until they were all done (200+ over a day or so) - shares all went dead again. So.... i was now pretty confident that in my case it was an MS update that stops it working on my machine.

I do have another win 7 machine though which is all MS patched up and it doesn't have the same issue and the shares on that all work fine.

I decided to try one last thing and installed and old 3com network card and bingo - all the shares started working again.... Server now all patched up and running like it was before with me able to brows the shares, stream etc. etc. with no issues at all - 5 days and counting.

For me it seemed that an updated network card driver was the most likely cause of my issues but it took weeks to find that out as the shares all worked fine with all my other win 7 machine attaching to the shares, it was just the androids that didn't work. My original nic was an onboard type.

So maybe worth grabbing a cheap nic card and installing it in your PC if you're having similar issues, or a cheap wifi dongle or something just to get the connection away from your current nic. Certainly worked for me.

Good luck...

 

[SovAtman]

Just fixed it for myself in the weirdest way after playing around for an hour. Nothing I googled helped.

On the phone, I opened the Wi Fi list, tapped and held over my household Wi Fi, tapped 'modify network config' in the popup, clicked 'show advanced options', and did this to get the 'IP address' from the bottom of the info for my phone on the network. It was 192.168.0.12.

Then on my pc I opened a command prompt (start > run > type 'cmd' hit enter) and typed 'ping' and my phone's LAN IP: "ping 192.168.0.12". After doing this, my phone could immediately connect to my PC again with ES File Explorer. I was just so mad that the phone kept telling me that my PC server wasn't there I was like "well can the PC even see the phone!?" so I tried pinging it. I don't know why that made a difference but it was fixed immediately after.

 

[barleysinger]

Well on Sunday I finally got everything working how I want, although I'm not sure how.
.... SNIP ....
Cheers.

Oh the many joys of Bills legacy of corporate theft and cludge-ware

You wouldn't happen to have you PC set up to AUTO-UPDATE would you?

I only ask because most people do these days. This can also cause stability problems with the OS.

In the PRO world the technical support people who update the hardware & software NEVER EVER do this. Instead ONE machine (for each OS) in the tech department is allowed to update, and the tech-orcs (those of the special breed who never see daylight..."it HURTS us my precious" as I used to say) get to watch the Microsoft update forums very closely for a month to see what HORRIBLE new problems were introduced with the latest update. Usually there are a LOT of horrid new problems introduced with each update. Oh god, the horrors, the horrors (and now there are shoggoths...how did they get shoggoths?)

It could be that you got an update, it made your system unstable, and then you got another update (a fix to that bad update) that corrected the problem. Then again it could be cosmic rays, astrology, or the flying spaghetti monster's noodley appendages. MicroSlop is like that. I wish they would hire some folks from the UBUNTU release team to handle the stability of their releases (but that would be intelligent... so we can't do that).

 

[barleysinger]

Just fixed it for myself in the weirdest way after playing around for an hour. Nothing I googled helped.

On the phone, I opened the Wi Fi list, tapped and held over my household Wi Fi, tapped 'modify network config' in the popup, clicked 'show advanced options', and did this to get the 'IP address' from the bottom of the info for my phone on the network. It was 192.168.0.12.

Then on my pc I opened a command prompt (start > run > type 'cmd' hit enter) and typed 'ping' and my phone's LAN IP: "ping 192.168.0.12". After doing this, my phone could immediately connect to my PC again with ES File Explorer. I was just so mad that the phone kept telling me that my PC server wasn't there I was like "well can the PC even see the phone!?" so I tried pinging it. I don't know why that made a difference but it was fixed immediately after.

I recognize this problem. I have a theory that a basic element of TCP/IP was lost somewhere in Microsoft-land. If you have not had communication between two IP addresses for a while it is possible for devices to "sleep" (or just stop talking), however when you do ANY form of investigation on your network, that machine you are using is *SUPPOSED* to go back out and determine which machines are LIVE (at the very least PING the old list - but a new list is far better). Microsoft does not do this at times. I can often see (on my network here) a machine listed which is not turned on...or a machine that *is* on, which will list SHARED DRIVES which are not even currently plugged in and shared - and worse, I can then SEE the "zombie content" of those drives (cached info on my machine) so from my end it looks like the machine is on, the drives are shared, and for some odd reason I can't get at a file....hmm...so I go to the other end of the building and find the laptop in question is not even turned on, and that person is not even there.

Yay Microsoft. You failed basic networking.