Unable to ping local machines by name in Windows 7

Question

I'm having a strange (and persistent!) problem with pinging local machines on my network by name. I believe my machine (Windows 7 64-bit) is the only one having this issue. This is over a wireless connection.

As an example, consider a device on my network by the name of WDTVLiveHub. It's a Western Digital Live Hub (surprise!). If I go to my router's DHCP Client Table in the browser (my router is a WRT400N), I see this entry:

WDTVLiveHub 192.168.1.101

Great. So I try to ping that IP address:

ping 192.168.1.101

Pinging 192.168.1.101 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=9ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=64

Ping statistics for 192.168.1.101:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 9ms, Maximum = 16ms, Average = 14ms

OK, still looking good. Now I try to ping it by name:

ping WDTVLiveHub

Ping request could not find host WDTVLiveHub. Please check the name and try again.

From what I've read, this implies a problem with DNS servers and host name lookups. Interestingly, if I type the following:

pathping 192.168.1.101

I get this output:

Tracing route to WDTVLIVEHUB [192.168.1.101]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
  0  Scotty [192.168.1.103]
  1  WDTVLIVEHUB [192.168.1.101]

Computing statistics for 25 seconds...
            Source to Here   This Node/Link
Hop  RTT    Lost/Sent = Pct  Lost/Sent = Pct  Address
  0                                           Scotty [192.168.1.103]
                                1/ 100 =  1%   |
  1   12ms     1/ 100 =  1%     0/ 100 =  0%  WDTVLIVEHUB [192.168.1.101]

Trace complete.

Scotty is obviously the name of my local machine. So it's able to find the name somehow when I do that approach...

ipconfig /all shows the following under DNS servers:

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

Where the * represents the same DNS servers that show up in my router under DNS 1 and DNS 2 through the Internet.

For completeness, here's the whole output of ipconfig /all:

Windows IP Configuration

   Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : Scotty
   Primary Dns Suffix  . . . . . . . : 
   Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Peer-Peer
   IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
   WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

Wireless LAN adapter Wireless Network Connection:

   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . : 
   Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Dell Wireless 1397 WLAN Mini-Card
   Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 0C-EE-E6-D1-07-E8
   DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
   Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
   IPv6 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 2002:d83a:31e5:1234:5592:398e:8968:43d1(Preferred) 
   Temporary IPv6 Address. . . . . . : 2002:d83a:31e5:1234:ecce:2f79:72a5:5273(Preferred) 
   Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::5592:398e:8968:43d1%26(Preferred) 
   IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.103(Preferred) 
   Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
   Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : September-17-12 11:05:57 PM
   Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : September-18-12 11:05:57 PM
   Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : fe80::200:ff:fe00:0%26
                                       192.168.1.1
   DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
   DHCPv6 IAID . . . . . . . . . . . : 537718502
   DHCPv6 Client DUID. . . . . . . . : 00-01-00-01-12-80-3D-D7-00-26-B9-0D-08-70
   DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
                                       ***.***.***.***
                                       ***.***.***.***
   NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled

Ethernet adapter VirtualBox Host-Only Network:

   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . : 
   Description . . . . . . . . . . . : VirtualBox Host-Only Ethernet Adapter
   Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 08-00-27-00-98-9A
   DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
   Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
   Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::b48a:916b:c0f:fb29%23(Preferred) 
   Autoconfiguration IPv4 Address. . : 169.254.251.41(Preferred) 
   Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.0.0
   Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 
   DHCPv6 IAID . . . . . . . . . . . : 570949671
   DHCPv6 Client DUID. . . . . . . . : 00-01-00-01-12-80-3D-D7-00-26-B9-0D-08-70
   DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : fec0:0:0:ffff::1%1
                                       fec0:0:0:ffff::2%1
                                       fec0:0:0:ffff::3%1
   NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled

Tunnel adapter Local Area Connection* 15:

   Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . : 
   Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Teredo Tunneling Pseudo-Interface
   Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-E0
   DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
   Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

Tunnel adapter isatap.{55899375-C31D-4173-A529-4427D63FD28B}:

   Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . : 
   Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Microsoft ISATAP Adapter #2
   Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-E0
   DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
   Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

Tunnel adapter isatap.{64B8F35F-A6AB-4D6B-B1D5-DD95F57B1458}:

   Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . : 
   Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Microsoft ISATAP Adapter #3
   Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-E0
   DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
   Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

Not sure exactly how to diagnose exactly what's going on... but the problem is really frustrating! The biggest problem is that my mapped network drives have to be done by IP, and then any time the router assigns new IP addresses to those devices, all of my network shares break again. Stinks!

Would love some assistance on possible solutions. I've tried all of this netsh catalog resetting and that didn't seem to fix anything at all. Would love an explanation of what's going wrong, too, rather than blindly resetting things!

UPDATE: I ran Wireshark 1.8.2 to see what was going on when I ran my ping request. Wireshark immediately shows four LLMNR requests to what I believe is the correct multicast destination. Two of them are IPv4 and the other two are IPv6. What I don't see are any ICMP packets? Should LLMNR be expected to work on its own?

UPDATE 2: I'm able to ping another machine (Windows Vista) on the network by name. This jives with the idea that LLMNR is only supported on newer Windows machines, but not on the other devices on my network. I installed WireShark on my other machine, and found that when I ping from there, it also sends out NBNS packets -- NetBIOS Name Service. This implies that somehow my machine is not sending out NBNS queries for some reason. Still digging...

UPDATE 3: Just can't seem to send NetBIOS packets. I think this is the root cause. I've tried disabling LLMNR through the group policy hoping that NetBIOS would magically start up, but no luck. ipconfig shows that NetBIOS over TCP/IP is Enabled, and yet WireShark doesn't show any NetBIOS name resolution packets being sent out. I've tried disabling and then re-enabling it. I've also tried the two classic commands of nbtstat winsock reset catalog and nbtstat int ip reset reset.log, but those didn't fix the NetBIOS issues at all. Would LOVE some guidance...

SOLVED! Many, many thanks to wmz. He or she indeed pinpointed exactly the issue: for whatever reason my NetBIOS over TCP/IP had set itself up to act in peer-to-peer mode. After a little research, it turns out peer-to-peer mode only works if you have a WINS server set up (which I definitely don't!). I dug into the registry and found no entries under NodeType, but indeed an entry for DhcpNodeType with the (horror of horrors!) value of 0x00000002. A value of 1 is Broadcast (which would have been fine), 2 is Peer-to-Peer (requiring a WINS server! Ack!), 4 tries WINS server then broadcasts, and 8 tries broadcast then WINS server (called "Hybrid" mode). After deleting the DhcpNodeType entry and rebooting, I found that ipconfig /all now showed Hybrid mode. So it looks like that's the default for Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit. I tried pinging wdtvlivehub, and was immediately greeted with the sweet taste of success. Many thanks to all of you for your various answers. I'm very happy to have solved the problem without reinstalling Windows or some crazy thing. I still have no idea how this value ever got changed... but at least it's one more thing to look for and hopefully this info helps somebody else dealing with frustrating networking issues! Feels so good to have this problem licked! Bounty well earned!

Thanks!

Answer 1

Your findings seem to point to netbios resolver, which in turn makes this entry a suspect:
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Peer-Peer

Netbios node type p(2) - normally used only with Wins server (which I assume you do not have) - effectively disables any netbios name resolution broadcast.

This article describles problem very similar to yours and also links to Msoft technet article detailing how to reset node type to something more reasonable:

To resolve this issue, follow these steps:

Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
Locate and then click the following registry subkey:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\NetBt\Parameters
In the right pane of Registry Editor, delete the following values if they are present:
    NodeType
    DhcpNodeType

Note If the NodeType value is present, this value will override the DhcpNodeType value. If neither subkey is present and if no WINS servers are configured for the client, the computer uses b-node mode. If at least one WINS server is configured, the computer uses h-node mode. Quit Registry Editor. Restart the computer. Try to view workgroup computers on the network again.

Answer 2

One interesting thing about your ipconfig /all output is that you have no primary dns suffix, you should go into the tcp/ip proprties for ipv4 on that adapter and add workgroup as your primary dns suffix and see if it is able to resolve the names for your other systems, most routers will add .workgroup to the names of the machines so the fqdn for your system would be scotty.workgroup. also check and see if you can ping WDTVLiveHub.workgroup by name. you should also add workgroup to the dns search domains list on the ipv4 settings for that adapter as well.

Answer 3

Perhaps the server is unable to resolve the host name.

You could try to add the entry for WDTVLiveHub in the hosts file as:

192.168.1.101 WDTVLiveHub

On Windows: C:\Windows\system32\drivers\etc\

Answer 4

Perhaps mixing on the same network devices that use iPv4 and iPv6 is the problem.

You might try to turn off iPv6 in the router and in Windows 7.

Answer 5

The following solution will let you forget about the hustle dealing with local hosts-files and things like NETBIOS name resolving - but there is a downside to that. This is not just a setting to turn on or off in your windows or router config. This needs a little bit more effort on your side.

To me it seems you are suffisticated enough to get this sorted out in a way, where you never will have problems with name-resolving again in your home network!

After a quick check on www.dd-wrt.com it seems like your Cisco-Router is compatible to run the open-source router-firmware DD-WRT. This handy little peace of software will spend your router all the functionality you need in your home-network and even more. This does also include a service called DNSMasq which is a small, lightweight dns-server that runs on your router.

From the DD-WRT Wiki:

An added advantage is that DNSMasq can intelligently add DHCP leases to its DNS database, providing local name lookups for any DHCP client, static or dynamic.

So this will actually add real dns-resolving to your network which is not based on hoping that your NETBIOS and multicast-DNS-Resolving works.

If you are the kind of guy, that likes to paddle around for some hours and try somtehing new, i suggest you have a look at it. You can find a guide to flash your router here but please be sure to check that your device and model-version is compatible with DD-WRT before you flash the new firmware to it or you might corrupt your device! the link again to check this

Other cool stuff you get with DD-WRT:

• Wake On LAN support - Boot your devices from everywhere in the word
• VPN Endpoint-Support - Get a secure connection to your home-network from abroad.
• Bandwidth Analysis and Management - Get Real Information about your network usage.
• many more things. Overview can be found here

By the way, its free also.

Cheers Riscie!

(I am not connected to any of the developers of DD-WRT nor will a gain from someone using this firmware - im just so enthusiastic because i really belief in its functionallity :))