There are more than a few questions/answers related to 'System error 53 has occurred' and lots of answers that, does not apply to this issue.
I have a computer named 'caicos' and a dns cname 'share' for the same. Using NetBIOS, some computers accept the cname 'share' and others don't. We need the alternative name to make this share computer independent. Both computers the client and server are 2008 R2 domain members. I suspect it's a domain policy (?) changed by a rogue patch
So, caicos, share and 192.168.0.26 are the same computer.
Note: This configuration was working for 10+ years and stop working (on some domain members) for no apparent reason.
The issue
- net view \\caicos works OK
- net view \\192.168.0.26 System error 53 has occurred.
- net view \\share System error 53 has occurred.
Some debug data
C:\Users\administrator.W>nslookup caicos
Server: xxx
Address: fe80::5404:70ab:4ec6:f268
Name: caicos.w.com
Address: 192.168.0.26
C:\Users\administrator.W>nslookup share
Server: xxx
Address: fe80::5404:70ab:4ec6:f268
Name: caicos.w.com
Address: 192.168.0.26
Aliases: share.w.com
C:\Users\administrator.W>net view \\caicos
Shared resources at \\caicos
Virtual Machine Host
Share name Type Used as Comment
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
backup Disk
*redacted* Disk
library Disk
reports Disk Internal use Reports
sales Disk Sales information.
users Disk User shares
The command completed successfully.
C:\Users\administrator.WE>tracert caicos
Tracing route to caicos.w.com [192.168.0.26]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms caicos.w.com [192.168.0.26]
Trace complete.
C:\Users\administrator.W>net view \\192.168.0.26
System error 53 has occurred.
The network path was not found.
C:\Users\administrator.W>ping 192.168.0.26
Pinging 192.168.0.26 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 192.168.0.26: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128
...
Ping statistics for 192.168.0.26:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 0ms, Average = 0ms
C:\Users\administrator.W>net view \\share
System error 53 has occurred.
The network path was not found.
C:\Users\administrator.W>ping share
Pinging 192.168.0.26 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 192.168.0.26: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128
...
Ping statistics for 192.168.0.26:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 0ms, Average = 0ms
Answering my own question.
We have more than one network on our configuration, as such, more than one path from the client to the server. Even more, one goes through a tough firewall and the other, just a plain LAN connection (internal firewall).
Using nbtstat, using name (-A) and ip address (-a) I was able to confirm the issue: no IP connection. Standard network socket communication is smart enough to use the right interface but (looks like) NetBIOS just use the first interface, however, when using NetBIOS name directly the LAN address is used.
Changing priorities on the network interfaces was enough to fully restore the NetBIOS communication.