Windows 8 not showing mapped network drives

[Automata]

I have an interesting issue that I can reproduce every time. I have drive mapped to my server's share, and it disappears from Computer once I close the window, but I can access it through the drive letter without an issue. Searching online doesn't turn up many results because of the terms I have to use.

The drive is connected, it does not ask for credentials while opening, and it opens instantly. Creating new network drives produces the same results. This install is less than a month old.

Here is Computer without me doing anything, freshly opened. The missing network drive is S:\. Note that it isn't even listed on the left.



Drive S:\ showing in the drop down box.




Once I type in "s:" or select "S:\" in the drop down, it instantly pulls up. Note that the drive now shows on the left side under Computer.




Clicking back to Computer shows the drive is still not listed here, but the shortcut is still listed in the left pane. If this window is closed, it is removed from the left side. Going to the drive also does not affect other open Explorer windows.



I'm at a loss why it would not show network drives. It originally did and there is no option to hide/show them. This is more of an annoyance than anything else, as I know exactly what my network drives are, but I would really like to see them listed here.

Help?






EDIT: Ok, made an interesting discovery. If I leave a Computer window open, then map a network drive, it shows up. But, if I close that window, refresh it, or do anything else, it goes away.

Mapped the Media share in another window, it shows up instantly here:



If I push F5 (even with the other window still open), it goes away. Note that Media still shows in the left pane.

 

[I.M.O.G.]

Good one. Seems odd.

What version of windows?

 

[I.M.O.G.]

How many mapped drives do you have?

 

[Automata]

Good one. Seems odd.

What version of windows?

Running on a Lenovo Thinkpad W530.

How many mapped drives do you have?

Normally one. For my edit in the first post, I had two.

 

[cullam3n]

Pro or non-pro? I have regular Win8 on my laptop and I don't have this issue. If you disconnect and reconnect does that fix the problem?

 

[Automata]

Pro or non-pro? I have regular Win8 on my laptop and I don't have this issue. If you disconnect and reconnect does that fix the problem?

Pro and disconnecting/reconnecting does not fix the issue (just tried now to make sure). System has been restarted multiple times since this issue has started/been noticed.

 

[cullam3n]

Weird. If you try to map it as a network location rather than a network drive, does the folder show up?

 

[cullam3n]

Only thing I can think of is you are mounting it under a different user (such as using "run as administator" on a command prompt and mounting it there)

edit: disregard that. I tried it and it mounts it as administrator but I can't access it in the GUI. If I mount it on a normal cmd prompt it shows up like it is supposed to.

On the command line, if you do a "net use" does it show up there?

 

[Automata]

Weird. If you try to map it as a network location rather than a network drive, does the folder show up?

I'm not sure what you are asking me to do. Do you mean right clicking the folder under Network and mapping it that way? If so, that is exactly the same as typing it in manually.

Only thing I can think of is you are mounting it under a different user (such as using "run as administator" on a command prompt and mounting it there)

That is not the case. I very rarely run anything as administrator. Just saw your edit. I was too slow to type.

However, here is the even more strange thing. I've done at least 30 restarts trying to fix this issue in addition to general usage. It is working now. The only thing I could think of that would have been causing an issue was Offline Files. Shortly after I installed the operating system, I accidentally clicked "Make available offline" on my huge storage array, and Windows attempted to make it offline. I pulled up the Offline Files configuration and just flat out disabled it, which deleted the files in the process. That was roughly around when the issue started.

I enabled Offline Files, restarted, and the network drive wouldn't go away. Thinking I had it figured out, I disabled it again and restarted to find it still wouldn't go away. I then thought it was sleep causing the issue, as I use that often when the system is not in use, but that didn't cause it either.

No idea what the problem is at this point or if it is even resolved. I guess I'll just keep using it to see what happens.

Fresh restart after enabling/disabling Offline Files and putting it into and pulling it out of sleep:

 

[I.M.O.G.]

Weird. Seems like an odd bug for sure. Hopefully its just fixed and it was windows having a brain fart due to the offline files weirdness.

 

[cullam3n]

This is what I meant.


Weird. I haven't used Offline Files so I'm not sure if that could have contributed to the issue.

 

[Automata]

This is what I meant.

Ha, I saw that in the list and it didn't even register that is what you were talking about. According to the description, that does an offline version of whatever you give it, which would be catastrophic to my free space on this system.

 

[cullam3n]

Ha, I saw that in the list and it didn't even register that is what you were talking about. According to the description, that does an offline version of whatever you give it, which would be catastrophic to my free space on this system.

That must be an option because Offline Files is specific to Win8 Pro and I can use map network location without it asking me about it.

 

[Realee]

Have you by chance disabled UAC?
Windows 8 shares are a PITA with it disabled.

We run Windows 8 with GPP shared drives and without UAC they simply don't connect - this could be something similar?

 

[Automata]

Have you by chance disabled UAC?
Windows 8 shares are a PITA with it disabled.

We run Windows 8 with GPP shared drives and without UAC they simply don't connect - this could be something similar?

No, and I won't disable UAC, sorry.

 

[Realee]

No, and I won't disable UAC, sorry.

No no - UAC enabled is a good thing.
Sorry if I made it sound backwards.

It appears to be *required* for some things in Windows 8 to work correctly.

 

[Automata]

No no - UAC enabled is a good thing.
Sorry if I made it sound backwards.

It appears to be *required* for some things in Windows 8 to work correctly.

Sorry, I just re-read your post and see I missed a part. No, it is not disabled.

 

[Automata]

The issue is back and I'm not sure what is triggering it. A restart seems to temporarily fix the issue, but something I'm going, a program I'm running, or something Windows is doing is causing it to happen again. I'm at a loss as what to even try next. I can't run less programs as I need this computer daily for work and school.

I can only think of two things that would cause it. Putting the system into standby (I do this very frequently). I also go outside my home network frequently (to campus), which makes the network drive inaccessible, so it drops it from the list until system restart. The latter is easy to test.

However, I still think this is a bug because when the network drive gets reconnected, it doesn't permanently show. The same applies to new network drives.

 

[I.M.O.G.]

Any way to get more judicious about detecting when it becomes unavailable?

I am thinking a fairly simple script, like a level two "hello world" script. The script would need to run every 5 to 10 minutes via a scheduled task. Its job would be to say "hello network drive", then write to a CSV file, noting if the network drive was available at that time or not - I would probably have it copy from a text file on the network drive then write that content to the CSV with a timestamp... If it can read it, you have a time stamped "hello script" in the CSV, if not you probably just have a timestamp with no content or a missing timestamp. Given that, you could identify within 5-10 minutes of when something is going wrong. Viewing the application or system logs around those times, you could get a better idea of what's happening... Or just by memory even perhaps you might recall what was running or what might have changed about the environment around that time to cause the problem.

I think the main problem with tracing the issue is not being certain when it disappears at all. If you can trace when it happens it becomes a lot easier to work at figuring out why.

Very likely better ways to skin the cat, but I'm a hack. I think this would work though.

 

[Automata]

Interesting idea. I'll have to look into how to do that.