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Peter HowarthFlag for United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

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Win 7 shares: The local device name is already in use

Good morning.

IT Manager here but strange issue with my home network that I've yet to solve.

Four client PCs (Two Win 7 Pro, Two Win10) and a Win7 Pro "server" with file shares and 3rd party spam software.  

Three clients work fine, no issues.

On my main PC (Win 7 Pro) every now and again, maybe a fortnight, maybe a month, my mapped drives will fail:

"An error occured while reconnecting N: to \\server\share.   Microsoft Windows Network: The local device name is already in use.  This connection has not been restored."

Trying to browse to \\server results in:  "The specified server cannot perform the requested operation."

The only solution i've found is to restart the server, but it's a pain and I want to solve it.  

Any guidance as to where to look?

Peter
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strivoli
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Windows Logs on SERVER and CLIENT don't help?
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Kimputer

Try to look at the event logs during the "down" time of the server. Restart is not always necessary, try to restart some network services instead. Saves you a bit of time.Any other network related software installed? Third party firewall or similar?
maybe this article helps; it points out 5 options :  https://www.partitionwizard.com/partitionmagic/the-local-device-name-is-already-in-use.html
Solution 1. Remap the Network Drive
Solution 2. Enable File and Printer Sharing
Solution 3. Assign Drive Letter
Solution 4. Modify Registry
Solution 5. Check If There Is Enough Space on the Server
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ASKER

This went wrong again a couple of days later, and the logs did show some errors which I googled and (thought I'd) resolved.  It was ok for maybe a week... then went wrong again.

Unfortunately they've gone out of the event viewers history now so i'm waiting for it to go wrong again at a convenient time when I can play with it.

I'll be back...
did you follow my suggestion? tell us what you did or changed...
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Peter Howarth
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The solution is given in my two latest posts, which is why i've not selected anyone elses response as the answer.

Can I mark my own comment as the solution?

Deleting the question is not helpful to future viewers with the same query, as the solution will also be deleted.