Help ES File Explorer help needed

[thatjerk]

I just thought I'd update my post to say I've discovered what I think is a bug in File Explorer. I ran Wireshark on my Samba server to see if packets from File Explorer were actually reaching the server. When I logged into one of the shared accounts, it was clear packets were reaching the server. However, when I tried to log into my private account, absolutely no packets were seen. I created a different private account and found that I could log into that new account. A little bit more fiddling revealed that that presence of a question mark in the password of the original private account was causing Fex to not send any packets. If I eliminated the ? from the password, communication between Fex and the Samba server happened. So the upshot appears to be that non alphanumeric characters (or at least a ?) in passwords prevents File Explorer from making a connection.

Good find! :b

 

[mjschmidt]

My username and password are both letters only, no symbols, but I can't get it to connect.

 

[Hangdog42]

I pretty much followed the directions from this thread to get Estrongs connected. Make sure you've got your syntax right. What works for me is IP/Service, so something like:

192.168.1.95/hangdog

And then I've just got the username and password in the appropriate fields. In your earlier post you said you opened port 137, however that may not be sufficient. My Samba server is uses 137-139 and 445. You might try opening up those 4 ports and see if that helps. As an alternative, you could just temporarily turn off the firewall entirely to see if it is a firewall problem.

 

[davecor]

I have the same problem as @mjschmidt. I'm using Vista 32, a Motodroid, firewall off, correct syntax as far as I can tell, and sharing has been set up. Initially the software created icons and gave me a network path error. Afterward, I've not even gotten that far; just a server not found error. I've made no adjustments to my router but have flawless internet access from the phone. I uninstalled and reinstalled with the same result. Too bad. Wireless access would have been greatly appreciated.

 

[meanmini1]

quick ? here. i don't have a username and password to log in to my computer. so i click the anonymous box. is this a big deal or no?

 

[Hangdog42]

quick ? here. i don't have a username and password to log in to my computer. so i click the anonymous box. is this a big deal or no?

No it shouldn't be a big deal. That is what I do to access the open shares on my Samba server.

 

[kenc3dan]

I have found that I often need to power cycle my Droid to get ES File Explorer working again with my XP shares. Otherwise it's "Getting file list..." forever.

 

[youandwhosearmy]

I have found that I often need to power cycle my Droid to get ES File Explorer working again with my XP shares. Otherwise it's "Getting file list..." forever.

That's the exact problem I am having. Do you know what causes the "Getting file list....." issue? Is this reason I cannot copy or move any files between my phone and PC?

 

[zaphod]

I have the same issues on my Desire
My samba-shares (on a Linux-server) works perfectly with computers and I can see the shares if I let ES file explorer scan the network. When I select a shared folder ESfex tells me to type username and passwd (which is correct) but then I get the timeout/path-nonsense
There seems to be to many of us for this to be a user or hardware problem.
Questions:
To those of you who has it working, have you set username/passwd on the shares?
Is the username/passwd thing a common issue for us who cannot get it to work?

Update:
The software can only handle alpha numeric passwords, tried a different account and it works.
For me that means I will use andftp and transfer files instead of "streaming"

 

[radekker]

I can login to the folders of my QNAP (Samba) server which uses a fixed IP address in the local network.
No matter if I use 'anonymous' or 'user name/password'.
Unfortunately the timeout/path issue pops up after a few succesful connections.
Reinstalling the prgram fixes the issue, but only for a short period of time.
I'm using FEX on a Desire with Android 2.1.

 

[zaphod]

does your password contain any of these signs? !"#

 

[bnaegele]

I can confirm that passwords with non-alphanumeric symbols will result in the "path not found/timed out" error. Changing the password to an alphanumeric password resolved the issue, however this is obviously not an ideal solution.

 

[grampadrew]

I am having the exact same issues as mjschmidt (and I noticed he never seemed to get an answer that helped him).

In fact, my wife and I are both having the same problem. I've got a moto droid, and she's got the Droid Incredible.

We are able to get an icon with our server IP in the LAN window (like the screen cap number 3 on herodroid's post). But when we click on the server icon, it keeps saying "network path not found or time out...try again".

Our password is alphanumeric as in "mypass87600" (obviously not my actual password). I've tried completely turning off my firewalls. Nothing helps. Maybe someone here can?

 

[nyx528]

I'm running Vista and I'm having the same issue. No matter what I do I cannot connect via LAN setup.

 

[DroidPete]

Also having trouble with ES, although I prefer it to ASTRO as there are no Ads (Y).

So on LAN... my Home (Desktop) PC shows up. I can see all the shared folders, I click on a folder that is on my PC (e.g. "Music") and then it says "connecting to [my local IP address]" and asks for a username and password.
Problem is, I have my user accounts on my PC (Vista home 64bit) without passwords and when I check the "anonymous" box I hit OK and nothing happens. :-/
On Network and Sharing options (on Vista) all are on, with password protected sharing turned off.

Help! (Thank you!)

 

[treborcj]

Also having trouble with ES, although I prefer it to ASTRO as there are no Ads (Y).

So on LAN... my Home (Desktop) PC shows up. I can see all the shared folders, I click on a folder that is on my PC (e.g. "Music") and then it says "connecting to [my local IP address]" and asks for a username and password.
Problem is, I have my user accounts on my PC (Vista home 64bit) without passwords and when I check the "anonymous" box I hit OK and nothing happens. :-/
On Network and Sharing options (on Vista) all are on, with password protected sharing turned off.

Help! (Thank you!)

Uncheck "anonymous" and enter your username and password. In this case leave the password section blank.

 

[DroidPete]

Uncheck "anonymous" and enter your username and password. In this case leave the password section blank.

Thanks for quick response, but it didn't work (I thought I would have tried that already!).
Well I got it working, but not how I'd have liked. I had to password protect another user account on my PC and log on with that account credentials.
So if anyone else is having problems, that is one (imperfect, but working) solution.
Anonymous needs to get fixed, as does blank passwords. :-/

 

[brian31273]

I have successfully connected to my laptop, able to view my shared folders and files. When I've selected a file to copy, thereafter It appears to have copied. But when I click on the file I receive a error message "invalid path". What am I doing wrong, how do I view photo or play the mp3 file? Is the file received on my phone? Please help

 

[androidynous]

@ DroidPete:

Thanks very much. I was having the same problem.

For anyone else who cannot use ES explorer to connect to shared folders on their PC, and don't have a password setup on their PC user account, do the following:

1. Create a new user account in windows
2. Set a password for this user account
3. Use this username and Password in ES Explorer when accessing the shared drives on the PC.

Nice!

 

[rafcastro]

Hi, i was having the same problem with ES File Explorer and Windows XP and I resolve it using this link. SMB setup on Windows XP . The problem is that Windows XP, in the WINS addresses tab, under Advance TCP/IP settings, the netBIOS setting is set on Default, and can't manage SMB properly. Changing to "Enable NetBIOS over TCP/IP" solves the problem. After doing this, follow the steps posted by Herodroid at #17.

 

[STHD]

since we are on this topic...

i was wondering what setting do i have to put in to be able to access my phone from my pc

so basically i want to transfer files from my pc to my android (instead the other way around)

do i use the LAN or the FTP tab???

thanks

 

[treborcj]

since we are on this topic...

i was wondering what setting do i have to put in to be able to access my phone from my pc

so basically i want to transfer files from my pc to my android (instead the other way around)

do i use the LAN or the FTP tab???

thanks

You can use either LAN or FTP. Read this entire thread and you should have no problem setting it up.

 

[Kevin Vegas]

I spent about 2 hours trying to get ES File explorer to view my PC share files,
I poured over the this discussion. Trying various suggestions.
First, I had server not found errors. I rebooted the Droid, then the server icons appeared on my Droid X but I couldn't connect to them. It kept on asking me if I wanted to try another password. I tried the "Scan" option thinking it might go out and find at least one of my 6 machines(No luck)
Scan didn't work at all. I created a new login and user on one machines to see if I t would like the new user and password. (No Luck)
I killed the ES file manager on the Droid and restarted it a second time.
Still couldn't log in. I tried the scan again, Surprise ... it found all six of my machines! I clicked on the Server Icons. 4 of them worked! (without asking for a password) The last two asked for a password and didn't work. I deleted the Icons re-scanned, got fresh icons and now they all work!

Bottom line: The net effect of everything I did was zero. could have just as easily rebooted my phone twice and got the same result!
Also, I have found no way to get a user & password to work.

So I can access all my files but ironically none of the videos I have tried to play across the network have worked. (.mp3 .avi ,wmv) I get 3 seconds of the video then a message that says " video incapable of Streaming. will transfer video to phone and play locally" I progress bar comes up, goes to 100% the screen goes blank and no video plays

So it was a lot of work but I still can't do what I wanted (Streaming videos)

 

[sherm15]

@ DroidPete:

Thanks very much. I was having the same problem.

For anyone else who cannot use ES explorer to connect to shared folders on their PC, and don't have a password setup on their PC user account, do the following:

1. Create a new user account in windows
2. Set a password for this user account
3. Use this username and Password in ES Explorer when accessing the shared drives on the PC.

Nice!

Tried everything and that worked out for me. Scanned and found my laptop but could never connect. always times out and gave error but since i dont use a password for my main account that probably did it created a new account on my pc and gave it a username and password and boom. I was able to access my pc. not only the new account but my main account on my pc is shared also........finally!!!!

 

[shaneh]

Is there any news on when the non-alpha character fix will be? I'm getting hit by this too, and no doubt the majority of users that use a password. Thanks for posting your findings here, it was difficult to work out why it wasn't working. Definitely needs to be fixed or at the very least documented asap.