My Unraid USB drive failed and I had to recover via a backup from Unraid Connect. That forced me to reset my Unraid user account passwords as Unraid Connect backups don't store that data. I reset the user account passwords back to their previous passwords thinking this would avoid any potential issues.

Since this, I'm having an issue on my main daily driver Windows 11 PC where I can no longer access the Unraid network shares. (Prior to this flash drive recovery, everything was working without issue.) I have no issue accessing the shares on my Macbook.

Here's a step-by-step of what I'm experiencing when trying to access any of my Unraid network shares:

1. Attempt to access Unraid share (either via typing in the IP address and path or via a link in quick access

2. Windows "Enter Network Credentials" login screen pops up. I enter the credentials and click OK

3. A "Select Certificate" screen pops up. There are four certificate options displayed (I'm not sure what any of them are - two are issued to "Microsoft Your Phone" and two are issued to "CrossDevice"). I've tried all four and all of them result in the same next step.

4. Error message below pops up that indicates a permissions or multiple connections problem:

Troubleshooting steps thus far (all of which resulted in the exact same sequence and error as outlined above):

• Tried multiple Unraid user accounts (including root)

• Tried multiple Unraid shares

• Windows Credential Manager - Deleted the saved credential for my Unraid IP address, rebooted PC, and tried again

• Net Use - tried running "net use * /delete" from an administrator command line to kill potential multiple connections, but returns "There are no entries in the list"

• Tried changing the Unraid SMB share to Public (Windows 11 still asks for a credential for login and ultimately follows the same sequence as above.)

• Used Windows Local Group Policy Editor to change Lanman Workstation "Enable insecure guest logons" to "Enabled" - Windows 11 still pops up the Network Credentials window and then fails as above.

(The Windows 11 PC is on the same subnet as the Unraid server.)

I'm fairly sure this a Windows / SMB thing since I can access the shares just fine on my Macbook, but I'm at wits' end trying to figure out how to solve it. Any help is greatly appreciated!

If it's Windows 11 24H2, see here:

https://forums.unraid.net/topic/177975-formatted-my-pc-and-installed-fresh-windows-11-now-cant-access-smb-shares/?do=findComment&comment=1478526

Thanks for the reply @JorgeB . It is indeed Windows 11 Pro 24H2 (10.0.26100 Build 26100). The Windows PC is using a Microsoft account, so I had been accessing the Unraid shares via a user that I set up on unraid and then configured to match in Windows Credentials. This had been working as-expected until my Unraid flash drive crash.

I read through the thread you linked as well as the Microsoft article it linked. Everything in both have already been tried / are currently configured as outlined in them:

• Deleted the Windows Credential for the server and re-created it.

• Windows 11's Group Policy already had "Microsoft network client: Digitally sign communications (always)" set to Disable (I did try changing it to Enable, applying it, and then toggling it back to Disable, but that didn't help either).

• Windows 11 Group Policy "Enable insecure guest logons" - I had set this to Enabled earlier this morning while trouble-shooting and it's still set to Enabled.

There are three files on your Flash drive that have password information in them. They are in the /config folder/directory. Their names are:

shadow

smbpasswd

passwd

If they get clobbered in any way, you lose the ability to log-on using SMB. Delete the files if they exist and recreate all of the Users (I believe it will also remove you password for your 'root' user for the GUI so you may have to setup that one up was well as your Share Access users.)

EDIT: You can open these files in a text editor. The passwords themselves are 'hashed' do you can't actually read them.

Edited May 23, 20251 yr by Frank1940

Thanks @Frank1940 ! Deleting those three files and then resetting all of the user passwords forced a re-creation of those three files. Then, just to be safe, I deleted my stored Windows Credential and rebooted the Windows PC so that it wasn't using anything cached again. I was then able to access the shared directories on the Unraid server that were set to Public.

So that's a great step in the right direction!

I then flipped my share back to Private and assigned R/W access to my user account. I then went back to the PC and tried to load into that share again. At this point, it started an identical cycle as described in my original post (same steps and error). Flipping the share back to Public this time at least let me access it again (whereas it hadn't prior to deleting those three files).

So right now I'm able to access my share... but only if it's set to Public. As a test, I temporarily set the share to Secure and gave my user account to R/W permission. However, while I was able to view the share after that, I still didn't have Write access.

6 minutes ago, MSOBadger said:

I then flipped my share back to Private and assigned R/W access to my user account. I then went back to the PC and tried to load into that share again. At this point, it started an identical cycle as described in my original post (same steps and error). Flipping the share back to Public this time at least let me access it again (whereas it hadn't prior to deleting those three files).

You have to reboot your Windows PC to logoff from your server.

If that does not work you may have to double check that you setup the user names and passwords correctly. (Unraid is set up do that if the Credential Manager credentials can't log in, you are autocratically connected to the Unraid server using Guest credentials. Windows allows only one User from each client computer so any attempt to log on with different credentials will fail!!! And the error message does not help.

There are some tools (Both Window and Linux) which may help to see what is going on. You can find info on them here:

https://forums.unraid.net/topic/170027-smb-windows-settings-available-through-power-shell-and-linux-samba-tools-informational-posting/

Edited May 23, 20251 yr by Frank1940