Trouble connecting to other nodes on network

Question

Within the last month or so, I've noticed that I cannot connect to other nodes which are on my network from my MacBook. More specifically, I have a Buffalo Linkstation Network Attached Storage drive (wired), a Windows XP PC (wired), and my wife's MacBook (wireless), all connected via a Netgear WNR854T router. Whenever I browse to the "Network" in Finder, all of the machines display icons, however when I double-click on one, I get the following message: "The alias 'xyz' could not be opened, because the original item cannot be found." I get options to "Delete Alias" or "Fix Alias". When I attempt to delete the alias I get the error message that I do not have the appropriate privileges for the corresponding machine.
I don't get this problem, however, when I try to connect to my wife's MacBook or when I'm connecting to my MacBook from another machine. When using the PC (or the virtual machine in Parallels), I see my MacBook and can connect and browse files to my heart's content. In addition, my wife has not experienced any of these problems when connecting. She can see the network attached drive, the PC, etc. and can connect without issue.
One interesting thing I did notice is that if I use the "Go -> Connect to Server" and type the IP address of, say, the NAS, it will allow me to mount the volumes (folders I have on the NAS). Although interestingly enough, the folder I really want isn't displayed as an option to mount even though, once again, I can get to it from any other machine except this MacBook.
I haven't (knowingly) changed any configuration setting and the only hardware change I've made to my network is replacing an old Netgear router with this new one last week. But as I've mentioned, I had been experiencing this problem even with the older router. Does anyone have any suggestions which will help me get back to browsing my network like I used to?
MacBook Core Duo Black 2 GHz; 2GB RAM; 100GB HD   Mac OS X (10.4.8)  

Answer 1

Firstly, a note of caution... You need to take care when editing NetInfo, because if you make a mistake, you could render your account (or someone elses) unusable.
When you connect to a network with a Mac OS X server present, you can receive network settings via DHCP. Deleting mcx_cache wil reset all of these settings, which will hopefully restore your Mac to the way it was before. To do this, go into NetInfo Manager, which you'll find here:
Applications/Utilities/NetInfo Manager
Click on the padlock icon (bottom left) and autheticate as an administrator. Click on the "/" menu, which should be in the far-left column. In the sub-menu to the right, there should be an item called mcx_cache. Click on this, and then click on the Delete button, and confirm you want to delete.
Now quit out of NetInfo Manager and restart your Mac. When you check your Network icon in the Finder, it's contents should be back to normal.
17" MacBook Pro   Mac OS X (10.4.7)