Cannot connect to Windows SMB share

Hey, this problem is frustrating my beyond belief. I've recently bought my first mac (mac mini) and frequently access a shared driver that is hosted on a Windows server. Until today I have no issues by going into finder and typing smb://ip or hostname here

However, today I get

"There was an error connecting to the server "server". Check the server name or ip address and try again".

The same problem occurs when I try to access it by ip address.

I can ping the particular Windows computer just fine in terminal by both host name and ip. I know that sharing works because it's fine on other Windows computers. It seems the problem is in Finder. I have made no changes at all since the last time it worked. I'm still a Mac newbie so I would really appreciate some help. Thanks.

 

Something has clearly changed. Have you upgraded MacOS X? If not, then the change must have been on the server side. You need to identify what changed and how to deal with it.

 

Try rebooting the Mac and the Windows box. It might just be "one of those things" that vanish with a reboot.