Timing out SAMBA authentication

[Andy Hiscock]

Hi.

I am connecting to a Samba server from a mac running OSX 10.6.6 on my LAN and up 
until about a month ago it has been running smoothly.  The sever is appearing in 
Finder but when connecting I get asked my username and password.  After entering 
my details I get "Connecting" for about 5-10 seconds before the shares are 
presented, then I am able to mount and work with the shares.  Interestingly if I 
don't mot the share quickly the mac reports the share is no longer available?

This evening I have been doing some diagnosis to see whats happening, I opened a 
terminal session on the samba server and to connect to the share using;

smbclient \\\\localhost\\[share]

I get asked the password, after 20 seconds the connection fails with the error:

Receiving SMB: Server stopped responding
session setup failed: Call timed out: server did not respond after 20000 
milliseconds

I'm assuming this is why there is a delay in mounting the share though my Mac. 
 Im pretty sure I haven't changed anything.  I have googled the web and the only 
constructive thing I have come across so far is the encrypt password entry in 
smb.conf.   I tried this but made no difference.

smb.conf:

[global]
netbios name=Leopard
workgroup=WORKGROUP
security = user
load printers = no
log file = /var/log/samba.log
max logsize = 50
time server = yes
read raw = yes
write raw = yes
socket options = TCP_NODELAY IPTOS_LOWDELAY
wins support = yes
local master =  yes
domain master = yes
os level = 65

[homes]
read only=no
guest ok=no
browsable=no

[share]
path=/usr/home/share
read only=no
guest ok=no
force group = share
security mask = 0660
force security mode = 660
directory security mask = 0770
force directory security mode = 0770

Any advise would be appreciated especially if someone has resolved this.

Thanks