Anton Marcelline

Q: Mac client intermittent problem selecting files/folders on Windows Server SMB Share

Hi,

 

I have a client who is experiencing intermittent problems browsing files/folders on a Windows Server SMB Share. What happens is that the user connects to the Windows sharepoint using smb://ip-address-of-server and their Mac client successfully mounts the share. The user then selects a file/folder within Windows share and it selects the file/folder and the file/folder highlights correctly to indicate its selection. The user then selects another file/folder but it doesn't select and is not highlighted. I should point out the the user uses their mouse to select files/folders but I have also tried using the arrow keys on the keyboard to attempt to navigate and select the files/folders but that fails to select too.

 

To provide some additional information about the users setup and what I have tried are bullet pointed below:-

 

• Mac Client is a iMac (27-inch, Late 2012) with 16GB of RAM.

• Mac Client has Mac OS X 10.8.5 installed.

• Mac Client is connected to the network on 100BaseT Ethernet as their primary interface.

• Mac Client is also connected to the network on WIFI as their secondary interface.

• The Windows Server is Windows Server 2008 with the latest service packs for that version of Windows.

• The above mentioned problem is existent when connected to Ethernet as their primary interface or WIFI when we make this the primary interface.

• The user has a third-party mouse (a Razer mouse with driver support) so I asked them to change back to using an official Mac mouse and removed the Razer driver for the previously used third-party mouse.

• The above mentioned problem is existent with a newly created Test user account.

• The Mac client computer is not bound to the Windows domain and connects to the Windows Server using a direct SMB IP connection.

• The Mac client computer has no Anti-Virus installed that could possibly cause problems.

• The Mac client computer has Parallels Desktop installed with a Windows 7 installation. Windows Server shares within the Parallels/Windows 7 environment are mapped directly as opposed to using Parallels share from Mac mode.

• I have unmounted the share and reconnected using another user AD login but the problem is still existent. We have also spoken to the Windows Server administrator and asked if there are any special granular ACL's applied to the Windows Server share folders or files but he confirmed that the user is a member of the correct groups and has full read/write access to the all files within that share.

• We have ran the free utility Titanium Onyx (titanium.free.fr) and ran the Automation maintenance repairing permissions, clearing caches, run Daily/Weekly/Monthly maintenance scripts.

• Verbally assisted the user with running a Mac OS X reinstallation (archive & install, not clean install) within Recovery Mode.

 

 

We are now looking to get the computer backed up, wiped, and cleanly reinstalled but if anyone has any sensible suggestions of what we could try before reinstalling that would be great.

 

Thanks in advance,

 

 

Anton

Posted on Apr 15, 2015 2:25 AM

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Q: Mac client intermittent problem selecting files/folders on Windows Server SMB Share

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  • by Anton Marcelline,

    Anton Marcelline Anton Marcelline Apr 15, 2015 7:56 AM in response to Anton Marcelline
    Level 1 (55 points)
    Apr 15, 2015 7:56 AM in response to Anton Marcelline

    To add to my previous post I noticed that when this user has issues selecting folder their Finder window view was set to View as Column. If I change this to View as List then the user can select the folders that they were unable to in Column mode.

     

    I understand that View Options (top menu-bar > View > Show View Options) for adding/removing columns like Date Created, Data Modified, etc, that these options are written to .dsstore invisible files at the root level of the folder that you are that you viewing. Does anyone know how the other view options for View as Icon, View as List, View Column, View as Cover Flow, where these settings are written back to?