Q: Files shared via SMB vanish for clients
I have a Mac Mini running OS X 10.11.5 and OS X Server 5.1.5 (though the problem also exists on earlier versions too). The server runs most of the OS X Server services but the one in question here is SMB file sharing. The server supports 5 client machines (a mix of iMacs, Mac Minis and Macbook Pros all currently running OS X 10.11.6 but again the problem was present across many earlier OS X versions) which mount a share from the server via SMB (presumably SMB3 since this is an all OS X setup). The network is a private wired GigaBit network using an enterprise grade managed switch; it is IPv4/IPv6 dual stack (all properly configured).
For a long time we have been experiencing an intermittent (maybe once or twice a week on average) situation where after a client machine has manipulated (copying/moving/deleting) some files located on the mounted share, those files 'vanish' as far as the client is concerned. They do not show up in Finder. Sometimes they are visible from a bash shell in a terminal session, sometimes they are not visible there either. Checking on the server shows the field to be present and nothing unusual about them; permissions, timestamps etc. all look fine and the files can be accessed without problem. The only reliable thing that can be done on the client to restore visibility of the files is to unmount the share and re-mount it; this always cures the problem. The problem occurs for all the clients; it is not specific to a subset of clients.
My suspicion is that there is some kind of longstanding bug related to caching of filesystem metadata for SMB shares.
Has anyone else experienced this? Any ideas for a fix our workaround?
Posted on Jul 24, 2016 8:05 AM