ChrisJenkins

Q: macOS Sierra always prompts for credentials for network drives

At home we have several Macs that mount, on login, some SMB network drives from various servers (OS X Server and Synology NAS). The credentials (username and password) for the network drives are stored in the user's keychain by way of the 'remember this password in my keychain' option the very first time the drives was ever mounted. As a result a command like 'mount' command successfully mounts the drives without the user needing to interact with an authentication dialogue. This has been working just fine for the longest time an all the way up through OS X 10.11.6.

 

In Sierra, any attempt to mount a network drive always pops up the authentication dialogue. The password may be prefilled (presumably from the keychain) but the user still has to respond to the dialogue by clicking OK. This is a huge problem for me as it breaks loads of automation scripts that I have that rely on using 'mount' (the problem is not specific to mount however; the same issue occurs if you use something like Finder's 'Connect to Server' command).

 

I've tried deleting all the 'network password' keychain entries so that they get re-creqted (they do) but the problem behaviour still occurs.

 

Anyone know if this is a bug or by design?

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X El Capitan (10.11.5)

Posted on Sep 24, 2016 10:34 AM

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Q: macOS Sierra always prompts for credentials for network drives

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  • by Peter Almere,

    Peter Almere Peter Almere Oct 7, 2016 3:10 AM in response to sakman74
    Level 2 (497 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 7, 2016 3:10 AM in response to sakman74

    @sakman74 Not completely. I had a problem with my WD MyBook-Live. The problem with that drive was that I kept getting messages when the drive was not connected to my computer. Meaning that went I disconnected my laptop from my network to take it with me, I kept getting these messages. I found out that somewhere in some essential start-up part of the system software, a code had been written to make the MyBook connect to my computer. This was very annoying because the warning would pop up every minute.

     

    Therefor while still on one of the last versions of 10.11 I performed a 'clean' install. And restored only my documents and programs from timemachine. So I cut out all the system settings etc. but I am not sure to which extend other parts of my computer where restored.

     

    After this 'clean' install the warnings were gone. I did not perform a clean install of 10.12.

     

    But I do have a cloud-drive on my laptop that works through my Synology and connects to Backblaze (backup). It could be that this is the reason for my networkdrive to show on my desktop. This did not happen in 10.11 though.

  • by kaj0103,

    kaj0103 kaj0103 Oct 7, 2016 11:55 AM in response to ChrisJenkins
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Oct 7, 2016 11:55 AM in response to ChrisJenkins

    I seem to be having this exact issue too.... problem is that now my time machine backups don't work anymore and I cant open any of the MS Office documents on my NAS. This has completely stopped me being able to access documents and back up my MAC via the preferred method. Surely this is NOT how it is actually meant to be?

    Maybe I am missing something here? I am no MAC expert at all, only recently converted over the last year so I don't have good troubleshooting experience with it, but everything here is pointing towards a password issue.

  • by br0kk0,

    br0kk0 br0kk0 Oct 7, 2016 12:19 PM in response to ChrisJenkins
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 7, 2016 12:19 PM in response to ChrisJenkins

    What?? How on earth would this be a usefull or helpfull feature? Can somebody please explain? I bought a Mac Mini yesterday to serve as a home/ small business server and can now better try and bring it back and get my money back! It's no use without being able to automatically connect to network drives, or I will have to find a work-around for something that was, and should be, a normal OS feature.  This is outrageous!

  • by sakman74,

    sakman74 sakman74 Oct 7, 2016 12:21 PM in response to kaj0103
    Level 3 (748 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 7, 2016 12:21 PM in response to kaj0103

    not very familiar with the workings of time machine, question: is it possible to set a share folder on a nas as the storage location for time machine backups ? i thought it only works with physically attached storage like a usb drive.

  • by sakman74,

    sakman74 sakman74 Oct 7, 2016 4:54 PM in response to Peter Almere
    Level 3 (748 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 7, 2016 4:54 PM in response to Peter Almere

    @Peter,

     

    are you saying that you did a clean install of El Capitan, and just did an upgrade to Sierra ?

     

    when you say that you kept getting these messages, does that mean it was happening in El Capitan ?

     

    in my case, i went back to the El Capitan image i created before installing Sierra - i have no such authentication prompts now.

     

    this is somewhat confusing to figure out what is happening, maybe the keychain is not working correctly ? when i was on Sierra, I had deleted the keychain login for my nas several times, tried authenticating once after that - but that did not stop the authentication prompts from resurfacing again.

     

    in any case, i don't quite miss Sierra, there was nothing really in it that I could benefit from.

  • by sakman74,

    sakman74 sakman74 Oct 7, 2016 5:04 PM in response to br0kk0
    Level 3 (748 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 7, 2016 5:04 PM in response to br0kk0

    I wouldn't quite go as far as outrageous .... but it is definitely a sore point when having to deal with auto-mounting a network share. when compared to windows - macOS doesn't do it as well if you're going to encounter nuances in your ux dealing with it.

     

    as i had mentioned earlier - it's unfortunate that some functionality of that which I sought (such as auto-mount, and then do not display a finder window of the share) had to be bought via an app from the app store. really should be baked into the platform, as others would think.

     

    i am not too intensely into macOS in general, but as years go by i found i can largely find a way to do what i need in order to get by - without dropping much money in the app store to obtain basic functions already built into windows.

  • by Peter Almere,

    Peter Almere Peter Almere Oct 8, 2016 3:04 AM in response to sakman74
    Level 2 (497 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 8, 2016 3:04 AM in response to sakman74

    Yes Sakman.

     

    I did a clean install when I was on 10.11. But I also restored with TimeMachine. I did not perform a full restore of account settings etc. Only a recovery of documents and the programs that were installed. But I never did a clean install for many years. I found that there was a command line in one of the launch deamons or launch agents, which specifically instructed to mount my WD NAS drive. But it was built in into an apple system-file. So I could not just delete the whole thing. I suspect Western Digital to have written this instruction with one of it's helper files that you may use when you buy their products. So a clean install should take care of that. But whenever you do a clean install don't recover your account when asked in the set-up of the newly installed MacOs. Just click 'no' on all those friendly suggestions that they are there to help you (.........) Then when you face the desktop of the new software, use Migration Assistant to connect to TimeMachine and restore only essential items.

     

    So the problem I described, started under 10.11. It went away after clean install of 10.11.

     

    Then I updated to 10.12. And now I have the problem of automagical mounting volumes that should not mount on their own initiative.... I Do NOT have to give in user name or log-in credentials. But....... under 10.11 I always had to fill out the form..... Even after the clean install.

     

    I don't know if anybody have the problem of not mounting drives have checked their log files to see if anything is blocked or giving problems. I expect that there is a launch-item that should take care of mounting drives and that has been set to false instead of true. This however you can't find in log files.

  • by tod1212,

    tod1212 tod1212 Oct 10, 2016 1:29 AM in response to Peter Almere
    Level 1 (11 points)
    Oct 10, 2016 1:29 AM in response to Peter Almere

    The problem is fixed for me. Automount works again.

    Here is what I did:

    - deleted the old shared volume item in user startup items.

    - deleted any entrys regarding the NAS (Synology) in the keychain.

     

    PLUS:

     

    - installed the latest cricial update for my Synology NAS (6.0.2 update 2)

     

    Then:

    restart Mac, connect to shared volume in finder with cmd+k, drag connected share into user startup items.

    -> automount works again.

  • by DrMemory99,

    DrMemory99 DrMemory99 Oct 10, 2016 3:20 AM in response to tod1212
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 10, 2016 3:20 AM in response to tod1212

    Hello;

    I've tried this (initially tried it prior to the DSM update) and it still fails for me (Prompts for credentials after restart).

    I tried it with the finder cmd-k    smb://synologynasbonjourname    and with    smb://synologynasIPaddress

    both after clearing my keychain symbology network entries.


    If/when this issues is resolved (I suspect/hope that a Sierra update will do so) I'll be able to upgrade my other macs (esp the server).



  • by Peter Almere,Solvedanswer

    Peter Almere Peter Almere Oct 10, 2016 3:34 AM in response to DrMemory99
    Level 2 (497 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 10, 2016 3:34 AM in response to DrMemory99

    @DrMemory99

     

    Don't use smb try afp instead. You can disable smb in the DSM and enable afp. It works much faster too. Try to see if that solves your problem. Besides I believe that DSM has different smb settings. But I am not 100% sure of that. This would mean that you also have to check which smb settings you use.

     

    When working with a mac, afp is the protocol of choice.

     

    Oh yes and I did not add my nas drive to the startup items. How it mounts on it's own is still a miracle. I am still looking how I managed to get it working that way...

  • by ChrisJenkins,

    ChrisJenkins ChrisJenkins Oct 10, 2016 3:37 AM in response to Peter Almere
    Level 1 (27 points)
    Apple Music
    Oct 10, 2016 3:37 AM in response to Peter Almere

    Not really anymore. AFP is deprecated and some new features do not work with AFP. SMB has been Apple's recommended file sharing protocol since at least Yosemite. AFP is really only needed for network Time Machine backups these days.

     

    Any anyway, I see the same issue (repeated prompts for credentials) using both SMB and AFP against both Synology NAS and a share shared from OS X server. I believe that the problem is on the client side not the server side.

  • by sakman74,

    sakman74 sakman74 Oct 10, 2016 4:28 AM in response to ChrisJenkins
    Level 3 (748 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 10, 2016 4:28 AM in response to ChrisJenkins

    in my experience, AFP has always worked more smoothly for me compared with SMB, despite what the IT industry says about SMB vs. AFP.

  • by ChrisJenkins,

    ChrisJenkins ChrisJenkins Oct 10, 2016 4:33 AM in response to sakman74
    Level 1 (27 points)
    Apple Music
    Oct 10, 2016 4:33 AM in response to sakman74

    I'm not disputing that; for Apple environments AFP has traditionally been superior to SMB. But now even Apple themselves are telling everyone to move to SMB (and have been for a couple of years now) and they have officially deprecated AFP. It seems likely that eventually AFP will disappear, at least as a supported general purpose file sharing protocol. So regardless of what one feels I think it is time to move SMB and pressure Apple to fix any issues with it.

     

    And of course if one needs any kind of Apple/Microsoft or Apple/Linux interoperability then SMB is anyway your only realistic choice (okay, you also have NFS for Linux).

  • by Peter Almere,

    Peter Almere Peter Almere Oct 10, 2016 12:49 PM in response to ChrisJenkins
    Level 2 (497 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 10, 2016 12:49 PM in response to ChrisJenkins

    ChrisJenkins wrote:

     

    I'm not disputing that; for Apple environments AFP has traditionally been superior to SMB. But now even Apple themselves are telling everyone to move to SMB (and have been for a couple of years now) and they have officially deprecated AFP. It seems likely that eventually AFP will disappear, at least as a supported general purpose file sharing protocol. So regardless of what one feels I think it is time to move SMB and pressure Apple to fix any issues with it.

     

    And of course if one needs any kind of Apple/Microsoft or Apple/Linux interoperability then SMB is anyway your only realistic choice (okay, you also have NFS for Linux).

    Hi Chris,

     

    Thanks for your reply and.... I tried to use SMB. It's a mess... It simply won't work as it should. I get the same problems as you and others have. And besides that, I get slow working network connections. This may be due to the fact that I also have a WD MyBook Live in my network which may not be completely up-to-date to the latest SMB standards. But also my very new and state-of-the-art Synology gives problems.

     

    Therefore right at this moment you should try afp connections and see what happens.

     

    I am sure that it will work.

     

    With SMB connection, I have to give in passwords and Keychain password etc. When I use afp the disc mounts on it's own free will. No password no problem.

     

    I expect that afp is still capable of transporting more information on a mac than smb can, or that there is a bug in 10.12 that hopefully will be resolved in a future update. So if you try afp for now, and smb again after the next update it may prevent you from insulting some heavenly figures.....

  • by MichelRenaud,

    MichelRenaud MichelRenaud Oct 10, 2016 3:39 PM in response to Peter Almere
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Oct 10, 2016 3:39 PM in response to Peter Almere

    AFP is no good when you have shares on Windows and Linux-based servers though.

     

    Same problem here - I get the stupid dialog prompt every time. In a sense I'm glad it's not just me, but bummed that it's another bad move by Apple.

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