Server Connection Interrupted: AFP Shares disappearing at random intervals

Question

Level 1

24 points

Server Connection Interrupted: AFP Shares disappearing at random intervals

I'm not sure how many have noticed this behaviour, but it seems that at least some have seen similar behaviour where the Apple Airport Extreme seems to stop sharing disks.

I've made this a separate topic because only today did I notice another aspect to my particular issue, one that seems not to have been discussed previously. That aspect is that Common Internet File System (CIFS) shares remain available.

Summary.
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Apple Filing Protocol (AFP) shares disappearing at random intervals while Common Internet File System (CIFS) shares remain available.

Discussion.
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I have been frustrated by the apparent instability of shares to my Apple Airport Extreme, both with the 7.4.1 & 7.4.2 firmwares.

I have seen the behaviour on both my iBook G4 running Mac OS X 10.5.7 and my Macbook running Mac OS X 10.5.7.

When it occurs on one, the other also experiences the problem.

The iBook G4 is using a wired connection and the Macbook is using wireless.

The Apple Airport Extreme is using the Radio Mode of 802.11n only (5 GHz).

The Apple Airport Extreme is sharing two USB disks. They are connected via a powered USB hub.

I have been forced to Restart the Base Station via the Airport Utility, however that didn't always seem to work since sometimes either one or both of the Airport shares would not reappear.

I also tried using 'killall Finder', suspecting the problem might be a Leopard related issue rather than and Airport related issue, in order to try and get the Airport shares back. In some instances this would appear to work, however I consider this simply coincidental.

The most robust method that I have had is to walk down to the basement, unplug the Airport, and plug it back in. Hardly an ideal resolution.

I was most hopeful about this problem going away with firmware 7.4.2, however it seems to be just as prevalent as before.

It occurred to me this morning that I had another device in the house that was connected to the Airport shares, my Debian box. I decided that the next time the shares were to disappear, I would jump onto my Debian box and see if it were still able to see the shares and access them via Common Internet File System (CIFS).

About 30-45 minutes later, I got my chance. (I should mention that I have had periods where the shares disappear in a short time, and also periods where the shares remain available for a day or so before disappearing.)

I connected to my Debian box, tried the Common Internet File System (CIFS) shares and they were available. Then I tried from my Macbook, using Finder > Go > Connect to Server... > cifs://{Airport Name}.local

Both Common Internet File System (CIFS) shares were visable and connectable on my Macbook.

Confirm Your Symptoms.
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The next time that the 'Server Connection Interrupted' window appears on your screen, and your AFP shares drop, try connecting via CIFS using Finder > Go > Connect to Server... > cifs://{Airport Name}.local

I'm not suggesting using CIFS over AFP, I'm just looking for confirmation that you are experiencing the same conditions.

Please post your insights, feedback and experiences.
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Apple, Mac OS X (10.5.7), Apple Airport Extreme Firmware 7.4.1 & 7.4.2

Posted on Jul 8, 2009 8:17 AM

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Answer 1

Jul 26, 2009 10:11 AM in response to Anonymous182

I am also frustrated by the same problem and found your post during a periodic search for answers. My knowledge does not extend to the significance of the difference between AFP and CIFP and my own clunky solution up to now has been to physically unplug the external drive from my Airport Extreme, then disconnect its AC adapter then reverse the procedure. I did, however, try to connect to my AirPort Disk via CIFP by following the instructions you gave but it did not work for me.

My problems used to be far worse when the Windows Vista virtual machine running on my MacBook was also connected to the external drive. The Genius Bar person at my local Apple store basically said that Windows does not play nicely with my set up with the result that I turned off the "Automatically Discover Airport Disk" function in the Windows AirPort Disk Preferences utility. Again, a clunky solution and while it helped a lot in my situation it would be useless for anyone with a similar setup who wanted access to the AirPort Disk from their Windows virtual machine.

Anyway, good luck in your quest for answers. In the meantime, I have subscribed to your thread in the hope that it will prove enlightening for me also.

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Answer 2

Anonymous182 Author

Level 1

24 points

Jul 26, 2009 9:03 PM in response to Anonymous182

AFP is again down, yet, using Finder > Go > Connect to Server... > cifs://{Airport Name}.local, works!

Any one else able to reproduce ?

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Answer 3

Jul 26, 2009 9:12 PM in response to Anonymous182

I'm having the same issue. There are times where I can go 2 weeks without dropping the shares, and then, like today, they drop every 20 minutes. It's maddening. I'll try your last suggestion should they drop again...

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Answer 4

Jul 27, 2009 8:15 PM in response to Anonymous182

yes. Just had the same issue, and used your suggestion of connecting cifs. it worked just fine. All drives are up and running at this moment with a cifs connection.

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Answer 5

Anonymous182 Author

Level 1

24 points

Jul 28, 2009 10:32 AM in response to corryzahn

I've been trying to reason out the nature of this behaviour and something has occurred to me.

The USB drive connected to the AEBS may be going into some sort of sleep mode.

Here's my theory.

1. I have a regularly scheduled task (via GeekTool) that runs and retrieves the contents of a particular directory.

2. If the AEBS or the USB drive sees that the info for that folder has not changed in quite some time, it may respond with cached information rather than spinning the disk.

3. If the USB drive doesn't spin the disk for quite some time, it may put it to sleep.

4. If I don't read from the disk, requiring a spin, for some time it may cause the share to appear active until I try to use it in a way that requires a spin.

5. If the disk hasn't spun, and takes longer to spin up than a timeout within the AEBS or OS X, it may appear disconnected.

6. Since the spin has started, perhaps the subsequent attempt to connect via CIFS is successful.

Thoughts?

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Answer 6

Jul 29, 2009 1:44 PM in response to Anonymous182

Just lost my connection again but still no luck trying to reconnect via CIFS. There must be something different about my setup/hardware/problem.

My USB drive is a 500GB WD My Book formatted as a FAT32 drive (at the time I wanted the option to connect to a Windows machine or a Mac). There may be something wrong with the way I have file sharing set up but, to be honest, my knowledge does not extend to the technical aspects of file sharing. I am not even sure I need to have file sharing turned on given that the only physical machine attached to my network is my MacBook and I am not connecting to USB drive from by Windows Vista virtual machine.

Your points about spool up times vs. possible timeout parameters etc. certainly sound within the realm of possibility. One factor I have noticed, however, is that my USB drive can have been dormant for many days then start up fine. Other times it will work one day then not the next. I only use it for my iTunes library and one thing I have noticed is that I am much better off firing up iTunes by double clicking the library file in Finder instead of opening iTunes any other way, e.g., from the Dock, by connecting an iPod etc. Another thing I have noticed, however, is that my drive seems to start spooling up whenever Finder is active. From this, it seems possible that problems may occur when application switching and Finder is active for only a brief time.

I hope some of the above may prove useful in tracking down the causes of our problems.

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Answer 7

Anonymous182 Author

Level 1

24 points

Jul 30, 2009 4:48 PM in response to Anonymous182

It sounds crazy, but I think I might be on to something with my 'disk spin' theory.

I have set up GeekTool (but you could use any other scheduling mechanism) to run the following Shell task at an interval of 295 seconds (4 minutes 55 seconds)

date >> /Volumes/{{AFP Volume Name}}/GeekTool Date_DiskTest.txt

Basically this appends the current date & time to the file every 4 minutes 55 seconds. This is intended to keep the disk spinning rather than allowing it to 'spin down'.

My AFP Share has not yet dropped, at least 5 hrs.

(True, somethimes it would gor for a day or two, but I plan on keeping this thread posted as to my milage.)

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Answer 8

Jul 30, 2009 5:27 PM in response to Anonymous182

I don't think it sounds crazy at all. I have often thought that I might be able to cure my problems by keeping my USB drive spinning. If your solution is ultimately successful, I will ask WD if there is a way to tweak it to do just that. It also occurs to me that in a few years we will all be using solid state drives and will not have to deal with spool up delays etc. Just a thought!

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Answer 9

Anonymous182 Author

Level 1

24 points

Jul 31, 2009 6:28 AM in response to Anonymous182

Current Milage: Hasn't skipped a beat since I started at 14:51:55 July 30. Around 18 hours online.

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Answer 10

Anonymous182 Author

Level 1

24 points

Aug 3, 2009 3:35 AM in response to Anonymous182

While the scheduled shell task to keep the disk spinning has reduced the number of occurances, it has not eliminated them.

I am still experiencing the AFP shares dropping, sometimes under load during larger (GB) file copies, and sometimes smaller.

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Answer 11

Aug 3, 2009 7:40 AM in response to Anonymous182

From reading this thread, I'm unsure if the current troubleshooting assumes an Airport issue or a Finder issue at this point.

My own experience is that it may be both. On occaision when my Airdisk would fail (either not mount or randomly disappear) a logout/relogin would sometimes fix the problem.

At times when that did not fix the problem, I shut down the Airport, direct-connected the USB drives to the MacBook and ran Disk Utility. Lo and behold, massive errors with the Access Control Lists (ACLs) which Disk Utility repaired. The disks were unmounted and reconnected to the Airport, and everything worked fine (for awhile).

I have accepted the latter procedure as "standard" (albeit annoying) at this point.

I tend to think there are two bugs here - one in the Finder which can be resolved by the logout/re-login and another present in the AEBS which causes the ACLs to get out of whack.

Just my $.02.

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Answer 12

Aug 3, 2009 7:40 AM in response to Anonymous182

From reading this thread, I'm unsure if the current troubleshooting assumes an Airport issue or a Finder issue at this point.

My own experience is that it may be both. On occaision when my Airdisk would fail (either not mount or randomly disappear) a logout/relogin would sometimes fix the problem.

At times when that did not fix the problem, I shut down the Airport, direct-connected the USB drives to the MacBook and ran Disk Utility. Lo and behold, massive errors with the Access Control Lists (ACLs) which Disk Utility repaired. The disks were unmounted and reconnected to the Airport, and everything worked fine (for awhile).

I have accepted the latter procedure as "standard" (albeit annoying) at this point.

I tend to think there are two bugs here - one in the Finder which can be resolved by the logout/re-login and another present in the AEBS which causes the ACLs to get out of whack.

Just my $.02.

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Answer 13

Aug 3, 2009 5:53 PM in response to Apple Nugget

Interesting you should mention Finder. Even when my Airport Disk is dead, it shows up in the left sidebar of the Finder window complete with the eject button available. So, when you say "logout/relogin" did you mean eject then reconnect using the Finder>Go>Connect to Server... command? If so, I should try doing that when I next try the solution provided by Anonymous182 in his original post.

I should also see what happens if I run Disk Utility with a direct connection.

Also, just to confirm, are you using 10.5 or 10.4, as indicated in your post?

Message was edited by: Cruiser Chris

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Answer 14

Aug 3, 2009 6:55 PM in response to Cruiser Chris

I don't recall if my AEBS shows up in my left sidebar after it dies, but I suspect that is the case also.

When I said logout/relogin, I meant *logout of OS X* and re-login. Something that happens in that sequence sometimes restores the connectivity (leading me to think it is a Finder issue) but not always (leading me to believe it is a AEBS issue).

Also, periodically if I try to mount my airdisk via apple menu>recent items I get the "spinning beach ball of death" if the airdisk has crashed in the meatime.

A very un-apple like experience with the AEBS overall.

I am running 10.5.7 (have to update the prefs here).

Message was edited by: Apple Nugget

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Answer 15

Aug 3, 2009 7:46 PM in response to Apple Nugget

Thanks. Yes, I can see how logout/login as a standard procedure would be annoying! I think that, for now at least, I will stick with physically disconnecting/powering down the disk then reconnecting.

In the meantime, if the situation arises, I will check to see what happens if I run Disk Utility with a direct connection and post the results.

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