So slow listing network shared folders and drives.

Same problem here. Takes minutes. I'm also having screen sharing problems (http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2134021), but I don't know if they're related issues.

I am having this same problem but only with Macbook Pros purchased after May 2009. WIth a Macbook Pro purhahsed in 2006 I get instant user/pass prompt. This is mainly an issue when connecting through a Cisco VPN Client. I usually have to wait 5-15 minutes for the prompt to appear. I'm wondering if the difference is between the 32bit and 64bit chipsets as all 4 Macbook Pros have Snow Leopard running (and had Leopard before that).



My process is:

Launch VPN Client
Log in
Finder-->Connect to server
Enter afp://IP addy
Wait for user/pass prompt (5-15 minutes on new Macbook Pros), instant on my Macbook Pro from 2006.

I have no idea what the problem is and have tried quite a few things to try and speed it up, like specifying MTU values, changing clients etc. No matter what I do, the old 32bit Core duo is able to get an instant prompt and the brand new 64bit Macbook Pros (all purchased since May) have a heinously long wait. I am hoping someone might make a suggestion on how to speed things up.

Hi Jeff, this sounds like you have a buggy DNS proxy in your router. Try switching to OpenDNS and see if that helps.

https://www.opendns.com/start/device/apple-osx-leopard

This worked for me too... went from a painfully slow connection to a very zippy one. Am running a MacBookPro on 10.6 and connecting to the work server remotely which is running plain leopard.

This also worked for me. I am perplexed!!!

Why when I remove my Windows 2003 Server's DNS and use OPENDNS's DNS does my local network Shares become faster???

This makes no sense. If this was an Internet issue it does. I was having a SMB issue with a local Windows Server taking a long time.

Steve

Hi Steve. During the connection process, the client Mac tries to do a reverse DNS lookup on the server Mac's IP address. In your case the IP address is probably something like 192.168.1.2. Apparently there's a bug in your Windows 2003 Server's DNS that makes it fail to respond to this DNS query. The Mac takes around 30 seconds to give up on the query and eventually moves on. The OpenDNS servers don't have this bug and so they respond immediately to the query.

Thanks Snoop.

Running on a 2 rev. back MacBook Pro on Snow Leopard connecting to an Airport Extreme (pre-gig), and connecting to my Mac Mini running Leopard, my shares were horrendously slow as well. Adding OpenDNS fixed it for me.

WTH! I am connecting all Apple products and not in a particularly obscure way. I cannot imagine how mine can be an exceptional use case.

Same sort of problem here. Screen Sharing also doesn't work.

Pretty sure it's DNS, as if I temporarily remove my router from the equation (by, say, using a manual IP address instead of DHCP on the machines and leaving DNS blank) everything works and is instant - except of course for the internet. Put it back to DHCP (which uses the router for DNS) and it's slow again (and screen sharing doesn't work at all).

However, OpenDNS hasn't helped (probably because it's a private address range?)

The network is 192.168.0.0/24 with gateway and DNS server 192.168.0.1, which is a Draytek Vigor 2600G ADSL router.

This has only happened recently, I guess Snow Leopard or one of its updates has forced reverse DNS lookups for everything.

As I understand it, AFP is supposed to use Bonjour for hostnames ending in .local and bypass DNS altogether, but despite checking that they end in .local (an automatic thing) in System Preferences it doesn't seem to do this any more.

Any way to turn off these reverse DNS lookups?

Update - I've worked around the issue for now - I edited /private/etc/hosts (open terminal and 'sudo nano /private/etc/hosts') and added lines for each machine in there, and then made sure the DHCP server on the router reserves those IP addresses for the specific machines (manual IP would also work).

e.g. I added the following lines:
192.168.0.59 deryks-mac-mini deryks-mac-mini.local
192.168.0.60 deryks-mbp deryks-mbp.local

Now file sharing and screen sharing work. It's not ideal, but until Apple relax the rDNS rules or I manage to find a decent router (Drayteks are solid, but they don't update their routers older than like 6 months) it will suffice.

thanks Cloudane. That is an effective workaround. My Netopia/Motorola router is not handling the reverse lookup. If I enter nslookup 192.168.1.41 from Terminal it sits there for a while then reports no servers found. Forward lookups fail quickly (since my DNS is just a simple cache client and does not know my local addresses)

This is really stupid. Last week I had two computers running Leopard and connecting by WiFi over an Apple Time Capsule. Screen sharing worked great, coming up in about 5-10 seconds. I upgraded to Snow Leopard on one of the machines and now it takes over a minute for Screen Sharing to connect. All Apple stuff. Seems like this is a BUG. I shouldn't have to go to 3rd party OpenDNS (whatever that is) to make my all Apple network operate like it did a week ago. And don't get me started about using Terminal. Not part of my limited skill-set.

I do use a Netopia modem router (SBC/ATT provided) in front of the TC. But like I said, pre-upgrade they all played nice together.

I'm glad you guys have found a solution but I would be hesitant in using openDNS as a cure. They don't do DNS services for free, there is a fee which at a cost of your privacy. They will keep a database on you "as they say" and profit from that to keep their operation running. Problem is you don't know what information they gather, even though they state it's your habits on the internet they are interested in to make a profit. Kind of alarming.

I am having a very similar issue, whereas it takes webpages a long time to 'be found'. I had suspected that it was a DNS problem and changed my DNS to use the ones at OpenDNS.com, which instantly fixed the problem.

However, because I have switched from using my company's internal DNS server to the outside one, I am no longer able to access shared folders, servers, etc. I can access printers on the network, but that's about it.

So now I'm faced with a 'sluggish' browsing issue, or the ability to get to the servers and files I need to do my work. I've been manually switching back and forth when needed, but obviously, that's not ideal.

My IT team can't seem to determine what the issue is (I'm on of only 4 Macs on the network, everything else is Windows, including our servers). I was hoping that someone my be able to offer some advice.

Thanks.