Mac OS X Catalina File Sharing Issue

Pete,

thx for the suggestion. Unfortunately not working for me. I did all that, restarted `finder', yet failed.

Basically the sharing options on system A control authorized access on files and folders on system A. That's another issue.

I'm running a MPB with Catalina and want to access by SMB a NAS on a different device of a different vendor (that's what standards are good for). I observe that all goes well, up to the point my PWD for the account on the NAS attached device is requested. Although keychain shows the proper UID/PWD combo, the 'connect to server' fails. It seems to deny the PWD, which is corrected (have tested by other means).

Any idea?

BTW: in all OSX systems before it was smoothly working. Catalina is not working correctly.

I have tried all the suggestions and still can't properly share some folders on my iMac (running Catalina) with my MacBookPro (running Mojave). I can see the Pictures folder and its content but for the Documents folder, I see the folder but don't see its content (only the folder icon)... Any suggestion appreciated.

This is exactly the problem I had. As a short term measure I created another Documents folder on my iMac and copied all the files in the original Documents folder into it. I could see this new folder from my MacBook Air and operate remotely as before. After a couple of days/reboots I could suddenly see the original from my MacBook and everything was working as it was pre Catalina. I had the same problem seeing the contents of my iPhone on my iMac and again after a day or two everything was back to normal. I can only think that when upgrading to Catalina there are lots of things going on in the background that take a few days to sort themselves out. The system also seems to speed up progressively over the first few days after installation. So in my case the solution was 'patience'.

Found that i had a similar issue. My Mac Mini that basically is just a file server which was working flawlessly with all other OS versions decided to stop allowing me access to the drives. I could see folders and not contents.

Turns out the issue in my case was the permissions on the drives. The Macintosh HD was read only for my user for some reason. Had to do some shuffling around and added full admin permissions back to the drive and once that was sorted i was able to access all the other attached USB drives fully too.

Maybe have a look at your permissions on your drives if you are having issues, it seems obvious but usually after an upgrade they don't "normally" change so most people don't look for it.

Hope that helps

i have android box. from it i was accessing data on my macbook's hardrive after upgrade to catalina "access denied" I did what was suggested here even before I read this article but it did not help...any other idea on why i can't access my macbook from my android box?

Thanks for this. It worked fine, I switched off file sharing and all other sharing and then back on. I also edited the computer names on my iMac and Macbook as numbers had been added for some reason after the names. All good now. No reboot needed.

I have had the same issue. Used to use AirDrop to transfer files between my iMac and MacBook Pro, but my MB Pro is too old to update to Catalina, so my iMac updated to Catalina cannot find it in AirDrop. I used File Sharing at first instead, but it has become oddly "wonky". I could see the contents of the Pictures, Music and Movies folders on the iMac from the MB via File Sharing, but the Desktop and Documents folders have no contents. The toggling on and off of File Sharing has yet to work for me, perhaps it will in time. Things seem oddly unpredictable.

another "great" job from apple... plex server does not work. devices in my LAN just dont see it... on windows absolutely no problem but hey we are apple why would not we make things as much complicated as possible. I may sound angry but guess why...i think i'll say good bye to apple. is there someone having same issue?

i have DENON receiver for music and SONY TV for videos. when I run on windows machine i just run plex server and both devices see plex and whats on my laptop and disks connected to router via usb. but when on great catalina both of devices can't see plex server. i turned off firewall on catalina but it does not work. this crappy OS still somehow blocks my plex.

That may actually be a Plex issue more than a Catalina one.

Possibly what has happened is that under Settings>Network>(Show Advanced).

You will see the section for

"List of IP addresses and networks that are allowed without auth"

Assign your Mac a static IP in the router via the MAC Address and then add that number to the list, separating with commas So its formatted as such

192.168.1.1,192.168.1.2,192.168..... etc

Then just save.

You may need to reboot the Plex Server after saving to make sure that its all updated.

This will bypass Plex trying to auth your devices each log in and should also stop Catalina trying to change its IP.

See how that goes.

my friend this is not required. and you know why? because everytime my devices log on they get same IP adress. all the time. mac,denon and sony several restarts of devices and routers reboots and still they got same ips...most of new routers are working like this from exactly the reason you named...I tried on plex list of ips now from your screen. restarted devices and plex and result is the same. i will try tomorrow factorey reset both on denon and sony to see if there's problem but I dont expect it is the reason. catalina is the problem beacsue this happened right after i upgraded OS

Running Catalina 10.15.2 and my iMac cannot see my laptop on the same network. Tried unchecking and checking FileSharing, relaunching Finder, rebooting, etc.

The issues persist. My laptop cannot see the iMac and vice versa. Any other steps to try?

I had quite the same issue when upgrading my iMac Pro to Catalina. My shared render folder was not accessible any more to my other Render Macs. But the solution was quite easy: switched off File Sharing > Restart > then switched it back on and Voilà! Sharing worked again like before.

I had a similar problem. MacBook Pro with Catalina and iMac with Mojave on the same network. Both machines could see the other. MBP could access all folders on iMac but iMac could only access some folders and not for example Documents on MBP. Spent ages on the phone to two very helpful Apple support people. Eventual solution was to turn off file sharing on both machines. Restart both. Turn file sharing back on on both. Relaunch Finder on both. This may be overkill but it worked for me. We shouldn't have to waste time on problems like this though. Software testing before release should find them.

I had this problem since upgrading to Catalina... I finally figured it out. Simply uncheck "Share files and Folders using AFP" but leave the "Share files and folders using SMB" checked in the options under file sharing. Everything works now!