NAS Access in Catalina issues

Update: I've been using Cemento's approach (https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250794335?answerId=252112800022#252112800022) of dragging the networked drive(s) to the desktop and then back to the sidebar under Favorites since June 4 (2 days ago). After some period of time, the networked drives disappear from my desktop. Each time when this has occurred, clicking on the new links under Favorites in Finder's sidebar has immediately remounted the shares, with the icons appearing again on the desktop. I am then able to browse the shares without any issues. Since implementing this approach, I have not had any popups or errors indicating a failed connection, so that seems to be a major improvement.

I'll continue to update over the coming weeks...

@bsanders44, @bruno_l, @Cemento, @Datajack,

Thanks for the additional hint. I hadn't used <Go><Connect> in Catalina for a while. Now I did and can confirm that this caused severe performance issues in accessing NAS files.

Accessing files on my shared folder via <Go><Connect> took ca. 12 minutes, what used to be a few seconds. Even calculating the size of the shared folder by clicking on <Get Info> took that long.

And when trying to access my NAS via <Locations>, the connection to the NAS was established and I could see my shared Folders, but I could not access them! See screenshots attached.

On the positive side, when dragging shared folders icons from the Desktop as you described, the performance was good as it used to be. Too early to draw final conclusions, but the connection was stable so far, even after Sleep periods and after rebooting the MacBook and/or the NAS server.

FYI: The reason that I had difficulties to find the shared folder icons on the desktop in the first instance was that I seem to have too many screenshots on my desktop and the shared folder icons were heaping up in the upper right hand corner of my desktop, mingled together with multiple icons for files. Very difficult to spot as shared folder icons. Now I have created a dedicated folder for screenshots, so they don't mess up my desktop anymore. 

So, we seem to have at least two workarounds for the time being as far as I tested:

1) Dragging the Shared Folder icons from the Desktop to Favourites

2) Modifying the 'hosts' file as described by @bruno_l as his 'method one'.

There may be other workarounds as well, which is a good thing, but definitely not a solution for the average user who just wants to have a trouble-free MAC OS system.

The action is now with Apple to learn from this thread and implement a reliable solution for Finder as soon as possible.

Update: I've been using Cemento's approach (https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250794335?answerId=252112800022#252112800022) of dragging the networked drive(s) to the desktop and then back to the sidebar under Favorites since June 4 (one week ago). Overall it still seems to be a viable workaround/mitigation approach, although it isn't perfect.

In the past week, I've had the disconnect popup/dialog appear twice. Both times, I've clicked "Ignore". I've also had the icons on my desktop disappear several times, but clicking on the new links under Favorites in the sidebar has brought them back. On the most recent occasion, the new links displayed question marks when clicked, but after several seconds reestablished the connection. On a previous occasion, Finder displayed the spinning icon for several minutes, while it (apparently) tried to reestablish the connection, and eventually succeeded in displaying the contents of the remote drives.

So, there have been some hiccups, but on the upside, my machine has remained stable, Finder has not crashed or become completely unresponsive, and I've been able to reconnect to the NAS in Finder, typically within a few seconds, by clicking on the new links. I've also not had to restart my machine even once. This is a DRAMATIC improvement over what was happening before. So, at least for now, it appears that Cemento's workaround is viable for me. YMMV, and so it would be helpful if other users here can confirm that this approach is still working for them.

I'll continue to update as more time passes....

I have the same problem that I usually can't mount my Synology NAS in Catalina via the Finder sidebar. After restarting the computer or after a forced restart of the Finder, it works at first, then later does not work anymore. However, I have had the same problem with Mohave 10.14.x. The problem does not occur with multiple computers that have older systems installed. The problem is also independent of the protocol used, whether AFP or SMB, regardless of the SMB version used. For example, connections initiated by Carbon Copy Cloner (CCC) always work without problems.

I can confirm that the Cemento workaround works. Additionally I would like to point out that you can also create a folder containing alias files of the shares from the desktop or the /Volumes folder, so that not too much space is wasted in the sidebar if you have a long list of shares. My folder is called "Servers" and contains all my required shares. This always works and is a good replacement for the network bonjour functionality of the sidebar, which does not work in the Finder after a certain time. The Finder's built-in network display in the sidebar is disabled, so I don't always click on it anymore out of habit. I hope that with Big Sur Apple will finally take care of this problem, which has existed for a long time with various NAS and server solutions. Or is the main focus of Big Sur only on "cosmetics" and making the operating system look iOS-like? I hope not.

Another possibility I found is a software from the macOS App-Store called "AutoMounter". It always works fine and is handy if you have a lot of shares, so that the sidebar is not always too full. Optionally you can also use AutoMounter to set up shares to be mounted automatically. They will mount again immediately if you disconnect them by mistake. This software is an all-in-one solution for me.

@Remulus:

• Upgrading from Catalina 10.15.5 to 10.15.6 SOLVES the problem which is initially described in this thread = accessing NAS from Finder.

• The TM problem that I mention has nothing to do with Apple but is directly linked to Norton 360 (see link from @Martin above). My screen capture and error message is completely different than yours, check it here --> https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250794335?answerId=253038015022#253038015022

• The TM problem that YOU mention is completely different, the error message is not the same than the one we experience with Norton 360

Fly

I have the same issue on Catalina 10.15.6 with Norton 360 and a WD EX2 Ultra NAS. Apple support said they do not provbide support for 3rd party NAS backups and to call the NAS vendor. WD has a workaround by mapping the MacBook to the NAS over smb. Has worked since I did that. I didn't change Norton.

I followed this: https://support-en.wd.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/10789

Have you explored more recent vendor software for your NAS? The incompatibility may originate there, though certainly no excluding Apple antics in Catalina. Then there is booting into Safe Boot mode to clear system caches too.

I have recently had a long dialogue with Synology regarding my own unit. I think they would appreciate hearing from you on this

Go in via the GUI on your unit and contact support through that route, giving them as much data as you are able.

Their help is encapsulated as follows:

• Use SMB, and connect the IP address, not the NAS name (use fixed IP)
• Ensure Bonjour credentials are being broadcast by the NAS
• Add your backup to Login Items on your Mac user

For me this now works. Your mileage may vary

It worked perfectly under Mojave. Catalina has been a negative enhancement! NAS vendors like Synology are now wrestling with the hows and whys of the changes, which is why your inout will be valuable

Somebody tried this and it worked for them (see https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/362739/what-causes-some-network-drives-using-smb-no-longer-connect-to-macos-catalina):

echo "[default]" | sudo tee -a /etc/nsmb.conf
echo "port445=both" | sudo tee -a /etc/nsmb.conf

It did not exactly work for me (only for a few minutes, like after a reboot). But at least, I can now use the "Disconnect" and "Reconnect as..." buttons, which stopped working after I moved to Catalina.

@VikingOSX: The problem is that the Connect As button doesn't trigger the pop-up to put in login info. This is the bug in Catalina (for some of us at least). I was able to restart Finder and that fixed it for me so far - it's been a few days and it's still working.

It continues to fail because Catalina can’t fully resolve information from your NAS. Sounds like it’s an issue with your network router, not Catalina. I had same problem as you. Re-booting my router fixed it.

BTW, I just use “afp://192.168.0.131”, (yours will be different, of course). Works for “SMB” connections as well to my NAS.

Catalina now automatically ”connects as: admin”, which is the default user defined by my NAS. If I “disconnect: admin”, Catalina then automatically “connects as: guest”, because “guest” is a hidden, protected “system word“ used by the NAS’s OS. My point here is that user info from the NAS was being blocked by a router anomaly.

Check-out my previous response.

Best regards,

OM2

I have confirmed with both Apple and Synology that this is a known issue with OSX Catalina. Supposedly their engineers are working together on a fix, but Synology tells me that it's a low priority for Apple, since it only affects a small subset of their users (i.e. those using NAS.)

From Synology:

"...At this point it is a waiting game with Apple and our developers as they work together for a resolution. Unfortunately, there is not an ETA that we are aware of. I know Apple is dealing with a few issues with the Catalina release mostly having to do with 64bit vs 32bit application support so I am not sure where this falls on their priority scale..."

I hate to be the buzzkill regarding some of the "fixes" posted on here, but restarting does not resolve this issue. Nor does setting the minimum SMB version to SMB 2, and the maximum to SMB 3.

The problem is that the the connection to the NAS gets into a bad state after some amount of time passes. Once in this bad state, the connection cannot be fully disconnected and thus reconnected, even by terminating the connection from the NAS side. Some access, such as TimeMachine, may continue to work, while other access, such as in Finder, will not. Once in this bad state, the computer becomes unstable, and random apps (even those that don't seem to need access to the NAS), including Finder, Safari, and third-party apps, will hang, and cannot be completely force-quit and restarted. The only reliable solution at this point is to reboot the computer, after which things will work ok for a while before the issue reoccurs.

This really sucks, as it makes my new $4k 16-inch MacBook Pro less stable than my old 2010 one. I routinely have to reboot my computer while I work, and sometimes wind up losing data because I cannot properly shut down apps or the OS.

Apple has fallen very far indeed if it no longer bothers to test its OS against popular devices and network setups. I hope someone at Apple decides that this is embarrassing enough to prioritize a fix. Otherwise this will definitely be the last MacBook I purchase.

So I have as mentioned in my earlier posting been having issues with the backups I ran and after exhaustive questioning and research of our good friend Google it occurred to me to try one last thing. I have my SMB set to version 3 on my QNAP NAS so I have never had issues connecting with Catalina, only that it doesn't seem to hold those connections and one program very sensitive to this has been Bombitch Carbon Copy Cloner when running Local > NAS backups on the drive.

I have on a particular set of backups never got past 20 mins max and consistently around 4/5 mins before the issues rear their head and everything freezes like everyone else has experienced.

I decided to run a DNS flush on my iMac using the usual command of

sudo dscacheutil -flushcache; sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder

I have since run 2 separate backup tasks to the NAS, one taking a little over 2 hours and the second around 30 mins. This at least has appeared to be a short term fix since I haven't tested it at length but I will continue to do so, I just wanted to let people know in this thread that for me at least, this has worked. Give it a try and see how you get on.

A temporary solution that is working to me is cleaning keychain from stored NAS login and password. So logout, login again, clean keychain, logout, login, push on NAS icon on finder sidebar, fill-in again NAS login and password and, at least for some days, the network connection works.

Well, I would have posted an update sooner but couldn't, due to being banned from this board for the last couple of weeks. Apple's censoring efforts backfired as they prevented me from updating all of you to let you know that my NAS issues have quietly resolved since 10.15.3. They didn't resolve immediately upon updating, but did so at some point within a week or so of the update. My guess is that 10.15.3 fixed the issue (or at least alleviated it), and then once the various cached data/connections were refreshed, the new ones worked correctly. Since then, my Timemachine backups have worked, and the NAS continues to show in my sidebar without issue.