NAS Access in Catalina issues

The fact that it is an Apple issue is plain

Equally plain is the fact that vendors working in the Apple space are always needing to solve the problems created by new releases of Apple things

The IT world was ever thus

Very frustrating Apple!! I'm using a Qnap NAS and I have the same problems. Often I can't connect to the NAS through finder. Only restarting the finder helps. Also Time Machine update sometimes fails. After experiencing this problem while connected with SMB I turned to AFP only. Unfortunately this isn't the fix.

Using a Synology DiskStation here. That Connect As… in the Finder should pop a dialog where you enter the adminstrative user name and password for the NAS. If you do not select Remember this password in my keychain, then clicking on the NAS name in Location will not connect because permissions to do so are not found.

@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.

The Finder Window's Connect As… pop-up works for me in Catalina 10.15.1 with my Synology NAS, though I am a version behind in my DiskStation management software due to the age of the NAS hardware. There is no ruling out changes in Catalina, or changes in the current DSM software release for others with newer Synology NAS hardware. Even a slow failing NAS drive can give one considerable aggravation…

Interestingly, there is no issue mounting and saving on the NAS from the "Save As..." window from PowerPoint... which does look identical to and probably reuses the Finder window... Quite ironic! I just discovered this by accident.

Unfortunately, even when the NAS directory has been mounted via PowerPoint, it is still not accessible by/visible in the Finder window.

I have this problem as well, and sometimes some programs can access the shared drive through a back door of sorts (like going to a third computer that is connected). It is so weird. Restarting finder did temporarily fix the issue. But this is ridiculous!

Yesterday i contacted Apple about this problem. Unfortunately no solution and no idea this will be fixed in future software update. Senior advisor told me that it is a third party NAS and all the apple products are working fine. So no need for Apple to fix the problem... very frustrating.

Way to reproduce:

you could use any folder on nas in finder until you try to access to folder that you haven't permission. After that you can't access to any folder's which you previously didn't mount, even with read/write permissions. It regard to any NAS user, so if your credentials for regular user and time machine is different - you can't connect to previously not mounted folder after sceduled time mashine's backup.

So workaround is: credentials for timemachine and regular user should be the same, and hide shared folders from users without permissions (both Synology and QNAP have such checkbox in their control panels)

If you have one, try re-booting your router.

I too had trouble tickets at both Apple and Western Digital regarding my inability to connect reliably with Catalina.

Since I could reach the drive's web-hosted OS "dashboard", I finally assumed it must be a network data transport protocol issue. After by-passing the switches with no improvement, the router became the prime culprit.

Power-cycling the router fixed the problem.

It really bugs me when gremlins show up coincident with an OS upgrade. (I now have a come-up on my phone to remind me to do this once-a-month. But, I should have been doing this anyway since residential router are historically notorious for shenanigans like this.)

OM2

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 don't think it is router issue. Because I rebooted my router pervious but the issue still here.

I also have a MacBook Air which is the old system. I think it is 10.14.

The MacBook Air does not have any issue like this.

I still can't fully rationalize how a router re-boot solved my problem. After upgrading to Catalina, I was unable to reconnect to a network drive unit I have used with no problems for four years. The two most significant things I did at the time, to resolve this problem, was a re-boot of my iMac, then later, my router. After that, the drive unit almost installed itself!

I noticed Apple has released macOS 10.15.2 update today. Maybe there will be something in it that will help you resolve the problem you are having with your drive unit.

Best regards,

OM2

I think I found the issue. I used the admin account but I did not admin account access homes folder. I found if I try to access homes folder, I will get the error message. Then I cannot access any folders in my NAS.

I think maybe Apple tried to access all "available" folder in the background. After it failed in some folders which the account cannot access, then we will see the error message.

> I think I found the issue. I used the admin account but I did not admin account access homes folder.

> I found if I try to access homes folder, I will get the error message. Then I cannot access any folders in my NAS.

I just tried this, open access to all shared folders on my NAS (Synology) to user admin, restarted Finder, but no luck. The Finder says "Connecting..." and never connects. Pressing the "Connect..." button does not have any effect (which is a nuisance really, because a button should always be responsive). Sigh...