NAS Access in Catalina issues

ArturRuz wrote:

I have the same issue with WD MyBookLive. In my case in host file I add a record: 192.168.10.192 MyBookLive.local . There are: MyBookLive - is NetBios name of my NAS. 192.168.10.192 - is Static ip of my NAS. I don't know how long it will work, but it my be helpful.

Artur, does it still work with your "trick" ? I am bothered to kill sharing every 2 hours to have it working, I might get a try with your idea if you confirm it's still working.

Thanks,

Fly_PetitPrince

Has anyone given it a try and used a network package analysis tool (like Whireshark) to find differences in the communication with the NAS server, between Catalina and previous versions? Just an idea ... because if the traffic to the NAS server would be identical compared to Mojave, this would be the evidence that the issue is with Finder.

Accessing the shares through a "Favorites" shortcut seem to work so far. It's only been a few days, may just be a coincidence.

Many of the solutions proposed don't seem to work.

• My NAS is set to SMB 3, but I still get disconnected. Either can't login or lose connection soon. So it's not just that.
• I've tried through "Go > Connect to server" (Command-K), by IP address and that connection drops also.

Strangely my TimeMachine never had a problem. It does use SMB and is pointing to the server share by name. In my case "TS-231P(TimeMachine).local". But I never try to access that directly through Finder.

In the past few days I haven't had an issue when accessing my shares directly from the link in Favorites whereas I do have a problem when accessing the server by name (TS-231P) in "Locations". I think I even have issues with APF, if I recall correctly I also had a problem accessing the AFP connection in "Locations" (TS-23P(AFP)).

I'll come back and share if I have an update.

If this is a pure Finder problem, would an app like Forklift be a solution?

Of course, it shouldn't be necessary to buy a Finder alternative to avoid a Finder bug, but if I were encountering problems which reduced my productivity I might spend $30 (for Forklift) if that solves it. (By the way, I am still on Mojave)

I actually started using "autofs" to fix this as suggested by "bitonio" a few replies away on this thread. I'm using this approach since a longer time on my stationary old Mac Mini which runs High Sierra and did not know that this would fix the problem with shares on my MacBook running Catalina. The additional advantage of this solution is that you also get a permanent mount point which is filled with mounted shares on each start or wakeup. This is basically the same as known on Linux and Windows since a longer time. "autofs" is a standard tool from Apple, whereas I'm not sure if using the approach with "nvram boot-args" is rather closer to an insider hack which is certainly cool, but can stop working after the next security update. I became very cautious with these things since they tend to cost a lot of time to maintain in the future. I prefer more using my system and less maintaining it ;-) But the latter is my personal perspective. The bottom line is using "autofs" is very convenient and solves the problem. I hope someone from Apple is reading this thread as well and the will try to fix this to keep on the "out of the box" user experience ;-)

if by solved you mean a patch in Catalina that fixes the finder NAS disconnection issues, no, it is not solved.

There some workarounds that work for most people like dragging mounted folders in favorites accessing from there. But those are workarounds.

There are also different issues in this thread. Most are just disconnections to the NAS when browsing shares with Finder but some experience TimeMachine disconnects as well. I think that’s a different issue.

One person has left cryptic messages that the next version of MacOS (which isn’t released officially yet) doesn’t have that issue, but that does NOT solve the *Catalina* issue.

Long answer short is: no, it hasn’t been solved, not by Apple anyway. Only possible workarounds.

Same issue here, connection fails in the Finder.

It got even worse today. Previously, Finder/Connect to Server (%K) was working by entering: 'smb://mynas.local/', but this stopped working as well, for no obvious reason because nothing changed on the NAS or my Mac.

Even worse, connecting to the NAS via Safari also stopped working, e.g. httphttp://mynas.local:5050. The error message from Safari is: 'You are not connected to the Internet'. But I am! But this was working fine this morning! Weird.

Clearing the DNS and ARP caches as suggested by https://mariushosting.com/connection-problem-between-synology-nas-and-macos-catalina/ did not really help.

Only working workaround was to use the NAS's IP address.

Would Apple have tried to resurrect the new DNS server that they never managed to get working in... was it in Sierra?

@Fly_PetitPrince,

That’s great, thanks. And how about your NAS accounts? Do you use the same or different usernames / privileges for backup?

@Remulus,

Perform the latest OS upgrade and it should solve the problem.

Fly

With no changes, both Catalina 10.15.0 and 10.15.1 show my Synology DiskStation in the Finder sidebar under locations, and clicking on DiskStation automatically presents the server folders in my Finder window. The key to that Connected As… dialog is that you must configure it with the administrator user name and password for the server, and Remember that password in keychain so that just Connect will work on subsequent attempts.

My Synology is automatically doing afpovertcp to Mojave as well as Catalina. Just works.

Just tried an experiment:

• Logged into User Account1: no access to the NAS from Finder
• Switched to User Account2: no problem accessing any folder on the NAS from Finder
• Switched back to User Account1: same issue as before

Damm!

And no it's not related to user credentials, because if I reboot I will be able access the NAS from User Account1 (and I never had any issue with this account until Catalina).

I have a Drobo NAS and have been seeing the same behavior from Catalina since upgrading. Some times I come home from work and I can connect immediately without incident to the NAS from the link in Finder. Sometimes (more often than not) I just get a Connection failed... message. Every single other thing works fine, including connecting to the NAS via the connect to server function using the IP address. The inconsistency is a bit irritating.

Tossing it around in my head, I started to wonder if something was going on with SMB itself in Catalina. A quick Google search found that some users are looking for a way to move back to SMB v1 from Catalina's SMB v3. As such, I wonder whether Catalina introduced SMB v3 and deprecated v1? I know that at work we've moved to v3 (for very valid security reasons). I'm not, however, certain what version my Drobo 5N is running. It could be something to look into, however.

If you use a router to connect to your NAS, give it a re-boot.

Also, and I don’t know why, but re-starting your Mac seems to help. Maybe it removes “previous attempt garbage”!

Finally, in Finder, make sure you are “connected to:” the default user name of the NAS (it’s probably “admin” like my EX4).

if you think this set-up works for you, the final test will be to see if it survives a re-start of your Mac.

Good luck and best regards,

OM2

All,

i did read a lot and would like to contribute:

I have a New 2019 MacBook Pro and a 2012 MBP retina, both on Catalina.

"Connect to Server" (Apple + k) works in all combinations, means access and mapping of shared folders works

BUT

FINDER has super poor performance. Performance increases, when turning of "file preview" - which is too important than to turn it of ( manage Photos etc ).

Many Applications wait for hours, when you want to open files via "OPEN" in file menues.

The alternative ... select files in FINDER and DRAG to App-Icon in DOCK ... simplys kills you with showing no reaction at all.

Drag and DROP files between directories in FINDER, esp between different shares ( = different Volumes ) KILLS YOU with 2 minutes for to 30 MB in total 10 Files.

Also I tried to exclude NAS Indices ( require NAS <=> Communication to speed up searches ) did seem not to relieve the issue.

ALWAYS after a Reboot of Mac for a short while it seems quicker. At least when ONE Time the FINDER preview needs to do something - latest than the issue is back.

I have NOT YET tried to exclude the SMB1.

I am convinced, there are Issues IN AFP and the older SMBs along with the new FINDER Preview gimmicks

Proof to be published here.

APPLE guys ==> RETURN BACK TO THE GOOD, do not become a second Microsoft, please.

Thanks @bsanders44, you seem to have had better luck with Synology than I had (maybe you were more persistant):

"... As you could realize, experiments that could solve your issue temporarily were performed on a Mac and not on the NAS. [Your] NAS and the SMB protocol having no problem with [your] other devices. I thus suggest you contact Apple, as we have done our best on our side."

> The problem is that the the connection to the NAS gets into a bad state after some amount of time passes.

Agreed. That time is rather small in my experience.

> Once in this bad state, the computer becomes unstable, and random apps [...] will hang

It's only really Finder on my Mac that exhibits the issue, other apps seem to be rather immune to the issue; but maybe I don't use that many.

Interestingly, I discovered accidentally that PowerPoint can mount shares from the NAS without any issue, even when Finder fails. Even better, I noticed that, quite ironically, apps from Apple, including Aperçu and Safari, can also mount shares from the NAS using the Save As... dialog... when Finder cannot. How come?... Does Finder have some new (broken) piece of code that other apps don't?

> I hope someone at Apple decides that this is embarrassing enough to prioritize a fix.

I decided to send an email to T. Cook this week-end. I encourage others to do the same. It's not guaranteed to help, but maybe this will help to push the issue over the bar.