NAS Access in Catalina issues

Thanks for the feed-back.

Actually, I was referring to the NAS drive unit.

Apparently, your drive’s firmware may be missing something that allows MacOS Catalina to discover it.

Good-luck towards a permanent resolution.

best regards,

OM2

I think it has nothing to do with the drive. It has to do with the OSX kernel. Somehow its letting its remotely mounted drive handles get corrupted.

It's happening with all NAS, and when this happens all applications on the machine have problems accessing files. Google 'Backup and Sync' can't access my Desktop and it thinks that its a remote drive for example.

Its a low level corruption in the kernel and we don't seem to have reproducible way to do it yet. It happens over time for me. Usually when I come back after leaving the drive mounted overnight.

> I think it has nothing to do with the drive. It has to do with the OSX kernel. Somehow its letting

> its remotely mounted drive handles get corrupted.

It's certainly in some system library, but I'm not sure it's in the kernel, because when you mount the drive through Aperçu or PowerPoint -yes you can!- via File/Open..., it works beautifully like pre-Catalina: the NAS is discovered via Bonjour and the drive mounted without any issue.

My thinking: there are 2 "Finder" libraries in Catalina, one that is used by "older" applications, one that is used by the Finder app. The former works without any issues whilst the latter works only shortly after reboot.

Where I concur with you is that something at some point gets corrupted in the filesystem's internal data structures.

Well, what you say may be true. But I’m not sure I agree it affects “all NAS”. My “WD My Cloud EX4” has worked steadily since 10.15.2. Something was now different about the way it reacted to my “EX4” every time I connected it to my network (via Netgear GSS108E switch & WRT3200ACM router). 10.15.2 was now discovering the “admin” user name. And, if I cancelled the use of that user, it opted for “Guest”, which is a “protected” word in the EX4. Also, I no longer use the “Go>>Connect to Server” app, period. And finally, the network path is now happy with the use of the device name of the NAS, instead of only it’s IP address. And I almost forgot, it’s been a long time since Time Machine has worked perfectly.

Now, along the way through all this MacOS “finger-pointing” excercise, my EX4 suffered firmware brain-fart. Since 10.15.1, it was no longer communicating the size of the Time Machine share to MacOS. WD recommended a factory-default be performed. After four attempts, it finally completed successfully and the original problem was resolved. I mention this incident merely to suggest another aspect of this problem.

Best regards,

OM2

Thanks @OM2, @jmow,

I'm more of a Unix programmers and don't much about OSX internals. It could be a system library I guess. I will try to read up on it and narrow it down. It's interesting that Powerpoint File/Open works. I'm having a problem in Lightroom's import function myself (I use the NAS to store all my photos for editing) which I would think would be similar.

When I see the Lightroom is not able to see the already mounted drive, I go to a Finder window and find it is also hosed. It shows as mounted (the eject option is visible next to it in the vertical column list) but it is not responsive, and the Finder freezes when I try an operation on the mounted drive.

I've also had situations where the 'Google Backup and Sync' utility (which I used to mirror my Google Drive and backup my Desktop to Google as well) suddenly reports it can't backup my Desktop because it can't find it. When I try to navigate it to the desktop and point it at it, it claims that's a network drive and so it can't be properly backed up. Thinking about it a bit, I think this app may register some callbacks with the Finder to be informed when there are file changes that need to be backed up, and that API is hosed. It feels like the finder is telling the Google Drive program that the desktop is a network drive (for which the callback mechanism is not supported.)

I did notice that when I stopped 'Parallels Toolbox' for starting automatically on login, the problem frequency decreased dramatically. It went from getting messed up daily, to something like weekly. So it's clearly something an application is doing to confuse some system component and resulting in the freeze that requires a full restart and not just a finder relaunch.

I will try a bunch of different apps and see if I can isolate this any further. I hope the next malfunction does not happen when I'm pressed for time, and I have to take the fast reboot option to keep working.

Rgds,

Shivio

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.

A few comments earlier was the hint about standard finder and PowerPoint using different libraries and therefore have different positive and negative effects.

I have do not have up to now any mount-issues with my Synolgy BUT i have a comparable effect re Finder and preview.

What happens:

Select two handful of files with find on NAS Drive, e.g. 10 PDF with total 25 MB size

Try to Drag & Drop somewhere.

==> The first time it works, the second time finder freezes because a QucikLookGuiService ( or so ) freezes.

Kill finder and restart ... still dead.

What I want to says with that is, that the "improvements" around finder seem to contribute significantly to the NAS communication issues.

Doing the same exercise with local files is as well unsexy slow, but finder und QuickLook service do not get hung.

<apple>+<k> ands smb:\\ and SMB2 min on synololgy as well as Finder Dsiplay Optio "no preview" makes ist stable even for the Drag&drop exercise.

Apple guys, pls check FINDER Libraries and the PREVIEW Funktion together with Network to resolve all theses issues

Thanks OM2 for detailed instruction, but it didn't solved the problem for me. I hope Apple will come with the solution really soon. Meanwhile I am forced to map each Synology shared separately using Command+K and afp://<synology_name>.local.

Question to all, that have the Issue with the NAS not appearing under Finder Sidebar etc etc.

We have two a brandnew Macs and one from 2012.

ONE new one I on purpose, after reading all this, did Setup from Scratch. The 2012 and the 2019 both are with OLD Users and OLD KeyStores etc. ( Migrated etc )

The issue mentioned above is not there with any of the three with the Synology.

Ths Synology i did - follwoing this thread - limit to SMB2 minimum ( not to the long MRU ). I did not restrict any higher as we have a scanner that then not anymore autorizes against the NAS share where to put the scans.

Can it be, that CATALINA has issues with taking Broadcasts?

I ask, because all the intra-net comms here at home etc is managed by an AVM Fritz!Box.

The Fritz! is DHCP and internal DNS as well.

This leads us back to the Router discussion, NOT as the CAUSE but maybe for DIFFERENCES that make the issue not to raise?

In any case apple has to fix, but maybe this has narrow down possible causes.

We use AirPrint via the NAS e.g. as well ... as if the FRITZ! would Broadcast and handle Broadcast in way "that is more liked " by Catalina ????

Just some Brain-Food. Thoughts?

Funny thing is I'm even having this problem in 10.14.6 with some of my users. One thing that seems to make sense to me is it seems to be something with the finder, it _may_ have something to do with keychain credentials, and also I wonder if it has something to do with doing Time Machine backups AND finder server connections at the same time. One other user posted that awhile back. Are most people here doing both? I am going to test tomorrow with some of my users to turn off (remove) the time machine connection for a bit to see if it helps.

Hi ropstop,

i am with you re The NAS.

I'd even word it stronger.

LapTops can - but is not their orig purpose - store huge amount of local data.

Therefore everybody points to "Cloud". What is my local NAS Other THAN a local Cloud???

Of course, answres by local support might be helpless and silly, BUT APPLE MANAGEMENT, Mr Tim Cook,

must pickup, that his Catalina is undermining a public, required concept and probably turning the expensive MacBook Pros into a useless "Surf-Box", if Cloud / NAS Data is not adequately accessible.

My worry is, that I feel we do not have the lever to adress this to decision-makers ... where it needs to go to.

I am pretty sure a middle management person tries to die his failure and so it NOT FIXED.

Have any of you tried "factory-defaulting" your NAS device itself? (WD NAS, EX4 specifically, even has an option to perform this in a non-data destructive manner.) I believe it solved at least one of my issues with Catalina.

Just sharing....

Peripheral-device compatibility is a two-way street. As long as both sides agree to tighten-up their adherence to the "standards" at the same pace, we mere-mortals go about life none the wiser. When one side or the other, decides for whatever reason, that it is time to quit fooling around and finally bring their widget fully up to an existing (or new) standard, users experience pain. And the finger-pointing war begins!

Have any of you actually challenged-up the food-chain with your NAS manufacturer, past the Tier One support person? If their product is truly innocent, someone there can/will tell you exactly what the offending OS did to cause your pain. Of course, this may be exactly what management (usually, this will be Marketing) agrees to share.

I have felt your pain! (Just not right now.)

OM2

@roptstop - I wouldn't take the support tech's comments to you too seriously. I have spoken to 6-7 different support "techs" at Apple support, and half of them didn't know what a NAS was, had me jump through the same hoops as you, and tried pointing fingers at the NAS, at my network, my router, everything else. Not being content with those answers (and knowing them to be false), I kept calling until I spoke with more knowledgable supervisors who confirmed that a ticket for this issue already exists within Apple's internal system, and that Engineering is already aware of it. Several of the supervisors use NAS themselves and have encountered the same issues. I'll bet that if you call back up and ask to speak with a supervisor, odds are good you'll get the real information. Sadly, even those of us who pay extra for Apple Care now receive the same hit-or-miss level of support that you get calling the cable company.

@OM2 - I'm glad that you've found a workaround that seems to work for you, but this has already been confirmed as a KNOWN ISSUE by Apple. IT'S NOT NAS SPECIFIC. We need to keep the focus where it belongs and not start second-guessing facts that are already known.

The lack of support for NAS (more in general to a SMB share) is a joke. In particular considering that time capsules are out of production since years... then how an apple user can have backup over the network?

And again: where’s the meaning of developing 60k pro machines (new Mac Pro) and don’t letting them connect to a company SMB share? Really, it’s a joke.

Hey bsandsers44,

I guess I forgot to mention my latest work-around... it's called "do nothing and it installs itself". I actually found this to work in 10.15.2. In fact, it worked on two different iMacs in my household, and still works in 10.15.3. Specifically, my WD My Cloud EX4 is optioned to support "afp" for use with Time Machine for both Macs. (I also use SMB connections to support back-ups for several PCs as well, but of course, these do not originate from a Mac.). My recent suggestions have been about clearing the "flotsam" from the NAS, the macOS and the network...pure "trouble-shooting 101" stuff. Then try things again.

In my past, when confronted with similar issues, I also found it very helpful to discover (by hook or crook) the vendor's trouble-ticket number for the anomaly and share it with my management, their management (i.e., the community). It seemed to help with "focus" on both sides of the problem. You too may find it helpful.

I'm truly sorry you're having difficulties.

OM2