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SMB/NFS shares disconnecting on Catalina with FCPX 10.4.6

Been dealing with a SMB/NFS issue for a few weeks with FCPX and Catalina.


Opening any timeline in FCPX 10.4.8 on Mac OS 10.15.3 with assets on a SMB and NFS share, causes the connection to a Lumaforge JellyFish rack to abruptly disconnect. The FCPX library then closes to prevent data loss. This issue is not replicated on computers running 10.14.6 connected to the same shares/assets, or when the assets are stored locally on the 10.15.3 computer. 


On a Catalina 10.15.3 system we have tried different ethernet adaptors, 3 different computers, different assets up to two years old, new libraries etc etc. Currently the only solution is to downgrade the system to 10.14.6. However we can’t do this with any of the latest MacBook Pro 16” or Mac Pro’s, rendering these new systems effectively useless in our FCPX workflow. 


Lumaforge and Apple are aware of the issue, but we’re looking for any ideas people might have.

MacBook Pro with Touch Bar

Posted on Feb 4, 2020 1:22 PM

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Question marked as Best reply

Posted on Mar 2, 2020 11:06 AM

Through a ton of research and some luck, I have finally stumbled across the solution to this issue with FCPX SMB performance in macOS Catalina.  The issue seems to be that macOS Catalina default system parameters for networking are not tuned for high demand network performance.  That being said, it seems that at some point in time as far back as OS X Mountain Lion some engineers at Apple created a feature called “Server Performance Mode”.  Imagine that, a feature in macOS literally named after creating a network performance mode.  This feature is documented on Apple.com


Server Performance Mode

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202528


The description reads:

Performance mode changes the system parameters of your Mac. These changes take better advantage of your hardware for demanding server applications. A Mac that needs to run high-performance services can turn on performance mode to dedicate additional system resources for server applications.


Solution:


1 - First check to see if server performance mode is enabled on your machine using this Terminal command. You should see the command return serverperfmode=1 if it is enabled.

nvram boot-args


2 - If you do not see serverperfmode=1 returned, enter this following line of code to enable it. (I recommend rebooting your system afterwards)

sudo nvram boot-args="serverperfmode=1 $(nvram boot-args 2>/dev/null | cut -f 2-)"


On my brand new Mac Pro (2019), not only did this fix issues with Final Cut Pro X freezing and disconnecting SMB network volume shares, it increased my throughput performance from 30%-50%. My machine almost reaches the theoretical max throughput of 10GbE. I have also tested this on older machines running Mojave and they also gained performance improvements. I have also tested older "trash can" Mac Pro's upgraded to Catalina that were previously also crashing and disconnecting SMB shares and they too are now working. I can't promise that this will fix everybody's issues, but I can tell you that there is a good chance it will help your overall network performance especially if you are using a high demanding network application. Note: I have not tested this, but if you ever execute an NVRAM reset this option would presumably disappear and need to be re-enabled.



If at any time you want to turn off performance mode use this line of code. (I recommend rebooting your system afterwards)

sudo nvram boot-args="$(nvram boot-args 2>/dev/null | sed -e $'s/boot-args\t//;s/serverperfmode=1//')"



Final notes, I have been talking through Apple directly throughout troubleshooting this issue. They at no point ever provided me any help or clues to solve this issue. Apple's official stance is that this is clearly a "third-party" hardware issue that is simply not compatible with macOS Catalina since this issue is not as pronounced in Mojave. They would not even entertain any notion that anything related to macOS Catalina network configurations could cause or help network performance issues. To say their support for this issue has been underwhelming would be a gross understatement. It's also mind-blowing that the FCPX team and Apple engineers are so unfamiliar with anything related to network performance in macOS that they could not have provided this as a possible solution or even suggestion. I could say a lot more as it has been an incredibly frustrating experience as an Apple customer, but to that point I wanted to share this with the world and the broader FCPX community that there is a way to improve your network performance in macOS Catalina and it doesn't have to depend on third-party support like QNAP, Synology, Lumaforge, and SNS. I am sure those folks can fine tune the performance even more, but at least this feature engineered by Apple exists and there is a good chance it will help your situation.


Enjoy!


PS. Apple engineers if you guys ever read this. Please consider making these network configurations more transparent and easily accessible to the user. I don't know why macOS couldn't have a network configuration option existing as a button or check box somewhere that would enable Server Performance Mode. Also, consider testing apps like FCPX more thoroughly in common shared storage environments and consider all performance options including macOS.



7 replies
Question marked as Best reply

Mar 2, 2020 11:06 AM in response to cosmo2

Through a ton of research and some luck, I have finally stumbled across the solution to this issue with FCPX SMB performance in macOS Catalina.  The issue seems to be that macOS Catalina default system parameters for networking are not tuned for high demand network performance.  That being said, it seems that at some point in time as far back as OS X Mountain Lion some engineers at Apple created a feature called “Server Performance Mode”.  Imagine that, a feature in macOS literally named after creating a network performance mode.  This feature is documented on Apple.com


Server Performance Mode

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202528


The description reads:

Performance mode changes the system parameters of your Mac. These changes take better advantage of your hardware for demanding server applications. A Mac that needs to run high-performance services can turn on performance mode to dedicate additional system resources for server applications.


Solution:


1 - First check to see if server performance mode is enabled on your machine using this Terminal command. You should see the command return serverperfmode=1 if it is enabled.

nvram boot-args


2 - If you do not see serverperfmode=1 returned, enter this following line of code to enable it. (I recommend rebooting your system afterwards)

sudo nvram boot-args="serverperfmode=1 $(nvram boot-args 2>/dev/null | cut -f 2-)"


On my brand new Mac Pro (2019), not only did this fix issues with Final Cut Pro X freezing and disconnecting SMB network volume shares, it increased my throughput performance from 30%-50%. My machine almost reaches the theoretical max throughput of 10GbE. I have also tested this on older machines running Mojave and they also gained performance improvements. I have also tested older "trash can" Mac Pro's upgraded to Catalina that were previously also crashing and disconnecting SMB shares and they too are now working. I can't promise that this will fix everybody's issues, but I can tell you that there is a good chance it will help your overall network performance especially if you are using a high demanding network application. Note: I have not tested this, but if you ever execute an NVRAM reset this option would presumably disappear and need to be re-enabled.



If at any time you want to turn off performance mode use this line of code. (I recommend rebooting your system afterwards)

sudo nvram boot-args="$(nvram boot-args 2>/dev/null | sed -e $'s/boot-args\t//;s/serverperfmode=1//')"



Final notes, I have been talking through Apple directly throughout troubleshooting this issue. They at no point ever provided me any help or clues to solve this issue. Apple's official stance is that this is clearly a "third-party" hardware issue that is simply not compatible with macOS Catalina since this issue is not as pronounced in Mojave. They would not even entertain any notion that anything related to macOS Catalina network configurations could cause or help network performance issues. To say their support for this issue has been underwhelming would be a gross understatement. It's also mind-blowing that the FCPX team and Apple engineers are so unfamiliar with anything related to network performance in macOS that they could not have provided this as a possible solution or even suggestion. I could say a lot more as it has been an incredibly frustrating experience as an Apple customer, but to that point I wanted to share this with the world and the broader FCPX community that there is a way to improve your network performance in macOS Catalina and it doesn't have to depend on third-party support like QNAP, Synology, Lumaforge, and SNS. I am sure those folks can fine tune the performance even more, but at least this feature engineered by Apple exists and there is a good chance it will help your situation.


Enjoy!


PS. Apple engineers if you guys ever read this. Please consider making these network configurations more transparent and easily accessible to the user. I don't know why macOS couldn't have a network configuration option existing as a button or check box somewhere that would enable Server Performance Mode. Also, consider testing apps like FCPX more thoroughly in common shared storage environments and consider all performance options including macOS.



Feb 7, 2020 9:19 AM in response to cosmo2

Don't have an answer to this. Just want to confirm, I am experiencing the same issue on my new 2019 Mac Pro which as you have already pointed out can only run macOS Catalina. Final Cut Pro was one of the big reasons for this new workstations and it's kind of useless at this moment until this issue with SMB shares is resolved.

Feb 22, 2020 3:50 AM in response to cosmo2

We had the same Issue with our new Mac Pro (Catalina) and our JellyFish Mobile.

After hour with the Lumaforge Support Team finally there is a new JellyFish Connect Version released yesterday 2.0. 73(143).

I unconfigured the Jellyfish trough the app, installed the new client and reconfigured Jellyfish on the machine and now everything seems to work again. Only drawback ist that performance is not as good as on High Sierra on NFS (450mb/s) but at least it's working again.




Feb 26, 2020 4:45 PM in response to l_matare

Having the same problem with Qnap. The linked support articles from SNS and Lumaforge specify that this is a MacOS problem and their fixes patch the MacOS and not the actual NAS firmware. Contacting Apple support by phone hasn't been promising as they keep trying to put the blame on the NAS manufacturers when they've discovered and documented that the problem is with Apple's network drivers.

SMB/NFS shares disconnecting on Catalina with FCPX 10.4.6

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