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Catalina not allowing network access to Documents

There was a similar thread a few months ago about this and it was unresolved.

 

I have a home network with 2x MBPros and 1x MacMini. The MacMini and one of the

MBPros are still on Mojave (and I want to leave them there). The other MBPro is

on Catalina 10.15.5. All systems have file sharing under SMB enabled and

permissions are the same for each.

 

The Catalina system can see and access all the files on the Mojave systems; The

Mojave systems can see and access folders such as Pictures, Movies, Music,

Google Drive etc. and their files inside on the Catalina system but cannot see

anything under Documents, Desktop or Downloads on it.

 

I tried to share these folders specifically in the Sharing Preferences on

Catalina, but it made no difference. Any suggestions welcome. Thanks.


MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Jul 3, 2020 1:42 PM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jul 5, 2020 2:49 PM

I made a call to Apple support and the problem is fixed. It was fixed by doing a network equivalent of a power-down-reboot process.


  1. Disconnect the file sharing permissions in System Preferences in both the Mojave and Catalina systems.
  2. Reboot both Mojave and Catalina systems.
  3. Reconnect the file sharing permissions in System Preferences


Make sure that the SMB protocol option is used for both systems.

Everything now works ok. The Mojave system can see the folder detail in the Documents, Downloads and Desktop folders of the Catalina system and vice versa.

Similar questions

1 reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jul 5, 2020 2:49 PM in response to travellerva

I made a call to Apple support and the problem is fixed. It was fixed by doing a network equivalent of a power-down-reboot process.


  1. Disconnect the file sharing permissions in System Preferences in both the Mojave and Catalina systems.
  2. Reboot both Mojave and Catalina systems.
  3. Reconnect the file sharing permissions in System Preferences


Make sure that the SMB protocol option is used for both systems.

Everything now works ok. The Mojave system can see the folder detail in the Documents, Downloads and Desktop folders of the Catalina system and vice versa.

Catalina not allowing network access to Documents

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