Samba SMB shares are read only now in Files on iOS 14.5

Hello Brian,

I appreciate the 'thank you' and agree with you 100%. I was looking for a workaround as this bug has not been fixed in several updates since I first encountered it. It's definitely not 'fixed'! I chose my words wrong.

For a consumer company it makes sense not to allow bug reports ( I don't think Microsoft ever offered that either in their history.), but it would be nice if it was at least acknowledged by Apple. I am sure this would take only a tiny amount of lines of code to fix.

The only time I have to look into these things is when I would otherwise sleep. As the workaround is working for me ( unless vfs fruit introduces new bugs to samba/smbd ), I will not look further into this.

Good luck and let's hope this bug won't exist for years. My guess is that this will only be fixed if someone close to the iOS team (best if it's a manager) personally is affected by this issue.

Hi Seven531 ,

I love to be able to use your workaround - would you be so kind to tell me exactly what you added/changed? In the smb.conf.add file? This vfs fruit "thingie" is brand new to me and I researched it yesterday for the first time and the link you provided went over my head! In fact so new that I broke the smbd functionality of my router few times trying different things - but very easy to Restore the router and back to normal. I have an Asus RT-AC68U router with Asuswrt-Merlin firmware (which allows me to get into the configs). My external USB drive is plugged in to this router which turns into my smbd shared drive. We are all iPhones, one Mac and rest are Windows.

THANK YOU!

P.S. I did report this as a bug to Apple's feedback site couple of weeks ago including the link to this post as a reference.

Hello Brian,

I am not an expert, so the below might be wrong. I try to give you some background the way I understand it.

TL/DR: In my opinion the workaround is not available on your Asus router.

I have googled Asuswrt Merlin and it looks like they use an older version of Samba (v3.6).

This version is common on routers and other embedded devices because it can be made very small and most of these devices only have several MB (often 8MB, 16MB)of internal memory.

Newer Samba (4+) versions have a lot more features, but need 4MB+ space, making it impractical to impossible to use on a router.

I can only find references to "vfs fruit" for Samba 4, so I assume that you cannot activate it on Samba 3.

"vfs fruit" is an extra package you would add to Samba 4 to allow extra features for Apple devices. On the computer I use to store my files I needed to add this package before I could turn it on - so it's not included by default.

As such, even if somebody would make Samba 4 available for your Asus router, it is still likely that they would not include "vfs fruit".

In short, I don't think you will be able to use the workaround :(

As I have never used Asuswrt, it's probably best to post in the Asuswrt support forum, asking how you can turn on "vfs fruit" and/or upgrade to Samba 4 with "vfs fruit" support.

Be careful going down that rabbit hole, it can be an absolute time sink with little return and the answer will be after days of trying: use a different device, like a dedicated NAS. :(

I have the same problem. BUT I'm not sure that's a rights problem because I can upload little files (like notes) and create directories. I have to share folders from computers (with Ubuntu 20.04) to ipads and like this it is not usable ! I tried to use the vfs fruit ( "fruit:nfs_aces = no" in the [ global ] section of my smb.conf ) but no changes.

Is there a way to get apple to investigate ?

I have to manage for my employer a fleet of about arround 2000 ipads (for educational use) which, for no reason, become unusable with the configuration in place if I update them.

Thanks

Apple, This issue is unresolved!

I would like to add here, in case Apple looks at this post, that this is a bug in the "Save to Files" functionality that Apple introduced in iOS/iPadOS 14.5 that as of this writing (14.6) is not fixed (and worked perfectly well prior to 14.5). And the very good folks here like @Seven531 are helping by providing a workaround/band-aid to this unresolved issue. Unfortunately some of us are not able to benefit from the workaround since it is not applicable to our setups. Therefore a proper fix is much needed. Thank you.

I preferred apple product as bugs are very less, however, this bug is really annoying I could not get my files off my device. My only route is to send files to an old device and from there send it to SMB :-(. Apple please fix the issue of allowing us to save files over to a network SMB share from iPhone.

I had the same issue after the latest iOS upgrade (14.4 -> 14.6) and what helped in my case was to adjust the smb.conf as described here under [Global]: https://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Configure_Samba_to_Work_Better_with_Mac_OS_X

I just skipped the 'min protocol = SMB2' setting as I still have some clients only capable of SMB1.

I have the same problem. Here is yet another example of how Apple's unfair practices lock you into paying them for more of their services. The frustrating part is that Apple will never admit it. Since switching to Linux I've seen no "bugs" like this (my iphone is my only remaining Apple device). This is obviously intentional. I'd have to be a little crazy to buy another Apple product. Watch as Apple remains silent while this "bug" frustrates users. Or Apple won't say anything authentic about this issue. It will never get resolved until something changes where Apple is able to make more money without the bug than with the bug.

Thanks a lot !! It works like a charm !!