Cannot Turn File Sharing On

I actually found the attached thread useful by manually turning on file sharing using TERMINAL.

Enable and disable file sharing from term… - Apple Community

Here's my synopsis:

1. Close system Preferences (If open)
2. Open Terminal
3. Paste: sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.AppleFileServer.plist and press [Enter]
4. Type your computer password (Typing will not show, do it anyway) and press [Enter]
5. Paste: sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.smbd.plist and press [Enter]
6. Type exit and press [Enter]
7. Once the process finishes, close the Terminal window.
8. Open System Preferences and go to Sharing
9. DONE!

I was having this same exact problem with my Mac Mini running Catalina 10.15.7 and this fixed it!

Now my Mac Mini shows it's shared folders on my Macbook Pro running High Sierra 10.13.6!

Hi everyone, the solution from editor1979 only solve the problem of turn on the smbd and AFP enable share. I'm trying to share a external USB HDD from Mac Mini with MacOS Catalina to use for Time Machine, my client Mac is a Macbook Pro 16" (intel) with Sonoma.

With the editor1979 solution I get to share a disk or folder, but when I try to use to activate a Time Machine from the Macbook Pro with Sonoma with that disk appears this error: The operation couldn’t be completed. (com.apple.TimeMachine.SettingsExtension error 5.)

Searching a solution I found the problem is a security update in MacOS Catalina that change permissions on "smbd" program.

A solution for this is give permissions to smbd to read/write all complete disk:

1. Open system Preferences
2. Security & Privacy
3. Privacy tab
4. Full Disk Access
5. Click on "+" to add an entry (if you can't click the "+" icon, make click on the padlock and authenticate with an administrator account or just type your password)
6. Press Command + Shift + g (or Command + G , see the G is uppercase)
7. copy or type this: /usr/sbin to go to sbin folder, click o go
8. find and choose "smbd" file
9. See that recent added "smbd" is checked
10. Done! your share disk is Ok to use in Time Machine client.

I found the solution in this link thanks to VideoBeagle user: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/cant-connect-to-mounted-usb-drives-over-network-after-catalina-upgrade.2357001/

You can apply this for the AFP (AppleFileServer) program too.

Remember that you can share APFS disk only with smbd, AFP ins't supported anymore for disks formatted with APFS.

I hope this helps.

I’ve been struggling with this problem for two days. I couldn’t check the “File sharing” box either. Then I just started the smbd process with the command in the terminal

sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.smbd.plist

After that it became possible to check the box “File sharing”. I restarted the computer, Shared access remained active and now everything is working. Hope this helps.

O M G

Thank you so much, I thought I flushed $100 down the drain on a new hard drive when I couldn't get my computer to backup to the old macbook running Catlina 10.15.7 on my network. This did the trick. THANK YOU SO MUCH!

Exactly the same problem here. I turned File Sharing off to remove my shared external USB drive, but when I put the drive back on that computer and tried to activate File Sharing the check box will not activate. It's not grey it simply won't "check". I can turn on SMB and apple file share from the command line but the authentications fail.

faith,

I think Bob Hawkins, rye-guy, ryan_nmr and myself would like to repeat the same thing I told Dustin yesterday:

This is not the problem.

We all had perfectly working configurations until like a couple days ago. Then according to Bob's work (see his second post above), the latest security update on Catalina made the main checkbox to turn sharing on or off not work anymore. So if it's on, it cannot be turned off, and if it's off it cannot be turned on.

That's a strange issue. Can someone at Apple write a bug on Radar for this?

(In my case since that machine could actually get to BigSur I finally upgraded and things work again, but for everyone whose hardware is stuck pre BigSur this is a major issue.)

Dustin, that page does not help for this case.

The checkbox to turn on File Sharing never become checked. I have the same issue as Bob on a Catalina device, it just wont turn on.

-No error message, nothing in system.log.

-Only folder I have configured for sharing is my Public folder

-smbd has full disk access in Privacy settings

it used to work, but it doesn't anymore.

Hello Bob,

Make sure that your current user account has the correct permissions using the guidance from Set up file sharing on Mac - Apple Support. Those settings may be preventing you from making these changes or accessing the files.

If that doesn't help, check to see if this happens in another user account. Testing in another admin user account can help to isolate where this occurs. If you don't have another admin user account to test, you can set up a temporary account using the steps from Set up users, guests, and groups on Mac.

In most cases, issues that occur in one user account are related to login items. So, if you find that an issue only occurs in your user account, remove your login items and test again. Check out Remove login items to resolve startup problems on your Mac.

Have a great day!

For me the issue was needing to give /usr/sbin/smbd full disk access in the Security & Privacy control panel.

From this MacRumors thread.

That’s it. Worked! Thank you so much!

You are amazing! That is great detective work and thank you for the confirmation. I spent all yesterday on tech support moving up the food chain. Stumped everyone. Has nothing to do with login items, permissions, full disk access, ...the file sharing service just does not check box "on". I can use the command line and launchctl to manually start the smb or apple file service, but authentication fails. I was about to wipe and re-install but it looks like doing so would be a waste of time. Greatly appreciate the work you've done. Thank you!

Hi Faith

I had the same problem, the Untickable File Sharing Box. I tried checking by setting up a test user account. the file sharing box was untickable in the test user as well. I too used up a lot of Apple's tech support line's time without any resolution to the problem.

After about six hours work and help from my son, we worked out that because my system includes an iMac with a remote SSD boot hard drive, which had not been upgraded to the latest version of Catalina, we could do a work around. By booting from the SSD, I am now able to have one Mac that is capable of file sharing.

It would be useful to know if Apple plan to fix the file sharing issue.

Thanks for your help.

Mark

Thank you thank you! This worked perfectly for me. I was able to get both services up and running and authentication properly resumed. I now have an external drive connected and doing time machine backups of all my family's laptops. Previously I'd just tried the smbd and authentication didn't turn on. Looks like turning on both got me moving. I have not tried clicking off the check mark "File Share".....3rd rule Ain't broke don't fix it.