SMB File Sharing not working in Ventura

In macOS previous to Ventura, I would lose SMB sharing a couple of times a year. To the same machine, I could SSH (remote logon), but SMB sharing would stop working. I wasn't successful in creating a script to fix this, so I would have to VNC or get to the computer, go to the system preferences, and toggle file serving off and then on. I never rebooted for this operation, and it generally fixed things.

I just got my Mac Stadium up and running and my VLC apps running over SMB would either time out or take 3-8 minutes to get connected to the first directory. The new System Settings makes finding the "sharing" harder. I've found that the old "toggle off, breathe, toggle on" has fixed my SMB issues for now. I haven't had to reboot for this to work. Also had to re-setup the directories to be shared.

I came up with a workaround. I wish I thought of it sooner:

• using iCloud Drive on the file sharing M1 Ventura iMac, I shared a folder to the other users
• from the other two older Macs, I had the users access the folder which appears in their iCloud Drive
• they opened and edited files without any temp folders being created and no permission errors!

Maybe this can work for all of you.

Hi tresinnoctem!

I upgraded directly from Monterey to Ventura 13.1.

With the firewall turned off, admin privileges, and the reboot trick, I got file sharing to work. Uptime is now 27 days.

You mentioned that the reboot trick only works for you for a short time. Is that new with 13.2 or did that trick never work for you?

To clarify, I'm referring to the system firewall (System Settings > Network > Firewall (Inactive)

This was a crucial step in the process for me. I repeated the Batchmod process prior with the firewall active, and it didn't work. The above process only worked after I turned off the system firewall and restarted the computer.

It would be difficult without time machine because you need to erase everything on the target disk.

You could do one time machine backup for this migration only. I did it and everything was fine.

Sometimes, when you desperately need file sharing to work, the quickest way is to downgrade. I gave up after hours of time wasted with timeouts, reboots, disable/enable file sharing, chasing custom attributes and what not...

My steps performed to downgrade:

1. perform a time machine backup - use an external usb disk with spare space
2. boot into the already created macos monterey installation USB stick
3. quit installation and open disk utility - erase the existing disk (the one with Ventura on it)
4. you will be restarted after the erase process (stupid new thing) so you need to boot again to the USB stick mentioned at point 2
5. install monterey on the disk erased at point 3
6. during the migration assistant process, connect your backup disk (with time machine backup files) and choose "from a mac, time machine backup or startup disk" and select as source the disk
7. done!

I also received the notification from Apple as follows: As a result of your feedback, there are changes in the latest update, build 22E5236f, that have resolved this issue.

You can see the software build your device is running and check for the latest update by clicking on the Apple logo in the upper left hand corner > About This Mac. If the build is not visible, click on the macOS version, e.g. 10.15.x, to reveal it.

If this issue is not resolved for you in the 22E5236f build, please file a new feedback report. 

Feedback ID FB11992033, File Sharing issue

Hopefully the update will be released soon.

Without generalizing and based only on our limited experience and experiments in our own network environment, the Mac units used as a client on the network without Ventura (mostly Monterey) do not exhibit any SMB related anomalies. The units (M1 and Intel) upgraded to Ventura have this issue even when connected to a non Mac-OS fileserver. We even downgraded one M1 mac from Ventura to Monterey as the user was tired of deleting the extra ".SB" directories generated as a result of saving Office files on the fileserver.

cerancour wrote:

After reading that the latest Ventura release fixed reported file sharing issues i retried with a share on AppleTV Infuse app (media player app). Works fine until you shutdown the Mac and the share is completely forgotten and can’t connect.

The only way to get it working again is to turn off file sharing on the Mac and reboot, turn it back on and setup share again on AppleTV which works perfectly until the next Mac shutdown. Rinse and repeat. So still broken for me.

Thanks for sharing this. My use case is the same as yours (sharing to Infuse on Apple TV) and I've been hesitant to upgrade from 13.1 on my Mac Mini due to all of these SMB issues. Glad it still "works" in the sense that it didn't prevent you from sharing to Infuse entirely, but I definitely wouldn't want to have to set up the share on Apple TV again each time my Mac needs a reboot. Since Apple Support indicated to others here that the fix would be coming on a build number different than that of 13.3, I'm still hopeful that the actual fix is coming in a future update (13.3.1 or something).

somuchforlaunch wrote:

13.3.1 is out today

Ah, I wasn't aware that they had released it already. Did you upgrade to it? If so, can you advise what the build number is for that release? Just curious if it matches the 22E5236 build Apple Support referenced to quite a few people as the one that would contain the fix.

Thank you! Turning file sharing off, rebooting, then turning file sharing back on worked!

If you turn sharing off just before you shut-down, then turn it on when you start-up, it seems to work.

Big hassle - but a workaround.

macOS 13.3.1 (22E261)

I am happy, all problems that I was having SMB File Sharing have been solved.

Mmh, did you try turning off the system Firewall?

I’ve been dealing with Apple Support for the last two weeks. Engineers say that Ventura file sharing is now a documented issue. I hope the patch comes quick because it’s impacting my day to day business.

I'm struggling through this myself. If you read my post a bit earlier; I describe how I turned everything off and on again... with some difficulty... and that seemed to help but Media Sharing still didn't work and I lost it on restart but...

Now I'm logged in with the same ID and Password on each machine in General > Sharing > Media Sharing > Home Sharing & Share media with guests.

There is also (Your Name) > Family Sharing to select Family who can access.

Privacy & Security > Full Disk Access > SMBD is on.

On desktop Menu > Go > Connect To Server, I've saved the working path to the other device. Like smb://(other-mac-name)._smb._tcp.local

I have Energy Saver > Wake up for Network Access Off so I think that's why the other computer has to be awake to access... but I haven't tested that.

Good luck.