SMB File Sharing not working in Ventura

I've given up. I tried to go back to another OS version but my Bluetooth keyboard isn't recognised and won't allow me to issue the restore command. I'm not buying a new one. I've resorted to using my NUC with Windows 11which works flawlessly. I am probably going to put both my macs on ebay and stick to Windows moving forward.

I have 8 Macs on my network including a M1 Mini as the server and a M1 MBA. This bug only affects my M1 MBA and it was previously working. It stopped working and it acts as if a preference file got corrupted or something. When I try to browse files on the M1 MBA from another Mac, I get the "loading" sign in Finder for a second, then it disappears and nothing happens.

I reinstalled Ventura on top of what was already there but that did not fix the problem. I will likely have to wipe the drive and start over.

In addition to this issue, I have been having an issue writing files to the server since Ventura. I will copy files over to the server and it will randomly throw a beach ball. When that happens, the only way to move forward is to reboot the server because it seems to keep a hold of the files it was trying to copy even though I initiated the copy from another machine. It's weird, but it seems related to the file sharing issue because they both showed up with Ventura.

Apple support had me completely wipe my M1 Mac mini and it did not fix the issue.

I don't get the impression Apple has identified the likely root causes, so, their support people don't yet have a playbook for this and are operating from generic support scripts.

I have the identical problem attempting to use File Sharing in Ventura between my Mac Pro and Mac Book Pro. Turning off FS, rebooting, then turning FS ON sort of fixes the problem, but, it is spotty. I spent an hour on the phone with Apple tech support last week. I sent them logs from my Macs for their engineers to review and was told I should hear back within 24-48 hours. That was six days ago. I am always slow to upgrade the OSX but apparently this time I was not slow enough. None of the three Apple techs with whom I spoke mentioned this as an existing problem.

I can verify that @somuchforlaunch BatChmod solution works flawlessly.........I placed all files in the Shared User area and created multiple groups (folders) based on what access level I wanted users to share (Groups 1, 2, 3, 4)....then used the BatChmod program to assign access rights to those files....been working for 2 or more weeks now with only an occasional hiccup where I made the error in placing a file in the wrong folder and a user could see it because of their access level......no more hiccups

See @somuchforlaunch prior posts on how to use Batchmod.......thank you Sir for pointing me in the correct direction

You are fortunate in that the File Sharing system in Ventura is working for you. It definitely is not working for me, I have had Macs in my photo business since 1986 and am fairly computer literate. There is no doubt there is a problem with File Sharing in Ventura. I have tried all the online fixes, and none seem to work. Apple needs to tend to this major glitch ASAP.

Agreed totally the Apple needs to fix this....I updated my last post......I can walk you through this if youre willing to give it a shot.....Yes, I know Apple should fix it, but nothing is coming forth at the moment, so if you need to share files right now, give it a try

Question: Does any of you have turned on the screen sharing?

I am having this issue but only when I successfully connect to screen sharing to my M1 Mac Mini.

The rest of the time, the screen sharing is not working, but I can access SMB files, so its like one or the other issue.

I have been following this thread for a while now.

Thank you for your updates

Yes screen sharing is also working for me as an administrator.......my staff does not use screen sharing so I don't know if it will work on their end....however, my guess is it will

But remember, I placed all files in a "Shared" User area and assigned access rights.....if individual users place files in their own Documents folder on the same shared Server Computer, I doubt we could share files

thanks again @somuchforlaunch

We are into a second week of official migration to Linux from Ventura on our fileservers. Things are going well with the SMB server on that platform. We chose Ubuntu for now. We had some Intel Core i7 Mac Minis setup with the migrated Ubuntu OS and external USB storage devices that are doing great. All user access controls and permissions work like it used to on the old Mac servers. The speed is amazing. This may not be our final solution, but has got us going. Our learning curve was a week and a week of user migration, transplanting over a million files and 4 TB of mirrored data. The front end user Ventura systems works great with the backend Ubuntu servers (so far).

We also had significant issues using MS Office 365 on Ventura, as client Word and Excel apps were creating cache folders that weren't removed by the application. We had to do a daily clean up of hundreds of cache folders. These have resolved for most users , but not all.

We are planning to test Linux on the M1 and M2 platforms as it offers far more flexibility for the back end.

Very interesting you brought up the issues with MS Office creating unnecessary cache folders. I thought I was the only person having this issue. Honestly one of the most annoying bugs I've ever had to deal with, because I would have to move to the host computer to delete the cache folders every time.

I will take a leap of faith and test 13.2.1 and report back on this thread. I'm a bit hesitant if I'm being honest since my BatchMod work around is working flawlessly for me.

The MS Office 365 cache folder issue, we are guessing that may have to do something with the SMB file sharing access right as well (not certain though). We used to have to go to the server physically to log in and remove these cache folders.

This has been resolved for the most part by having switched backend platforms. Even if a cache folders are left behind by the application every now and then, the users now have the ability to remove them from the folders as they have proper privileges under the SMB server.

Just updated to 13.1.2 and can confirm that SMB file share is NOT fixed, along with a number of other issues such as WindowServer crashing and caching issues.

Back to using Batchmod with no firewall on

ManSizedChicken:

Specifically does not say root.....however, the Shared User Folder lists all my administrators, standard users, admin, system, wheel, everyone on the info box......the subfolders are specifically blocked for administrators, all standard users or specific standard users. Specifically I have 5 sub-folders of which admins can read/write/delete everything...all other standard users access only 3 of the subfolders....those 2 subfolders have read/write/delete for everyone and read/write/delete for admin.

However, I believed the Shared User is meant to be accessed by everyone unless specifically limited......Remember this is a work around and not an Apple solution! This gets the machine up and working instead of having nothing or going to Linux or Windoze.

Also, I have the shared box used most in the office by my team and is behind a robust firewall and have a secured VPN connection for remote work. Each user must authenticate with a user name and password to access the Shared file

FWIW I still have the Microsoft empty temp files created that everyone else on this thread is having......so my solution is not all encompassing.....just solved the file sharing issue......

I thought I should mention this in case someone else has this issue. The only Mac this is happening to me on is a M1 MBA that I changed the local hostname on in Settings - General - Sharing - Local hostname. This name matches what is in Settings - General - About, but I tried to change the Local hostname and since I did that File Sharing no longer works. I have several other Macs with Ventura and it works fine. Screen Sharing works for me, but not File Sharing no matter what I do.

I suspect I will have to wipe this drive and start over to fix it.