Ventura 13.2 File Sharing broken

The solution of turning file sharing off, rebooting, and turning it back on didn't work for me in Ventura 13.4 or 13.5. But this did:

• Open System Preferences
• Click Privacy & Security
• Click Full Disc Access
• Uncheck smbd
• Reboot

After reboot:

• Open System Preferences
• Click Privacy & Security
• Click Full Disc Access
• Check smbd

I had the same problem. Turning off File Sharing, restarting, turning on File Sharing did not help. Removing custom icons didn't help either. I have an Apple M2 Max MBP client which is trying to access files on an Apple M2 Mac mini. Both are running Ventura 13.5.2.

Finally, I called Apple Support and after about 30 minutes of debugging, they suggested to reinstall Ventura 13.5.2 on both Macs. That finally fixed the problem for me. Now File and Screen Sharing works as expected. Hopefully it will stay that way.

GOOD NEWS ! Ventura 13.3 does indeed fix the problem. Full deployment started today. I have tested it, and all seems well.

So here is what happened to me. Installed a new M2 Mac Mini (13.2.1) to be my household's new file server. I migrated all the users from an old iMac running el Capitan (10.11) using Apple's Migration Assistant. Client machines running 13.2 and 13.2.1 would hang on connecting to this server from day one. Clients running older MacOS versions could connect and copy files just fine. Amazingly, I could successfully connect and copy file FROM the Mini to the same laptops that would hang when connecting to the mini. Apple's suggestion was to re-install MacOS. They also claimed there were no "known" issues with file sharing on 13.2... All of this was in the last 3 or four days.

Anyway, I ultimately discovered that brand new users created on the mini worked fine, and this problem (for me) only occurred for users that had been migrated from the old system. I communicated all of this to apple, but have not heard back from them for a couple of days now, so I really don't know where this goes from here.

Apologies if this should have been a new thread...

Thank you. As this problem took place 2 weeks ago, there was not yet enough information on the Web concerning it. I am not at home now, but before I left a few days ago, I quickly removed the custom icon on my "media" SSD attached to the mini-Mac. And... I saw my files! When I return home, I will do the same on my Time-Machine SSDs. Hopefully, I will be able to launch my first backups in 2 weeks.

Goes without saying that this is a major f..k-up on Apple's part... not even being able to do backups! Luckily I have a 2d set of backups off site. I usually put off major system updates (where the name changes) for about 6 months. But incremental updates should not be causing these sorts of problems. I may as well rent my Mac computers, because I sure don't own them anymore. It's all a part of some capitalist conspiracy.

I am curious to examine my SSDs attached to the mini-Mac using "Tinker Toy System" (Deutsch produkt) to look at ACL permissions. Perhaps the problem lies there. But in the short term, I just want my system to be functional again. With Ventura 13.1, everything was purring along like a kitten.

My tests have not been exhaustive, but I have tried using 13.2 with and without custom icons. My experience has been that, with a custom icon, there is never a connection to the client. However, the host seems to acknowledge a connection. Without a custom icon, there is a connection. But, it seems that after a certain period of time, the connection becomes unstable.

I am also unsure about the connection to backup SMBs (Time Machine). Backups had been regular every night to our miniMac server, until Ventura 13.2. Then they stopped completely. I have not tested a Ventura 13.2 client backing up (TM) to a Ventura 13.2 host destination folder that does not have a custom icon. That would be worth testing.

Here it happens regardless of what kind of disk is used. When we Share from internal disks, Finder or Forklift etc crash with the ever-loving beachball. External 48TB LaCie Raid does also crash when trying to access it directly or via SMB share. All devices in each direction. Tried to copy files from an MBP to MacStudio yesterday with 13.2.1 and both crashed when trying to copy a folder, no matter which device we used to copy the files with.

In the end, we used an external SSD to copy the files to and fro. As it wasn't a problem in 13.2. and affects all Macs, Intel or M1, MacBooks, iMacs or the Studios, in SafeMode as well as in RegularMode and utterly regardless of everything we tried to fix it, this probably is something much deeper than CustomIcons or SMB2/3...

Some behaviour I had already seen, but did not mention on this forum. Between 2 Ventura 13.2 systems, I created two shared test folders : test1 (without icon) and test2 (with icon). Access to test1 is normal, all contained files appear and are useable. Attempted access to test2 fails, even requiring a hard restart since Finder aborts.

I had noticed that under the system ''/Volumes'' (visible through the Terminal) that both folders are mounted, as would normally be the case with a shared folder: it is mounted like a external disc. In Terminal, the test1 mount can be unmounted with the Unix ''umount'' command. The ''umount'' command with test2 fails to unmount.

I continue to believe the problem is with permissions. The icon associated with test2 is given the name ''Icon?'' (probably a shortcut) by macOS, which is a hidden file.

I continue to believe is that the problem is with permissions.

I, too, had this problem. M1 Mini and M1 MBP. Both running 13.2 and then 13.2.1

My Carbon Copy Cloner backups would fail, usually after a few hours and my Time Machine backups would also fail.

Each time, error reported was that the remote volume was no available.

I've spent many hours on the phone to Apple.

There's a hint that they know about it, but wouldn't come right out and admit it.

After many hours of troubleshooting using the various hints and solutions found here, it still did not work.

Solution for me was to move the Mini (which is the server) back to Monterey.

All is good and has been working for two weeks now.

The MBP was still running 13.2.1. All still good.

I've reported this to Apple.

FWIW,

Kirby

[Edited by Moderator]

My primary machines are an M1 Ultra Mac Studio, and a 13" M1 Macbook Pro. I also have an M1 Mac Mini. My M1 Ultra Mac studio is my main work station and I have a couple of external drives plugged in. After the initial update to 13.3 the issue seemed to be fixed. I was able to share files again. However, the second you restart your main hosting device, in my case the Mac Studio, it no longer works.

I'm curious to see if you restart your Mac Studio, if file sharing will also stop working.

When I'm unable to use file sharing through "connect to server" this has been my work around: turn off file sharing, turn off "SMBD" in full disk access settings. Shut down my Mac Studio, turn the Mac Studio back on, and turn on file sharing and smbd again. Then it will work until the next time my Mac Studio is restarted. I don't know what's going on after a restart, but I can tell you that i'm really starting to get p***ed off about this basic functionality not working. It's extremely frustrating to say the lesast. Ventura is by far the worst MacOs experience I've ever had in my 30+ years of using Apple computers.

It depends on your needs. If your just looking to copy files to and fro, create an empty folder and share that. If you need to share some content, try to narrow down what your sharing to a sub-folder and be mindful of avoiding custom (hidden) icon files. (Again, see Reddit thread and my posts for additional detail how to identify the hidden custom folder/volume files in a directory path via Terminal.)

MiniMac used for file sharing, media server and TM backups. File sharing and TM were completely inoperative with Ventura 13.2. Thanks to this forum, I read that the issue may be (bizarrely) the customized icon. This has turned out to be my case, as all functionality has returned. Albeit, the TM links were completely broken and not so easy to repair. Go figger!

I am going to experiment with a USB drive on the miniMac using TinkerTool System. I hope to investigate what might be the cause of this disfunction.

All our equipment is Apple Silicon M1. I have upgraded a macBook and an iMac to 13.2.1. I have created a shared test folder on the iMac. I have given it a custom icon. When I attempt to connect to the iMac "server" from the macBook "client" through Finder, the result is failure. Finder freezes. A full reboot of the macBook is required. This is the same behaviour as before with Ventura 13.2. Nothing new here.

SMB file sharing remains dysfunctional. This feature was broken by Apple between 13.1 and 13.2. They own it.

no, the command just whitelists smb

you can do this to disable the firewall entirely which I don't recommend:

sudo /usr/libexec/ApplicationFirewall/socketfilterfw --setglobalstate off

my problem with the firewall and it's ui after the Ventura install was:

• /usr/sbin/smbd is suddenly blocked
• deleting or unblocking it in the ui wasn't saved (shown as blocked again after reopening system settings)
• globally disabling the firewall did not really disable it. blocked applications still couldn't receive connections.

unblocking via cli did it as mentioned above. You really should do all the firewall settings with the cli right now.

Network sharing under SMB is dysfunctional with Ventura 13.2. When there is a custom icon in a shared folder, it seems guaranteed not to work. Even without custom icons, people are still reporting issues.