SMB file corruption

Erik_C wrote:

• This has been bugging me for years - I frequently experience file corruption when using SMB under MacOS, even up to the current version (Sonoma 14.2.1 at the moment).

Isn't there some saying about doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result?

About the only thing I haven't tried is building Samba on MacOS and trying to somehow force that instead of Apple's internal SMB stack.

That won't work. macOS is a very complex operating system. There is no evidence that there is any problem with the SMB networking logic. But the network file system architecture, file system architecture, and Finder - totally different story. So if you just swap out one part that may not have a problem, it is unlikely to have any effect.

Plus, what you describe would be, at best, extremely difficult, if not impossible. You are welcome to try, but what do you hope to gain?

I know it's not unique to me, and it doesn't seem to be a priority for Apple to fix even though this is a business-critical issue. I wind up using scp and rsync for all manual file transfers, and that's an annoying pain.

But it works. There are some 3rd party SMB clients, I think Transmit is one, but they function much like standard file copying. You aren't likely to get Finder integration, and if you do, you are likely to experience the same bugs.

One thing you can do is just remember that it doesn't work. If you treat Apple's SMB like scp, it will be pretty reliable. That means using it only for copying from or to the server. Never, never try to open a file on the server. If you must use Finder, don't dawdle. Don't use QuickLook. Find your file, copy it to the Desktop and close that Window. Repeat the process in reverse after you've made your changes.

And the moral of the story is, if you read more closely, you might find that you have completely misinterpreted what someone is trying to say. Additionally, if you respond with a polite follow-up or request for clarification, you'll get much better results than with insults. Don't even get me started with a Steve Jobs reference for the ASC Bingo Game.