Level 1

86 points

File Sharing broken in Golden Gate upgrade completely.

SMB file sharing just up and stopped working completely after updating to Golden Gate. I've done all troubleshooting I can,turned it off and on, restarted router, everthing I know of, and nothing. I connect to an older Mac with my Mac Mini M4. This has been almost a daily thing for managing my media server on the older Mac for years. Screen sharing does work fine, file sharing doesn't work at all. I attached this image to show the error. Really unaccepatble for Apple to break File Sharing like this. Note, I CAN connect TO the Mac Mini from the older Mac and it works fine, I just can't go from the Mac Mini to the old Mac now. And as noted, I have been doing this for literally YEARS through many OS updates and other computers, including a Windows machine, with zero issue. It still works fine on the Windows box, so it's quite obvious this is a Golden Gate OS 27 issue.

The image indicates a drive can't be found I'm connecting to. Well yes it can, it's right there on the older box, I have no issues managing anything directly on the computer, or even managing it from the Windows computer when I connect from there, there is no issue on the older box period. This is definitely an issue on Golden Gate. I changed nothing else at all prior to it breaking and it worked just fine the day before on Sequoia.

The shares show up fine in the window on Golden Gate when selecting the other computer, the whole list of drives is there (I have 8 of them), but trying to open any of them gives the same error.

I'm calling Apple support about it, I will update this post after I do.

Mac mini

Posted on Sep 22, 2026 10:22 AM

Top-ranking reply

smtips Author

Level 1

86 points

Posted on Sep 22, 2026 11:12 AM

The shares show up fine in the window on Golden Gate when selecting the other computer, the whole list of drives is there (I have 8 of them), but trying to open any of them gives the same error.

I'm calling Apple support about it, I will update this post after I do.

Edit: Okay I called support, they checked with their Tier 2 after doing all the standard troubleshooting, and they said that Golden gate is not going to be compatible with older versions of SMB on other machines because it was an issue with the new OS no longer supporting Intel things.

So per Apple's own support, File Sharing via SMB supposedly will no longer work if you are connecting to a machine that is older and not running Golden Gate, because any Intel based machine will no longer support SMB connections to it from Golden Gate.

And there is no other alternative for file sharing it seems, unless you want to go with FTP or some other form of file transfer. Thanks Apple for breaking a work flow used by thousands of people.

Seems like this will be opening a huge backlash and it will remain to be seen what they do about it.

Sorry for the double posting, seems the forum had to make a whole new post of my edit instead editing the existing one.

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20 replies

smtips Author

Level 1

86 points

Sep 25, 2026 1:36 PM in response to D.E. Emery

"I did find a workaround... VNC still works between Golden Gate and older Macs, so I can drag-and-drop from the new Mac to the old Mac."

I can't locate a VNC client that works, I have never had a need to use one. Tried Real VNC it wants me to create an online account to use it, which um, why do I need an online account to connect apps between my own computers. Looked at some others but they won't work on Golden Gate. VNC is enabled on the older Mac. So perhaps if you say what VNC you're using I can look at it.

KiltedTim

Level 10

237,126 points

Sep 25, 2026 2:06 PM in response to D.E. Emery

D.E. Emery wrote:

It sure seems to me it should be MY DECISION and not Apple's decision to support a potentially compromised connection.

And risk you suing them when your machine is compromised because Apple didn't address a serious known security flaw? Hardly.

I have a Mac Mini running older software (hosted on an older version of Java, not my call...) on my local network. There's NO freakin' risk associated with my connecting from a Golden Gate machine to an older machine ON MY LOCAL NETWORK. Sure, make me click through a "this could be unsafe" warning. But to just ARBITRARILY DECIDE WITH NO WARNING YOU CAN NO LONGER CONNECT TO OLDER MACs is just bogus!

Agree to disagree. Please move on.

Sep 25, 2026 3:58 PM in response to HWTech

I have another thread with a similar-sounding problem. But not necessarily the same. M3 Air local network connection to iMac f… - Apple Community

I've always avoided zero day OS version upgrades. The night before upgrading my Air from OS 15 to Golden Gate, I upgraded my wife's MBP to Tahoe. It seemed good. So the next night I went to upgrade my Air but Tahoe was unavailable in software update, only 27.0.

Like the OP here, I wish to downgrade to Tahoe. I have Time Machine backups from before & after the upgrade. HOW would I downgrade? I did not think it was possible. OP, did you try yet?

smtips Author

Level 1

86 points

Sep 25, 2026 10:05 PM in response to HWTech

"macOS already has built-in VNC support."

Okay, I didn't realize that VNC is just screen sharing til I typed it in as a VNC connection through Connect to Server. This works fine, Screen Sharing has always worked through the screen sharing app and works fine in Golden Gate, it never stopped working. It's obviously not the same protocol as smb file sharing.

Screen sharing doesn't really fit for me, I'm not looking at jockeying a screen share around when I only need to do file and folder sharing to networked drives installed on the older Mac. Thanks for the education on what VNC is, I just didn't know it by that term :)

smtips Author

Level 1

86 points

Sep 25, 2026 3:07 PM in response to KiltedTim

"Please move on."

I came here looking for help with this. I didn't come here to listen to snarky replies to other people posting an opinion. Please show some respect.

File Sharing broken in Golden Gate upgrade completely.