SMB can't connect to server when dollarsign in address

Question

SMB can't connect to server when dollarsign in address

Hey folks, this is an issue regarding OS X Lion, SMB and the dollar sign. A closely related question was discussed before https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3195454 but did not solve my problem. I start this new discussion because in the old discussion the problem was marked as solved.

I have to connect to several network drives, using "Connect to Server" from the "Go" menu in Finder. The servers are:

smb://SERVERNAME/user/MYNAME

smb://SERVERNAME/Something$/Name

For both connections I use the same username and password. I can successfully connect to the first server which has no dollar sign in it, but I cannot connect to the second server which has the dollar sign in it. The message that I get tells me that I'm not using the correct user account. This, however, cannot be the case. Using a Windows PC I can connect to both servers using the same username and password.

Obviously, the problem is with the dollar sign. Any ideas on how to fix this issue would be appreciated.

Cheers!

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.1)

Posted on Aug 31, 2011 8:32 AM

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Answer 1

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Matthias Greiff Author

Level 1

0 points

Jan 17, 2012 12:43 AM in response to Matthias Greiff

OK, here is a solution that worked for me:

First, I created a new folder in Finder. The new folder is /Users/MYUSERNAME/THEDIRECTORY/NAME.

Then I open Terminal and type in the following:

/sbin/mount_smbfs //USERNAME@SERVERNAME/Something$/NAME /Users/MYUSERNAME/THEDIRECTORY/NAME

(Terminal will ask for the password, so I have to type in the password each time, but nonetheless, it works for me.)

This command mounts the network drive in the folder I created in the first step.

I presume that it would be possible to write an AppleScript that uses this command and connects to several servers with just one click, so that I do not have to type the command each time I connect to the network drive.

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