Windows 7 cannot access Lion SMB share, no login prompt

abwc wrote:

...

At this point, it is working, but I don't yet know if the 'temporary nature' of this 'working' condition, as described by others, has yet to expire.

...

I have now found some evidence to support the idea of this fix's 'temporary nature', and thought I should update this thread with that new insight.

I rarely turn off my machine, but recently had the need to have the machine off for several consecutive days.

When I turned the machine back on, Windows clients could no longer connect to SMB chares, and exhibited the same password-refusal behavior I saw originally.

To correct the problem, I repeated step 9, and then everything started working fine again.

I'm adding it to here just so others looking for this problem might find it useful. In my case, which is a rather unique one, the problem had to do with using jumbo packets. My entire network is set to jumbo packets. The Windows 7 machine will only connect to Lion machines (any) if I disable jumbo and switch to the normal 1,500 bytes size. This is a major drag as these machines are connected using 10Gb fiber. There is only one Windows machine and it's the only one to have issues. It just adds to the stereotype...

I'm finding that it is necessary to repeat these steps sometimes, such as when installing an OS update.

Today, I updated from 10.7.4 to 10.7.5, and after I did my Windows connections to OS X shares failed with authentication errors.

I repeated these steps and everything started working again:

1. System Preferences
2. Sharing
3. Options
4. Uncheck Share files using SMB
5. Uncheck the box next to my user account
6. Click Done
7. Options
8. Re-check Share files using SMB
9. Re-check the box next to my user account
10. Click Done

Yeah you would figure the "Most Advanced Operating System in the World" would have this figured out by now but it doesn't.

Two more observations:

1. In 10.7.5, the checkbox tickle must be performed after each reboot.
2. The only checkbox tickle that is necessary in 10.7.5 is the "Share files using SMB" checkbox

I was having a similar problem, and this solved it for me:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3206725?start=45&tstart=0

Curiously, the procedure(s) to reduce Windows' NTLM Authentication level ( linked in your message; one by editing the regitry directly, and the other by editing Local Security Policy ) are ones I have employed previously, but with Snow Leopard and Lion, this has proved to be insufficient.

Contrary to my previous post here, it does NOT appear that the checkbox tickle is required with EVERY reboot, but instead only occasionally, such as ( perhaps ? ) after a security update for OS X.

FWIW, I'm connecting from Windows 7 Pro to a Lion workstation, not OS X Server.

Thanks! This solved my problem!

" Shootist007 Decatur, GA, USA

Try turning off the Mac firewall. If you are behind a router you don't need it enabled.

In the options section of Sharing make sure your username is listed and checked and that you have input the correct password."

Thanks! This solved my problem! :-)

This may be irelevent to a lot of users, but I found this thread via Google and I have a feeling a lot of people end up here with similar problems.

I was able to solve my issue (could not connect via SMB to my Lion OS X machine from another machine).

Hidden part way down in my Firewall > Options area there was an entry for "smbd" which was blocked by default. Enabled that, and - bam. No more problems.

Why anyone would use the OS X firewall is beyond me. It is just about useless and only causes problems.

Is there an alternative? I've never felt it was safe to disable it...

Do you have a Router? If you do that is all the protection you need. The router stops all incoming internet traffic unless YOU Request it, like in a Web browser going to a website, or you open ports on the router, Port forwarding, to send whatever may be coming in on that port to a specific computer IP address.

It does not work on outgoing traffic to the internet.

I'm running 10.8.4 Server, and have tried all the tricks in this thread (plus several others), to no avail. I finally had to disable Windows file sharing, install Samba3 via MacPorts, and Webmin to give me a decent GUI config front-end (though there are others out there). I only needed one user to have access to one SMB share, though, so this workaround shouldn't cause too much grief.

It's very disappointing that Apple chose to go back to the "roll your own" model for Windows file services. I thought we had already learned that the "modified open source" model was far superior, but if nothing else, at least they've proved it once again. If everyone would submit feedback asking Apple to "return to Samba," maybe it would help.

A change in Windows Vista/7's security policies is necessary to solve this reliably.

The procedure is described here:

http://blog.kowalczyk.info/article/ffn/Accessing-Mac-file-shares-from-Windows-7. html

I abbrevuated the procedure

1. run Secpol.msc from the search bar in the START menu

2. Expand "Local Policies" and select "Security Options"

3. Locate "Network Security: LAN Manager Authentication Level" in the list and double-click it.

4. Change the setting from "Send NTMLv2 response only" to "Send LM & NTLM - use NTLMv2 session if negotiated"

5. Network Security: Minimum session security for NTLM SSP Based (including secure RPC) Clients

6. Change the setting from "require 128 bit" to unchecked (No Minimum)

7. Click OK