Runaway smbd processes

I have already set the "max smbd processes" to 10, and "deadtime" to 15. But that does not seem to help.

Here are some additional details that have come up:

My computer has been online this morning for about 2 hours, and already there are 85 smbd processes. If I use the xSMB application (from http://www.xeir.com/) to view active SMB connections, I get a list of about 80 processes, in this form:

*
init_iconv: Conversion from UTF-16LE to CP0 not supported
init_iconv: Attempting to replace with conversion from UTF-16LE to ASCII
init_iconv: Conversion from UTF-8 to CP0 not supported
init_iconv: Attempting to replace with conversion from ASCII to ASCII
init_iconv: Conversion from US-ASCII to CP0 not supported
init_iconv: Attempting to replace with conversion from ASCII to ASCII
init_iconv: Conversion from CP0 to UTF-16LE not supported
init_iconv: Attempting to replace with conversion from ASCII to UTF-16LE
init_iconv: Conversion from CP0 to UTF-8 not supported
init_iconv: Attempting to replace with conversion from ASCII to ASCII
init_iconv: Conversion from CP0 to US-ASCII not supported
init_iconv: Attempting to replace with conversion from ASCII to ASCII
*
...and so forth.

It appears that these are spawned whenever Windows users attempt (unsuccessfully) to connect to my server. I have no idea why this started happening all of a sudden in the past week or so.

Until recently I was successfully sharing folders with Windows users on the network. Now no one is able to connect to my computer, even though its NetBIOS name shows up in the Windows network browser. OS X users are still able to connect through afp, but not through smb.

Yes, you are probably right, that they represent errors, not processes or connections. I am not sure which language settings you are referring to, but I am the only user on this machine, and haven't knowingly changed anything myself.

However, when I look at "active processes" in the Activity Monitor application, I see that over time it fills up with smbd processes, which, based on trial-and-error testing, seem to be spawned by attempted network connections from other users on the network. Once spawned, they never seem to die, even though no one is actually able to connect to my computer via smb ever since this problem started occurring (i.e., the fact they are alive is not because people are successfully accessing smb shares on my machine).

According to SWAT, I am running Samba 3.0.10.

What changed recently? Any software updates? Any
change in Server Admin? Have you reviewed the
settings in Server Admin to see if anything looks
funny? Any change in Workgroup Manager? Do you have
backups from before that you could recover
/etc/smb.conf and compare it to the current
/etc/smb.conf? Could you copy and paste the global
and one of the share sections of /etc/smb.conf so
that we could compare it to ours?

That is what I am not sure of. I frequently download small applications, but I don't think any of them would modify file sharing resources.

I assume Server Admin and Workgroup Manager are part of OS X Server. I am running just the regular, non-server version of OS X.

I don't know that I have any backups of smb.conf, but other than some custom shares, custom hides, and a few tweaks to try to deal with the current problem, it should be basically the default settings. I've included it with one sample share below:

*

[global]
dos charset = CP0
unix charset = UTF-8-MAC
display charset = UTF-8-MAC
workgroup = 3ABN
server string = Michael's G5
auth methods = guest, opendirectory
map to guest = Bad User
passdb backend = opendirectorysam, guest
guest account = unknown
defer sharing violations = No
deadtime = 15
max smbd processes = 10
preferred master = No
local master = No
domain master = No
wins server = 10.0.1.10
ldap ssl = no
brlm = Yes
printer admin = @admin, @staff
hide unreadable = Yes
hide files = /. /Desktop DB /Desktop DF /*Icon/Temporary Items/
vfs objects = darwin_acls

; Using the Computer Name to compute the NetBIOS name. Remove this comment to override
netbios name = Michaels-G5

[printers]
path = /tmp
printable = Yes
browseable = No

[dropbox]
path = /Users/mprewitt/Public/Drop Box
read only = No
inherit permissions = Yes
guest only = Yes
guest ok = Yes

smbclient may be useful if troubleshooting this
problme.

I am unfamiliar with how to use that command. What would be an example of troubleshooting usage?

smbstatus(1) - report on current Samba
connections

This spits out a list identical to what is reported by the xSMB application above. Which leads me to believe that perhaps xSMB is just a GUI for smbstatus?

perhaps the init_iconv messages are related to

iconv(1) - character set conversion
iconv(3) - perform character set conversion

Perhaps ... but why would these conversions be occurring in the first place?

I'm checking other OS X installs in my office. I am sure the "dos charset" parameter has not been manually altered by any user on any of them. It seems like "dos charset = CP0" is one default (was that way on a 10.3 system), and "dos charset = 437" is another (was that way on a coworker's 10.4 system). Perhaps the CP0 setting is the result of upgrading my computer from 10.3 to 10.4. I can't recall which upgrade route I took (whether archive and install, etc.).

I am not sure if there is any significance between "437" and "CP437". I am guessing that CP stands for "code page". I will try CP437 first, and let you know if that helps.