Server File Sharing unstable on mac and windows network on Mavericks and OSX Server 3.0

I have the exact same set up (Mac mini running OSX Server 3.0) and have been having lots of issues since upgrading. I have not been able to sort out if the issues are on the Server side or the client side, but after a couple of hours, both Windows 7 and OS X clients lose connection to the server. I have been unable to determine the cause. Rebooting the server does help, but obviously that is not a workable solution. Now that I think about the frequency of occurence, I'm wondering if it has something to do with TimeMachine backups running on the server? I may try turning that off on the server and see if that helps (although, again, that isn't a good solution).

I'll just say, I am regretting upgrading everything. I had been hoping Mavericks and its use of SMB2 would fix other issues I was having with Windows 7 machines accessing shared folders on the server, but instead, it has unleashed a slew of problems for both Windows and OS X clients. It is very frustrating since there does not seem to be any rhyme or reason to why connection to the server drops. Hoping there is a fix on the way. All in all, switching from a Netgear ReadyNAS to a MacMini server hasn't really yielded the improvements I had hoped it would.

Same situation here. Windows 7 connecting up to OS X Server 3 running on a Mac Mini. It tends to crash in the middle of a heavy load. No error reported on the server in any log (I can't seem to get the SMBX on Server 3 to log anything) but the connection on the Windows 7 side breaks and I have to restart the server to get it re-established.

I've tried forcing the conncetion to SMB1, and that does help, but it still crashes after a time. Usually after about 15 minutes or so of heavy traffic.

If I reboot the server into 10.8.5 with Server 2.2, it's solid.

One odd note. The volume I'm using on OS X Server has several hundred files and directories on it. When this crash occurs, the directory listing from the Windows 7 PC Explorer will not show the full contents of the directory, stopped at folders that begin with the letter J. After the reboot I can see all the files again.

Would appreciate any suggestions. We utilize the server ONLY for its file sharing. No additional services are turned on.

Is there anythign in the console logs? You would want to look for somthing detailing SMBD

No, the new SMBX does not seem to log much, if at all. Seriously, has anyone seen any smbd errors? I've tried the "turning on SMBX logging" trick (http://tinyurl.com/laqreld), but it does not seem to work in Maverick. Plenty of mdworker errors (AKA Spotlight), but I do not think they're connected as the time of the spotlight errors do not seem to corespond to the server crashes.

What about trying to start smbx manually?

do a "find / -name *smb*" and look for excutables.

See if any errors come up in terminal

I had awful problems with Windows 8.1 guest running under VirtualBox accessing files from Server.

May have fixed this by forcing Windows client to use SMB1: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2696547

The log issue seems to be another problem with OSX Server 3.0. It does not log SMB data. Under the "logs" pane on the left hand side in OSX Server, in the drop down menu, it has "File sharing" (grayed out), "AFP Access Log", and "AFP Error Log". Nothing at all for SMB. If I select the full "System log", I can search for "SMB", but this is pretty worthless as it just yellow highlights the word "SMB" and then the screen blinks white every few seconds making it nearly unusable.

Based on what alexrmc92 suggested about checking the console logs, I am able to find some SMB entries that way. I'm going to scan through those and see if I can't find any clues in there (though not sure what exactly I'm looking for). I just had a Windows 7 machine completely locking up trying to access a PowerPoint file on the OSX Server file share requiring a complete reboot.

For what it's worth, here are the SMBD errors I am seeing in the Console app.

These are all repeated multiple times in the log:

11/4/13 1:10:53.762 PM smbd[995]: XPC: peer event: , ipc error: Connection invalid

11/4/13 1:11:10.653 PM smbd[995]: File system does not support 0X40000, file attrs

11/4/13 1:11:10.653 PM smbd[995]: File system does not support 0X0 time attrs

11/4/13 1:11:10.653 PM smbd[995]: File system does not support 0X0, size attrs

These are the ones that seem to correspond to a specific crash:

11/4/13 2:07:35.144 PM smbd[995]: assertion failed: tree_fid_allocator.try_allocate(fid)

11/4/13 2:07:36.327 PM com.apple.launchd[1]: (com.apple.smbd[995]) Job appears to have crashed: Abort trap: 6

11/4/13 2:07:36.846 PM ReportCrash[15212]: Saved crash report for smbd[995] version 275 to /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/smbd_2013-11-04-140736_name_of_server.crash

11/4/13 2:09:26.583 PM smbd[15217]: BUG in libdispatch client: kevent[EVFILT_READ] delete: "Bad file descriptor" - 0x9

Guess I'll have to spend some time trying to search the forums and the internet to see if any of these log errors can be fixed or if I have to wait for the next version of OS X Server.

I too am having this exact problem as well as a few of my network administrator contacts that have gone through the Mavericks / Server 3 upgrade.

It may be worth noting that before the upgrade I had run a mac mini server (core 2 duo) that never had any unintentional downtime, and the current mac server had never gone down or lost connection so I know it has nothing to do with user or network configuration.

NAS server hardware:

- Mac Mini core i5

- 16 GiB ram

- Promise Pegasus Raid5 external drive (thunderbolt)

I am NOT running time machine as the backup.

Everyting posted above is occuring although the rate at which my users lose acces is sporadic. Sometimes the server will stay up 24-36 hours and sometimes it will only stay up for around 4. Every user, every group loses acces AT THE EXACT SAME TIME EVERYTIME to EVERY SHAREPOINT...all of my local users as well as my remote users. All of my users are on Windows machines (mostly win7, but a couple of XP and 8 users as well). The share is accessed via a mapped drive using the format x.x.x.x/share and I have had 0 issues with getting users connected. The problem is 100% keeping them connected. When the users lose access the get the "drive cannot be accessed" error on their end, however when I check the server 3 app, it still shows all users connected and I have let it run for a few minutes and the idle times do change.

I also cannot see any spikes in the Activity monitor that might indicate a memory strain issue on the server side, but I assume that is because I am not watching the Activity Monitor at the moment everyone loses access.

Let me say that the SMB2 protocol does work much better when it actually works, much faster, but intermitent connectivity is a VERY SERIOUS ISSUE and has resulted in several corrupt files for my workers already. Also, because I was one of the unfortunate people that had the upgrade lock up on me and I had to restart it, I lost my 10.8.x recover backup and so I would have to do a clean install in order to restore my server back to its original state. I am also hesitant to do this because I would most likely only be able to download the Server3 app from the app store and I have not heard from apple or any other power user group on whether the bug is with the app or the OS.

Just to add I am having exactly the same problem.

Happening for us at 3 sites all running Mavericks and Server 3 with users on Windows 7 machines. The shares stop being accessible (mapped drives are unavailable in Windows) at random intervals at least once a day - sometimes a few times a day and the Mac server needs restarting.

I'd been waiting for this upgrade for some time as previously (with ML and Server 2.2) users could not copy over 1GB of data via SMB to or from the Mac server. This new problem is even more annoying than the old one. Really regretting using Mac Mini servers now.

What I have not tried yet is installing the server box from scratch using a fresh Mavericks and Server 3 app - both were upgraded from previous version. I wonder if the upgrade process tries to copy settings from the old SMB implementation which cause the problem in SMB 2? Has anyone else tried a fresh built?

Please keep us posted if anyone finds a solution.

guyfromauckland wrote:

I had awful problems with Windows 8.1 guest running under VirtualBox accessing files from Server.

May have fixed this by forcing Windows client to use SMB1: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2696547

Same here, I'm having difficulties accessing files on SMB shares on my iMac running OS X 10.9. The problems started since upgrading the (physical) client machine to Windows 8.1. I am able to connect and browse the shares but each folder access produces the following errors (for each and every file of the folder):

smbd: File system does not support 0X0, size attrs

smbd: File system does not support 0X40000, file attrs

smbd: File system does not support 0X0 time attrs

Files are missing from folders, occasionally there's a blank file entry (a file without a filename?), certain files can't be accessed at all. The KB article that guyfromauckland mentioned does provide a temporary solution though. Disable SMBv2 and SMBv3 by running

sc.exe config lanmanworkstation depend= bowser/mrxsmb10/nsi

sc.exe config mrxsmb20 start= disabled

from Windows command prompt (don't forget to run it with elevated privileges, either right click and Run as administrator or search for "cmd" and press CTRL + SHIFT + ENTER on the result). Restart after entering the commands. Revert the changes after Apple releases a fix with:

sc.exe config lanmanworkstation depend= bowser/mrxsmb10/mrxsmb20/nsi

sc.exe config mrxsmb20 start= auto

For the record I've been running with SMB2 disabled on my Windows 7 computer (using the same commands described above) as it seems to be the only way to get the Maverick Server off the ground. Even so the connection STILL crashes regularly. If I revert the server back to Mountain Lion it works without error.

Server 3.01 did not make any difference (not that I expected it to from the description of bug fixes.)

Hi All,

I've been fighting Mavericks over the last few days. We have a small design office - 3 Windows 8.1 machines connected to a brand new Mac mini used primarily as a file server. I did a straight upgrade on the Mac mini and was getting all kinds of SMB errors in the logs coupled with intermittent client disconnects and file locks - especially so with MS Office files.

In frustration I thought a clean install of Mavericks might be a starter - which I did. The logs settled down but now I get entry after entry with "File system does not support 0X40000, file attrs", etc. I tried limiting the WIndows clients to SMB1 (using guyfromauckland's fix) and this didn't really make a difference. The same things come up in the logs - but does it really matter? What do these entries mean? (I'd hate for files to start going missing.)

Cheers,

Alex.

I'm not entirely certain, but I believe the attrs errors refer to so-called "extended attributes"; parts of the file not normally included with SMB tranfers such as Type and Creator codes or the resource forks of a postscript font. Copying postscript fonts from a Windows PC has been a crap-shoot ever since Apple switched from traditional Samba to their own SMBX. Some versions of the MacOS it works, and some versions it doesn't.