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

anybody had any luck fixing this? I am about to roll back a server to 10.8 or 10.7

The problem seems to reside in the SMB changes that Apple implements in 10.9, so the ball's really in their court for a fix. Given the lack of customization for SMBX I think rolling back to 10.8 would be your best bet.

Don't bother with 10.7. That had its own set of SMB issues.

Thanks for the head's up. So after the 3rd EDC, Apple enterprise support confirmed that I have the same SMB issue that it's currently being investigate... I knew that...

I was told no ETA and the only workaround for now is to restart smb :/

Installed the dev seed for 10.9.2 still no go...

1/2/14 3:45:27.279 PM smbd[4336]: File system does not support 0X40000, file attrs

1/2/14 3:45:27.279 PM smbd[4336]: File system does not support 0X0 time attrs

1/2/14 3:45:27.279 PM smbd[4336]: File system does not support 0X0, size attrs

1/2/14 3:45:27.319 PM smbd[4336]: File system does not support 0X40000, file attrs

1/2/14 3:45:27.319 PM smbd[4336]: File system does not support 0X0 time attrs

1/2/14 3:45:27.320 PM smbd[4336]: File system does not support 0X0, size attrs

1/2/14 3:45:32.092 PM smbd[4336]: File system does not support 0X40000, file attrs

1/2/14 3:45:32.092 PM smbd[4336]: File system does not support 0X0 time attrs

1/2/14 3:45:32.093 PM smbd[4336]: File system does not support 0X0, size attrs

1/2/14 3:45:32.138 PM smbd[4336]: File system does not support 0X40000, file attrs

1/2/14 3:45:32.138 PM smbd[4336]: File system does not support 0X0 time attrs

1/2/14 3:45:32.138 PM smbd[4336]: File system does not support 0X0, size attrs

1/2/14 3:47:49.018 PM smbd[4336]: File system does not support 0X40000, file attrs

1/2/14 3:47:49.019 PM smbd[4336]: File system does not support 0X0 time attrs

1/2/14 3:47:49.019 PM smbd[4336]: File system does not support 0X0, size attrs

1/2/14 3:47:56.610 PM smbd[4336]: File system does not support 0X40000, file attrs

This week installed a MacMini Server 10.9.1 with Pegasus R6 unit to replace a Xserve running 10.5.8 server. Installation went fine, no problems. Problems started with PC's running Windows XP (doesn't work at all) and Windows Vista. Windows XP will connect, but when copying files it gives an error 'not enought privileges', after this you can actually copy files, but it isn't stable. Vista has no problems connecting, dough the user phoned me today saying that it's awfull slow, can't open PDF files (sometimes) and a program that the are using that uses files from the share seems very unstable. Also, Console shows the 'File system does not support 0X40000, file attrs' , File system does not support 0X0, size attrs, and File system does not support 0X0 time attrs messages.

DNS is set to server all clients, rights on the shares are ok. No problems with the Mac's. These problems didn't occure with Mac OS X 10.5.8 server on the Xserve.

It's very sad that almost every server-version of Mac OS X has some real serious bug's and troubles. I wonder if Apple ever test there software before releasing it. They can't release server-software like this that's mission-critical for company's. If you don't have trouble with SMB, than it's someting else like spotlight, open directory, privileges on shares or the most anoying VPN PPTP bug that's arround. Makes me doubt about installing an Apple server at our customers every time, because you wan't a solid professional solution, not some crappy home budget hobby server that's prior to fail on software bugs. It also would be nice if the include some professional tools for debugging or problem solving, instead of minimise every **** UI to the bare minimum so you can only rely on the terminal and console.....

b0le,

Thank you very much for pointing out that you need to run cmd as administrator! I have tried these commands before on my windows 8.1, and even a not so knowledgable microsoft tech has tried using these commands not running cmd as administrator!!!! So needless to say, it didn't work. But your instructions worked so far.

I have been having issues - only with windows 8.1 or windows 8 clients - that if a network drive is mapped with smb 3/2 enabled on windows client, and server share being on OS X 10.9.1 server, that the drive will map (after trying out a variety of ways to authenticate with the correct domain\user - had to use actually my macminiserver\ladmin and it's password to authenticate; can't authenticate with any of the network users from OS X), but the contents are not accessible. I can see them on Windows, but when I try to open a simple .txt file it tells me that the server doesn't support it or what not.

I did find a weird thing. I have an external hard drive laying around where I saved my snow leopard server 10.6.8 (as a clone) on and when I boot from it, and then use windows 8.1 with smb 3/2 enabled I can map the network drive (but also using the ladmin user and password... you will see in a second). Then I leave windows 8.1 alone and switch the boot drive on the macmini back to server 10.9.1 via reboot. Once booted I am able tosee and access all files normally from Windows 8.1. However!!!!!! When I reboot windows 8.1 client it seems to revert back to smb 2 in this case, and once again the files were inaccessible.

But thankfully now with your "fix", I applied it and rebooted windows 8.1 client and the files on OS X server 10.9.1 were still accessible. I am so thankful that I can at least use the thing!

I am however unclear if it is a Windows 8/8.1 issue, or if it is a OS X 10.9.1 issue. My thoughts are that there is a problem with OS X 10.9.1, and user authentication and their smb 2 implementation. It seems to mess things up and I sure hope that Apple can find a fix for it soon.

SMB 2 is much, much faster than SMB 1, and I really would like to be able to take advantage of it.

BTW, I tried connecting with smb 2/3 enable on Windows 8.1 to another Windows XP machine, and since Windows XP only supports SMB 1 the windows 8.1 machine is able to connect to it just fine. But I am having problem getting a reliable connection from Windows XP to Windows 8.1 share. Hmm. So maybe not entirely OS X 10.9.1 server fault? There may be some issues on the Windows 8.1 smb 1/2/3 implementation as well?

No clue. Anyway, how they will find a fix for it soon.

Martin

I don't know if anyone has run across this specific aspect of this issue, but I'll document it here in case it helps anyone else. I have an All-Mac network and started having problems with my server file shares. This is a homogeneous 10.9.1 network. I had previously left SMB enabled on my shares for people who visited with Windows client devices.

I had a problem with a DVD cataloging app (DVDPedia by Bruji) that had suddenly started hanging when I tried to launch it with the catalog database centralized on a server share. During troubleshooting I noticed that my connection to the share was using SMB, even though the client machine was OS X 10.9.1 and both SMB and AFP were enabled for the share. I disabled SMB sharing on the server since I only use Mac. I re-connected to the server shares from the client and everything worked again.

I had noticed flaky behavior in accessing shares lately from other OS X machines but this was the first issue that caused a consistent error that did not appear to have a workaround. This doesn't help anyone using Windows clients but I thought the odd twist about Mac clients using the SMB protocol to connect when AFP was available might help others.

Cheers

This is really broken....

What is the recommended OSX version where windows file sharing works?

/kasper

10.6.8 MacOS Server was rock solid, and the last version to feature real Samba.

10.8.5 with Server 2 was a bit quirky, but basically worked.

-Jeremy

"10.8.5 with Server 2 was a bit quirky, but basically worked."

One of the issues (and the reason for us to move away from) is the lack of stability on PDF Documents across the network, they usually time out, ending on a blank page...

Thanks, big effort to go back to 10.6.8 - quite a bother to get working on my 2011 mini - it came with lion and real mojo is needed to get It running.

Maby it's time to go back to Linux or some simple NAS, this is not the way to go.

/kasper

This is just really unfortunate. I guess my timing of getting a Mac Mini to be a server was about as bad as it could be. I was upgrading an Infrant (Netgear) ReadyNAS and spent lots of time researching and made the plunge to use OS X Server for our business file sharing needs. Got it all set up about a month before Mavericks came out. There were some issues prior to Mavericks, yet, from everything I read about OS X moving to using SMB2 as the default file sharing system, I thought, "this is going to fix those issues". Instead, things are worse than they ever were. And it has been months with no fix in sight. There does not seem to be any rhyme or reason to it either. I have scoured the forums and am really frustrated. Windows machines will lock up. Microsoft Office files that are open by one user will suddenly become read only. And sometimes the SMBD process on the server will spike at 100% usage.

I get that Apple is primarily a phone/ipod/tablet company now (scary how small the sliver is for the computer business in their sales pie charts), but if they are going to offer a product like this, then basic things have to be reliable. I am not a programmer so I have no real basis for my opinions, but honestly, in 2014 shouldn't file-sharing be something that is easy to implement? I get that computers/software are constantly being updated, but these protocols have existed for years and are built up from standards that have been around for decades. So I don't understand why these issues are present.

I really wish someone from Apple would chime in here to at least say "this is a known issue and we're working on a fix - hope to have it in X days/weeks" But sadly, I am guessing (again, no inside knowledge) that the OS X Server team is pretty skeletal and probably over-worked (or pulled into IOS or other more lucrative projects) so they don't have the time to really sort this out. I'm sure there are people inside Apple who view this as a priority, but the company as a whole shifts focus to the things it feels will make it either more money or have a bigger impact on more of their user base (which, obviously, makes sense).

So I definitely get why this isn't being resolved in a timely manner, but being on the user side of things is hard because I don't know whether to wait out a fix or cut my losses and move on to another solution. The optimist in me has been thinking for months "they'll fix this soon", but the pessimist in me fears they aren't devoting enough resources to it and this bug could last for a lot longer. And my bigger worry (now that I've decided to use it in our business) is that they'll just decide that OS X Server is just too riddled with bugs and will just discontinue it all together. But at least then I'd know where I stand.

I know this adds nothing to the quest for answers, but I just wanted to vent with other human beings as I have spent plenty of time cursing at inanimate objects over the last few months.

I am starting to think this might be a network load issue, or that Mavericks is causing the server to dump a ton of packets in our network. It might be a conincedence, but since installing Mavericks I have experienced congestion issues where my remote locations will have our CRM and Sales Tracking software that is hosted from my location freeze on them due to congestion. When I monitor the activity via my router, whichever switch I have the Mavericks NAS server plugged into is showing an enormous amount of packets being transfered to and from. When I unplug the server from the switch and refresh, everything returns to normal and the app unlocks.

What I have also noticed, and I have no idea why this would even matter, is that if the first thing I do in the morning is unplug the Mac server's network cable at the switch and then plug it into another open 10/100 base port, the server will stay up all day 99.9% of the time. However I still experience congestion issues.

Do you have IP V6 disabled?

Should IPv6 it be disabled?