Trouble connecting to another Mac on the network

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Trouble connecting to another Mac on the network

I recently was having trouble opening a Quickbooks file that's shared over the network. Selecting the file and then clicking Open made Quickbooks freeze to the point that I had to Force Quit the program. At first it sounded like a Quickbooks thing, so I restarted the server program, restarted the machine and then restarted the client machine to no avail.

Eventually, I figured out that I couldn't connect to the shared folder of the server machine or even ping the server machine on the network. Seems like Bonjour is doing its job of broadcasting the machine on the network but I am unable to get through to it. I have verified that I am able to access the shared folder, the shared Quickbooks file and ping the machine from other machines on the network. Anyone have any idea what's going on here?

Server Machine: 15" MacBook Pro Retina 2013 running 10.9.2 with File Sharing turned on in Sharing.

Client Machine: 13" White MacBook running 10.8

Both Machines are connected to the same network and on the same subnet, 10.0.1.x.

As mentioned earlier, selecting the shared file in Quickbooks and then clicking open makes the program freeze. Selecting the name of the server in the Finder sidebar and then clicking connect eventually throws the "there was a problem connecting to the server" error. Pinging the machine in Network Utilities on the client returns the "no path to host" error. Of course, I am able to ping and access the shared file on various other machines on the network.

I've tried a number of things:

-Rebooting both machines

-Changing the name of server machine in System Prefs > Sharing.

-Toggling Remote Management and Remote Login on the server machine

-Toggle Guest Access on the server machine. I believe it was already on in the first place

-Turning off SMB sharing under the options menu of Sharing on the server machine

-Deleting the Library/Preferences/Network Configuration folder on the client machine as well as the com.apple.AppleFileServer.plist file. In retrospect I should've done this on the server machine. I'll try that tomorrow.

I've seen a few discussions about this and perhaps its related to the SMB2 issue. This discussion seems to be relavent: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5765962?answerId=24438895022#24438895022

Posted on Apr 16, 2014 8:36 PM

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Answer 1

t1mwillis Author

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Apr 17, 2014 11:43 AM in response to t1mwillis

After further troubleshooting this issue, connecting the client machine via Ethernet to the network has temporarily resolved the issue. This is obviously not ideal, however we can live with it for the short term.

In the process I tried the following:

-Reparing the disk after booting from the Recovery disk on the client machine.

-Booting into safe mode on the client machine and trying from there.

-Removing /Library/Preferences/com.apple.ByteRangeLocking.plist and /var/db/BRLM.db and then rebooting on the client machine.

-Removing and then re-adding the Wi-Fi interface in the Network pane of System Preferences.

To me this now seems like a Wi-Fi specific issue on the client machine. I thought re-adding the Wi-Fi interface on the machine would do the trick, but so far it has not. Any other solutions?

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Answer 2

t1mwillis Author

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May 14, 2014 9:49 AM in response to t1mwillis

For anyone following along at home, this issue magically resolved itself. I came back about 3 weeks later, unplugged the Ethernet cable and turned on Wi-Fi. I fired up Quickbooks and was able to access the shared database. I also was able to access the machine via Finder and logging in with my credentials.

Who knows what happened, perhaps there was an update installed while I was away. Very glad this worked itself out. My next step would have been to create a bootable backup of the machine, wipe it and then reinstall the OS. Glad it didn't come to that.

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