Q: various problems since the transition to Yosemite

Getting these same errors. Mail cannot update the keychain file so it can't store the password. If I create the password manually in keychain access utility Mail still can't access it. I suspect this is a problem accessing the sqlite db, since that seems to be the root of many issues in Mavericks, but I haven't seen a fix.

Any updates anyone?

p

Sadly the current situation with Network Home Directories and Apple's own software i.e. Mail, Calendar and Contacts is nothing but problems. This has been so for many years now and there have been many posts in other threads in these forums about this.

There are probably about six different problems - some of which are closely related, however the most critical issues all relate to when Apple introduced the ability to sync keychains via iCloud. The problem here is that even if you are not logged in to an iCloud account and have no desire or intention to use this facility the changes Apple made have really badly broken things. Prior to these changes the passwords for Mail, Calendar and Contacts were stored in a users login.keychain file, after this change they are now stored in the 'local items' keychain which is stored in a machine specific folder meaning as a first issue this prevents hot-desking. An even bigger problem is that it seems this local items keychain will frequently get corrupted requiring the user to logout and back in to create a new empty one and then for you to re-add the passwords.

Note: Other programs like Outlook for Mac thankfully do not use this 'local items' keychain so that maybe an option although Outlook for Mac is notorious for its own sets of issues.

Other issues are that when a user logs out it seems Apple fail to properly terminate user processes leaving them running and potentially blocking subsequent user sessions, also failing properly to dismount a users network home directory again potentially blocking subsequent user sessions and hence acting potentially as a security issue, problems with Spotlight and network home directories, and on and on and on.

Some of these issues have been mitigated by users coming up with steps to include in a logout hook script. Of course there is some further irony here in that Apple for several years have been discouraging the use of login and logout hooks.

It seems Apple are making their usual mistakes.

1. They assume all their customers are home users i.e. individuals and have completely forgotten about businesses and in particular education users who have had a long history of using network home directories
2. They assume all their users have completely bought in to the Apple view of things and are therefore all using iCloud to sync keychains - this at least potentially would resolve the 'local items' keychain and hot-desking issue, this however is completely unfeasible in a business/education environment
3. They assume all their users have laptops and local home directories and that no-one is using network home directories anymore, I am sure this is how all Apple employees work and that as Apple themselves (presumably) do not use network home directories not only do they not test this, but they don't apparently care about the impact on customers either

These problems still affect versions up to and including El Capitan and early reports suggest Sierra is still broken as well.

There is no indication that SMB is any better than AFP, indeed it might even be worse.

Potentially using a Snow Leopard Server to host the network home directories is a possible option, although this is where we see spotlight issues for network logins.

PS. The speed of login is down to the speed of your Ethernet network and server. It is always going to be slower than a local home directory but we do not see as bad (on average) delay as you suggest. It is possible to setup automatic folder redirections of tmp and cache folders to e.g. /private/tmp on the local drive which helps a bit speed wise.