autofs not working properly now!

Can you please be more specific? What is "they"?

When you use autofs, the directory mount points do not exist until after you attempt to access them. If you don't continue to access them, they should go away.

I still don't understand what exact behaviour you are reporting. Running automount does not and should not establish any real mounts. Navigating to an auto mounted directory should cause the directory to be populated. Mounted shares have to appear before they can disappear.

YIKES!

Use a different browser!

The one showing the entire Desktop was too large for the rules of the forum - thus the cropped version I posted. If Safari crashed at that moment, THIS is what should have happened using the camera tool

I used Drag & Drop and got THIS instead

Those screenshots are showing two different directories. I can't make any comparison between the "videos" folder that appears to contain 7 folders and the "music" folder that must contain something else.

However, your Sierra screenshot does show the spinner in the corner. That means it is working, just slowly. It sounds like you have experiencing a common problem. See this thread and try the posted solution: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7674819?answerId=30675488022#30675488022

Hello.

Here's an interesting development. In the graphic I posted with the mangled folder names above I found the fix!

I examined the folder names and it turns out that while viewing the share using AppleShare protocol (AFP) - there is a non-printing/visible character at the end of these folder names - a space. I removed the space on the end of the folder name and afterwards the folders displayed properly regardless of whether I was connected via SMB or AFP. The trick now is to find a utility or tool that can fix these for me versus me digging thru 2 TB of data.

Foe many years there was a sample AppleScript that would "trim" filenames in a chosen folder

Same here ...

I've a MacMini (it was running El Capitan until I upgraded to Sierra) that automounts fileshares from a Synology DS1515 NAS. With El Capitan I could automount via afp without any problems. El Capitan wouldn't umount though ... so I ran a script every hour to umount: everything worked, life was good.

Now with Sierra shortly after booting (<1min after the Mac is up&running) all(!!!) my shares get mounted and I can't umount them anymore. The umount command gives me an error right away and "diskutil umount /mymountpoint" returns without an error, but doesn't umount either. To make things even worse: once the Synology box goes to sleep I get access denied errors on the Mac Mini. Only a reboot fixes that problem.

The autofs config hasn't changed since the upgrade. The only thing I did on that Mac Mini was the upgrade to Sierra.

If I were you, I would 'boil down' your story without "acronyms" or cite them as you use them like you were writing For A Naive Audience (FANA)

Your story should include a 'backstory' - describing what you have set up and how it normally works before Sierra

Then, describe how "normal" Workflow is affected

The goal is a "elevator pitch" = the shortest possible story that tells the whole tale

Then Contact Apple Support

Be prepared to give your pitch to the 1st level specialist who will have no clue what you are talking about, much less be able to find it in their Knowledge Base.

Then, insist politely, firmly, to be transferred to a supervisor.

Give them your call back number and make them repeat it back to you.

Ask them to "stay on the line" until the next specialist is on the line too.

You are being proactive concerning the call being "dropped"

Tell your pitch to the 'level 2' specialist - be prepared to repat the above to the NEXT level

Keep going until you reach a specialist that has knowledge of the issue or can pull the trigger on "engineering" special efforts to solve

added

At some point, you will be issue a trouble ticket # that will save you from telling your story over again if you have to call them back

I sincerely doubt that you would ever find an Apple technical support rep that knows what auto mounting is.

There are many possible ways to configure mounting and auto mounting. It is not easy to tell if someone was doing it correctly to begin with or what specific method they are using.

And to make matters much, much worse, the Apple autofs documentation that I used to link to (http://images.apple.com/business/docs/Autofs.pdf) had been pulled. So, I cannot say if macOS even supports auto mounting at all anymore. I will investigate...

What I left UNsaid:

I have on several occasions had to resort to calling Apple because no other "solutions" were forthcoming to a particular problem

As one works your way 'up the ladder', you end up leaving Apple Support and enter the realm of Apple "Engineers" - the guys that DO know about all stuff.

A ridiculous example is from a couple of years ago

- right after Apple remodeled ASC - long story short unendurable

I had an ASC Apple ID issue that required contacting the Hosts - as determined by calls (3 as I recall) - BUT - no support specialist could FIND an Apple phone extension OR email address to directly contact them

After FIVE call transfers, I ended up with "Joe", a senior Apple Engineer. He was somehow able to finally find an email address *somewhere* after about 20 minutes of 'on hold' searching = AppleHosts <communityhosts@apple.com>

Seems simple enough, right? But it was NOT "published" in the open OR in internal Apple KBs

He NEVER was able to find a phone number to simply call 'em up or transfer me that final time !!!

I'm experiencing this issue as well.

I, too, configured autofs to automatically mount several LAN SMB shares to /mnt/media and it worked quite reliably under El Capitan. Under Sierra, at first boot, the shares are present and can be navigated to in both Finder and via the command line. After some time (generally, an hour or more, though sometimes longer), the shares get unmounted, and navigating to them in the Finder reveals that the share is gone. Attempting to change directory to a missing share via the command line reports that I do not have permission. Curiously, neither method triggers autofs to re-mount the share. As well, "sudo automount -vc" succeeds, but the shares do not re-mount.

What's curious about the disappearing shares (I have several) is that they don't all disappear at the same time. While one share at /mnt/media/tv might disappear after an hour, an identically configured share (save for path) at /mnt/media/movies will stay mounted for days.

When one or more shares disappears, rebooting the Sierra machine always brings them back until such time that they disappear again. Frustrating!