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File Sharing Difficulties Frustrate Tiger Admins

Posted by Zonk on from the catch-the-kitty-by-the-tail dept.

rmallico wrote in to mention a story currently running on Eweek about technical difficulties sites running Tiger are experiencing. From the article: "A number of sites running Apple's new 'Tiger' operating system are experiencing problems with SMB file sharing and authentication with Microsoft's Active Directory, Ziff Davis Internet News has learned. Although Apple Computer Inc.'s Tiger increases support for Server Message Block file sharing and Active Directory, several sources say that the Finder fails to log on to Windows and Linux Samba file servers."

10 of 334 comments (clear)

  1. Oh, right, error code -36! by xiando · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The most interesting thing I noticed in the article was actually that the error message for the Connect to Server failure is "error code -36". A friend of mine who uses Mac OS X has always complained much about how the Mac never tells you anything about what is actually wrong, only gives you a number that is in no way useful for solving the problem. It is amazing this is still the case in Tiger, what in the world would be wrong with giving at least a tiny bit of information or just a hint of what is wrong? Even the good old Windows blue screen is more informative than "error code 4".

    --
    9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
    1. Re:Oh, right, error code -36! by FidelCatsro · · Score: 5, Informative

      Its actualy very usefull if you have a list of the error codes and what they mean.
      http://www.appleerrorcodes.com/

      --
      The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
    2. Re:Oh, right, error code -36! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      IO error can not read or write to the directory . meaning it is not there , the reason for this is Apples implementation of samba on tiger requires the full path

    3. Re:Oh, right, error code -36! by FidelCatsro · · Score: 5, Informative
      More info can be obtained from console.app in the Utilities directory under Applications(/Applications/utilities , or just go through the system logs from the terminal , but console.app is a rather nice time saver), its just a colection of the systems logs but its rather usefull and searchable .
      It does give a more detailed output. for example when i try to connect to my existant SMB share it gives me
      May 7 11:32:53 Xcomp kernel[0]: netsmb_dev: loaded
      May 7 11:32:53 xcomp[0]: netsmb_dev: loaded
      May 7 11:35:39 xcomp[0]: smbfs_aclsflunksniff: user sid S-1-5-21-2466424394-2119469220-2469460652-2002 didnt map
      I would have given an example of the error output from the specific problem , but i am doing some work on the linux comp that runs my nfs and samba shares right now .
      --
      The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
    4. Re:Oh, right, error code -36! by Megane · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Those low negative number error codes date back to 1984 with the original release of the Macintosh, but usually only a few come up. When you see them with OS X, you know you've got something with roots in the old days, like the HFS file system. And then there are the larger negative numbers (usually 4 digits) from when blocks of error codes were assigned willy-nilly to stuff like the Appletalk network stack and AFP file sharing.

      And -36 doesn't help even if you know what it means, because it's just a generic "I/O error". Originally it was for media problems (like an unreadable floppy), usually accompanied by strange sounds from your disk drive, but for a network file system it's kind of silly. So even the old-timers say "yeah, that sure tells me a lot".

      Other -3x range errors include file not found (-34?), end of file (-39?), and file name too long. Another good one is -50, parameter error. Well, duuuuuuh, which parameter? What's wrong with it?

      The worst one to see is -127. That one means your file system data structures are in deep doodoo.

      But seriously, the days of 400K floppy disks are long gone. It's total laziness that nobody bothers to print a text error message along with the number. I've been doing that in my own code since the days of 800K floppies. Even printing out the ten most common error messages as text helps most of the time.

      --
      #naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
  2. Work-around by Noksagt · · Score: 5, Informative

    Easy workaround:
    Command-K to bring up the connect menu and type in the full address INCLUDING THE SHARE NAME:

    smb://SERVER/folder

  3. Not sure if it's this... by mferrare · · Score: 5, Informative
    I had a problem with 10.3 authenticating to a W2k3 AD server and mounting shares. Turned out I had to modify the Domain Controller Security Policy on the server and set Microsoft Network Server: Digitally Sign Communications (always) to Disabled. I am now running 10.4 and I have no problems connecting to this w2k3 server.


    I got this solution from here by the way. Thanks to Drew McLelland.

    --
    Why would anyone want to use a text editor that is not vi?
  4. Re:Here's a bet: by Graymalkin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So, say it worked great in all beta builds until the gold master. It had been tested and came up green so in latter beta builds it wasn't tested anymore because it worked. Then say sometime between the last beta build and the GM (which are a few builds apart) a butterfly flapped its wings bug caused SMB mounting to break in Finder. Errors happen because systems are complex and there's dependancies that depend on more dependancies, a error in the chain can cause really weird errors in seemingly unrelated parts of the system.

    Your car analogy is flawed. New cars do have bugs when they roll off the lot. You would be really surprised at the number of real issues every car or every batch of cars has off the factory floor. Many times however these flaws and bugs don't crop up and cause a noticeable problem for a long time if ever. There are some problems that do crop up quickly however. It would be one thing if the manufacturer ignored this and went on its merry way. It is entirely another if they repair your car for you. I just had the dome light fixed in my car because of a faulty latch, should I be screaming about the manufacturer not having any QA? No.

    The car analogy also falls flat when compared to something as easily changed as computer software. A patch containing the repair can be very small and be distributed to millions of affected users very quickly. If your car is in the shop for a week you're out one car. If SMB shares don't show up in Finder's Browse window properly you're not out SMB shares as you can work around the problem if need be.

    --
    I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
  5. Finder and Linux Sambda shares by reddish · · Score: 5, Interesting

    On a related note: I'm seeing really bad performance when copying a file from a Linux Samba share to my OSX machine (roughly 100 kb/sec, if that). Oddly enough, file uploads are ok (megabytes per second). Odder still, if I open a terminal and copy directly to my machine from the Samba share mount point, incoming copies are fast too. This has been going on from at least 10.2, and much to my dismay it is still an issue in 10.4. This really seems like the Finder is trying to talk Sambalese by itself (and does so differently than the SMB filesystem driver). Has anyone else noticed this behavior (and, perhaps, solved it)?

  6. No Admin worth their salt installs a new OS by Beebos · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If an "admin" installs a brand spanking new OS immediately after release, that admin should have his pocket protector taken away from him. Particularly if one is working in a business or other mission critical environment, installing new OS without giving time for new bugs to be discovered and addressed is a sure sign incompetance.