Big Sur and SMB

[Sergeant Pluck]

Hi all.

Yep, this again.

I have a NAS for my music (including an Apple Music library) and Time Machine backups. I also have a public folder on the NAS for my Sonos library, as this is the only way Sonos will work with my setup.

This was all working fine: after a restart, for example, WD Discovery will connect to the NAS, thus allowing Music to access its library, and me to access other files. The public folder connects automatically. Time Machine is visible in Finder, by way of a separate guest connection.

It was still working fine with Big Sur, until I updated to 11.3 (current version is 11.3.1). Now, while WD Discovery, Apple Music and TM all work ok, I cannot access the public folder. In Finder, when I try to connect to the server using SMB as I did before, as a guest, it will not allow it.

So, these no longer work:
smb://192.168.0.10/Public
smb://MYCLOUD-SJNSUU/Public

I have tried searching for answers. There is a mass of incomprehensible stuff out there on this issue, but the vast majority of it relates to older versions of OS X including versions in which everything was working for me.

I randomly discovered that using cifs instead of SMB works. I don’t have enough knowledge to know why. However, it does not connect automatically using cifs and I need to “go to server” in Finder each time.

Has anyone any clues as to how to fix this?

[ian]

Go to System Preferences > Sharing > Options and turn SMB off and back on.

My career in IT support awaits.

[Sergeant Pluck]

Nope - no difference. But thanks!

When I did as you suggested, I see that it now states "Other users can access shared folders on this computer, and administrators all volumes, at smb://192.168.0.23”. I don’t recall seeing that .23 before - the public folder I want to connect to is definitely 192.168.0.10, confirmed when I connect to it using CIFS.

[ian]

Does it have a fixed IP address? If not, make it so, and then I'd mount it properly (stop it – Ed) rather than rely on any third-party tool (I presume WD Discovery).

[Sergeant Pluck]

It does have a fixed IP address, as I recall from previous delving into this.

There is no way to make this drive work without WD Discovery unfortunately.

[grams]

Go to System Preferences > Sharing > Options and turn SMB off and back on.

My career in IT support awaits.

This turns sharing *from* your computer off and on, not your access to other shares.

Do you have any other computers you can attempt to access the network share from? It's always worth ruling out nothing on the NAS has changed.

[Kim]

When I did as you suggested, I see that it now states "Other users can access shared folders on this computer, and administrators all volumes, at smb://192.168.0.23”. I don’t recall seeing that .23 before - the public folder I want to connect to is definitely 192.168.0.10, confirmed when I connect to it using CIFS.

I know nothing about the WD NAS and very little about Macs, but my samba spidey sense wonders if there's a bind address in the NAS's smb.conf that's at odds with the actual network interface, possibly due to DHCP shenanigans.

[Sergeant Pluck]

Go to System Preferences > Sharing > Options and turn SMB off and back on.

My career in IT support awaits.

This turns sharing *from* your computer off and on, not your access to other shares.

Do you have any other computers you can attempt to access the network share from? It's always worth ruling out nothing on the NAS has changed.

I don’t unfortunately. However, using file explorer on my phone and looking at network storage, the public folder in question is visible and accessible. Also Sonos can access its library on that folder, on my Mac and on my phone, even if the public folder not visible in Finder.

This is something to do with the latest update to Big Sur - it was an abrupt change that coincided with that update.

[ian]

Wasn't there some topic about the WD Discovery and it doing things odd? My NAS connects up fine (via SMB) and then I've just noticed I'm on 11.2.3. Maybe I'll go to 11.3 and find out.

You could try rolling back the update or renaming the guest folder (or adding permissions)?

[Sergeant Pluck]

Yes, it was probably a thread started by me - WD Discovery can be a bit troublesome at times, usually when it updates, but that end of things is working fine, as is the TM backup. WD discovery and TM appear as different locations in Finder.
 
It’s just getting this public folder to connect as it did before. It’s not a huge issue - anything that needs to access it can do so even if it does not appear in Finder - the inconvenience is only when I need to add content to it.

I do like the idea of completely reformatting the drive and starting again, minus WD Discovery, and having a more straightforward setup, but it would mean a lot of fiddling in areas that I know little about. Also, I am concerned that given the inability to connect to this public folder, I might not be able to connect to the NAS at all if I change anything. 

[ian]

Honestly, I don't really know what purpose WD Discovery serves.

It does sound a bit like a permissions issue, if it's just the public folder. You don't need it to be public for Sonos.

[Sergeant Pluck]

This is really a SMB issue, I think. Everything works, it’s all there, except for the previously automatic SMB connection. Now it needs to be done manually using CIFS.

Had a look at the NAS in disc utility - options to erase / restore / unmount are blanked out, which doesn’t bode well for a trouble-free reformat.

[grams]

Apple Disc Utility doesn't support managing network drives, so that's normal.

(actually I'm surprised it shows up in there at all)

[ian]

Updated to 11.3.1 here, everything networky is present and correct.

As said Disk Utility won't let you manage external network disks, they're effectively in a different computer.

The issue, according to the internet, seems to be with WD creating a public folder that isn't a public folder as we know it so SMB doesn't know what to do with it. I assume WD need to update whatever cantankerous wankengine they used to engineer this situation (I assume they have tweaked SMB on their end, it takes to two to tango in any network connection).

There's a fair number of YouTube videos about using the NAS without the WD tools, no idea how easy it is to convert a current install.

[Sergeant Pluck]

Apple Disc Utility doesn't support managing network drives, so that's normal.

(actually I'm surprised it shows up in there at all)

Only the volume that is managed by WD Discovery appears in DU’s list of drives. If I right click on it to Show in Finder, it... doesn’t find it.

It’s all very confusing. As far as I can tell, for the WD My Cloud Home, it is not possible to do more than erasing data and resetting the drive to factory settings, via the web interface. It is not possible to reformat it or to do away with the WD Discovery gubbins.

Anyway, I am somewhat fed up with this drive. As well as throwing up issues from time to time, it’s getting on a bit. I am thinking of ditching it entirely and getting something else. But it needs to work with Sonos and Time Machine without hacks, workarounds, or puzzlement.

[ian]

I just play Sonos from my phone these days, rather than the NAS, which sits under the stairs as the backup of last resort. It's not really necessary, but I bought it a million years ago as the cheapest NAS available (Buffalo Linkstation), and it keeps working. If it pops, the drive can be read directly, it's just linuxy.

Time Machine goes onto a vanilla USB drive.

[Afasoas]

In the beginning there was SMB. But is was a bit crap to MS$ made a new version and called it CIFS. But that too was a bit crap so they created another new version and called it SMB.

There are two classic issues with SMB. One of them you have already ruled out because you cannot make it work with an IP address.

The other classic problem is an OS upgrade disabling support for an older version of SMB that is now deemed to insecure. So potentially your NAS is talking SMB v1 or SMB v2 or actual CIFS and Big Sur thinks that is too insecure and will only speak SMB v3. The thing is, we ideally need to see some Samba (what the NAS will be running to support SMB) configuration/logs or a packet capture to confirm that this is the problem.

And this is my problem with NAS boxen, as useful as they are, they quite often turn out be unsupported (no new firmware updates) when this type of problem occurs.
What model of NAS are you using?

[woollypigs]

...puzzlement.

muhahahahah hahaha, sorry, but that's just computers for ya. Have you tried the tried and tested IT support tricks, like changing your t-shirt, go to to make a cup of tea, turn it off over night (even after 110 restarts of everything in random and orderly order). If you don't know what I'm speaking about let me introduce you to - printers.