Network Share Connection Issues

This specifically affects OSX machines running Mavericks and later. When connecting to a Windows share, you may encounter issues where:

• Files go missing
• You can't rename files
• Files that have been re-named or modified don't reflect the changes
• You can't move or delete files, or add new files to a directory

This is a not an exhaustive list.

The issue is related to the Server Message Block (SMB) protocol, Apple's SMB2 implementation doesn't work with a lot of SMB2 devices, even networked drives from Windows machines. The fix involves changing the server connection URL.

1. In the Finder, choose the “Go” menu and select “Connect to Server…” (command-K).
2. Type cifs://yourservername (or cifs://ipaddress) and hit Return.
3. The server should mount.

CIFS (Common Internet File System) is another name for the SMB protocol, but using it in the server URL forces Finder to use the older SMB1 implementation, rather than the SMB2 implementation.