Question: Q: One Solution: There Was a Problem Connecting to the Server error
Lots of people have been seeing their network shares connectivity break after updating or upgrading their macOS operating systems. I, too, lost my ability to connect to my local PC by simply clicking on its name under the Shared heading in Finder’s sidebar — or to even connect using SMB in macOS’s Connect to Server dialog — at some point recently, after updating from Sierra to High Sierra on my Mac mini.
I suddenly started receiving the dread «There was a problem connecting to. » error that tons of users seem to have been experiencing:
After spending several days searching the internet, reading dozens of posts related to the problem, I could not find a single suggestion that fixed the problem — until I happened to see a screenshot posted in Google Images of a Mac’s Network Settings page that made a lightbulb go off. I fixed my problem in 60 seconds and can now connect to all my local shares again, just by clicking on the share’s name in Finder (as well as using the Connect to Server dialog):
Make sure the domain «local» is included in the DNS/Search Domains settings for your network connection. That’s all there was to it, in my case:
After I added «local» to my Search Domains, the problem went away immediately.
If you’re not familiar with changing Network settings in your Mac’s System Preferences, there are plenty of guides posted on the internet. Just Google «network settings mac».
Mac mini, macOS High Sierra (10.13.3), Connection: WiFi
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Question: Q: There was a problem connecting to server «SERVER NAME» error keeps appearing
There was a problem connecting to server «SERVER NAME» error keeps appearing even though the server is not on my current network. I just recently moved my iMac to a different location and a different network and now it is constantly trying to connect to the old server. This message appears every 30 seconds and multiple ones appear (see photos) This is extremely frustrating because it makes the machine practically unusable since I am constantly closing these out. No matter how many times I try to quit it in activity monitor it just keeps reappearing, and I have even tried some terminal commands that I found online, then restarted the computer, but still had no success. I would really appreciate any advice.
OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)
Posted on Jun 4, 2016 7:42 PM
Helpful answers
There are many possible causes for this problem, and it may be very hard to resolve. Depending on your level of experience, you may need to get someone more experienced to help you with some of the steps below. Please take whichever of the steps is applicable that you haven’t already tried.
Back up all data before making any changes.
If you get the alert in the login screen before you log in, skip Steps 1-9 and start with Step 10.
If you get the alert right after you log in, it’s probably caused by one of your login items or by software that otherwise loads at startup or login. Common offenders are «1Password» and «Adobe Resource Synchronizer,» but there are many others.
Select the Login Items tab in the Users & Groups pane of System Preferences. Delete any suspicious items. If you’re not sure which ones to delete, double-click each to test it.
To avoid confusion, note that checking or unchecking the box next to a login item does not inactivate it . You have to delete the item from the list.
If there’s an icon representing the server in the sidebar of a Finder window, hold down the command key and drag it out.
You may have created aliases to files or folders on the server. If you don’t know whether you did that, you can find all aliases as follows.
In the Finder, please press command-F to open a search window, or select
from the menu bar. In the search window, select
Search: This Mac
from the row of tokens below the toolbar. Below that are two popup menus of search criteria, initially showing
From the second menu, select
There will now be a text box in which you can enter a file type. Enter «alias» (without the quotes.)
The search window will now show all aliases on mounted volumes. You can see the target of each alias by selecting it and opening the Info window. Delete any that refer to the server.
Open the Printers & Scanners pane in System Preferences and delete any network devices you no longer use. If in doubt, delete them all and add back the ones you want.
Back up all data, then open the iCloud pane in System Preferences. If the box marked iCloud Drive is checked, uncheck it and confirm. Your iCloud data should be preserved on Apple’s servers.
Test to see whether there’s an improvement, then re-check the box and test again. It may take a noticeable amount of time for your data to resynchronize. In the sidebar of a Finder window, a pie-chart icon next to iCloud Drive will show the progress of the download. When the download is complete, the icon will change to a cloud.
If you use Family Sharing, disable that too and test.
Copy the line below to the Clipboard as in Step 3:
In the Finder, select
Go ▹ Go to Folder.
from the menu bar and paste into the box that opens. You may not see what you pasted because a line break is included. Press return . A folder may open. If it does, move the contents to the Desktop, or to a new folder on the Desktop. Log out and log back in. Test. If there’s no change, put the items you moved back where they were and continue.
Open the folder
as in Step 5 and move the file named «loginwindow.plist» items in that folder to the Trash, if it exists (it may not.)
Log out and back in again, and test.
Other possible causes are references in the iPhoto, Photos, iTunes, or iMovie library pointing to the server, bookmarks in the Preview application, and PDF files created by Adobe Acrobat with embedded scripts.
Try repairing the Photos library, or the iPhoto library, if applicable.
If you get the alert when connecting an iOS device with iTunes, re-create your iTunes library and playlists. See also this ASC discussion.
If you get the alert when selecting a screen saver, you may have moved your iTunes library to the file server.
Resources such as images or sounds stored on the server may have been added to various applications. Examples would be pictures added to Contacts and custom sounds added to Mail. The range of possibilites is practically infinite, so I can’t be more specific. You might get a hint by launching the Console application and looking for error messages that appear at the same time as the alerts.
Disconnect all wired peripherals except those needed to start up. Start up in safe mode. Test. After testing, restart as usual (not in safe mode) and verify that you still have the problem.
Note: If FileVault is enabled in OS X 10.9 or earlier, or if a firmware password is set, or if the startup volume is a Fusion Drive or a software RAID, you can’t do this. Ask for further instructions.
Launch the Directory Utility application. Depending on what version of OS X you have, you may be able to do that by entering the first few letters of its name in a Spotlight search. If that doesn’t work, triple-click anywhere in the line of text below on this page to select it:
Right-click or control -click the selected text and select
from the contextual menu.* A folder named «CoreServices» will open. The Directory Utility application is in that folder, or in a subfolder named «Applications».
In the Directory Utility window, select the Directory Editor tool in the toolbar. Select Mounts from the Viewing menu in the toolbar, and /Local/Default from the node menu, if not already selected. On the right is a list of names and values. By default, the list is empty. If it’s not empty, post a screenshot of the window and stop here.
*If you don’t see the contextual menu item, copy the selected text to the Clipboard ( command-C ). Open a TextEdit window and paste into it ( command-V ). Select the line you just pasted and continue as above.
Open the following file as you did in the last step:
It will open in a TextEdit window. The contents should be exactly this:
#
# Automounter master map
#
+auto_master # Use directory service
/net -hosts -nobrowse,hidefromfinder,nosuid
/home auto_home -nobrowse,hidefromfinder
/Network/Servers -fstab
/- -static
If there are any other lines in the window, post them. Otherwise, close the window.
Open a folder named «SystemConfiguration» as before:
Move the contents of the folder to the Trash, except the file with this name:
Leave that file where it is.
You may be prompted for your administrator login password. Restart the computer and test.
If there’s no change, restore each of the items you deleted from a backup, overwriting the one that may have been created in its place.
If the problem is resolved, you may need to recreate some of your settings in the Network and Energy Saver preference panes.
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Question: Q: there was a problem connecting to server error
I’m a wee stumped here.
Network is based on a default 192.169.1.1 gateway.
Multiple devices are connected to the network; (3 apple devices, multiple android devices, windows and linux based machines, ).
One of the machines is used as a media server, running windows 10 home, and has 3 shared folders.
Only iMac (Yosemite 10.10.5) is unable to reach the shared folders — giving an error message «there was a problem connecting to server».
iMac does not see the shared folders by Go to Network, also unable use command-k with CIFS:// or SMB:// (getting the error above)
My MBP (El capitan) has no problem seeing the shares.
Windows machine is able to see the shared folders on iMac.
It seems like there is an issue with the iMac, but I can’t tell where.
iMac with Retina 5K display, OS X 10.10
Posted on Jul 12, 2019 8:20 PM
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So how is your iMac connected to this network? “Hardwired” or WiFi?
Jul 13, 2019 9:16 AM
at this moment it is connected via ethernet.
I did try wifi as well, though.
Jul 13, 2019 9:58 AM
Network is based on a default 192.169.1.1 gateway.
Did you mean to write 192.168.1.1 here? As that would be a local address.
OS X/macOS has supported all variants (1-3) of SMB since Yosemite. However, Microsoft dropped support for SMB 1.x with Windows 10. This may be simply a SMB configuration issue on the Win 10 server. I’m not sure if this is related to it only being the «Home» edition vs. the «Pro» one, but it could be possible. I do know that the Home edition is somewhat limited networking-wise.
A data capture between these device would go a long way to reveal which SMB protocol is negotiated . or, at least, attempted. If you’re familiar with Wireshark (or equivalent) you can do this yourself. There is also a method to enable SMB 1.x on Windows 10, should it be required. However, I’m not necessarily recommending it.
Jul 13, 2019 10:03 AM
Good call, yes, it is 168, indeed.
If the SMB was the issue, wouldn’t all other apple devices fail to connect to the win10 shares as well? I did already enable SMB1
Packet signing is already disabled. I’ll give a shot to wireshark
Jul 13, 2019 11:30 AM
the interesting part is that when I connect to the shared drive, it asks for a user name. If I provide an incorrect user/pwd, it asks again. If I provide the correct credentials, however, that’s when I get the error.
Jul 13, 2019 11:31 AM
Some potentially helpful Wireshark details for SMB troubleshooting and what communications between the Mac and the Win 10 server to look for:
- The Mac will first perform a «TCP handshake» to establish communication with the server.
- The Mac will send a «Negotiate Protocol Request» to the server to let it know what SMB dialects the Mac supports.
- The server will respond with a «Negotiate Protocol Response» indicating what SMB dialects it supports, as well as, other details like if signing is enabled.
- The Mac will send another «Negotiate Protocol Request» to the server to let it know which dialect and which options is want to use.
- The server will respond with another «Negotiate Protocol Response» to let the client know which dialect it will actually use.
- The Mac will then agree to use that dialect, and then, asks the server «What authentication token that you want to use?» This starts the authentication phase. This is where the user account is validated to allow access to the server.
Jul 13, 2019 12:14 PM
I definitely see the problem, but I am unsure how to fix it. Looks like system is sending duplicate packets and tells system to stop communication at the same time?
My MBP does NOT do this when connecting to the same shared drive.
x.x.x.61 is the default IP address for the shared drive.
Jul 14, 2019 12:06 PM
I’m assuming .178 is the iMac having issues . correct?
If so, looks like the handshake is occurring at packets 69-71, but a FIN is being immediately sent from the iMac to start the termination of the communication session with the server in 72. Basically, the iMac is saying I don’t have anything else to send you. I would have expected that the start of the SMTP process would be have been the next packet instead.
Packet 77 appears to be a Dup ACK. Possibly there are more of them later in the capture. If so, they are typically sent during a TCP fast retransmission sequence because (iMac in this case) did not receive an expected ACK from the server.
. and what is one cause of lost packets/retransmissions? A faulty connection between two devices on the network. If you ping the server from the iMac are there any packets being dropped and/or any excessive delays seen? RTT times should be around 1-1.5 ms on a local network. The other potential issue would be mis-configured Ethernet interface . assuming that the iMac or the server (or both) connect to the local network by Ethernet.
Jul 14, 2019 9:01 PM
you are absolutely correct, .178 is the iMac.
I’m glad I read it right, but that’s exactly why I am at a loss; I haven’t got a clue as to what can be causing this.
All of the devices are pinging the .61 with no packet loss, and biggest delay being 5ms (at that is on the device that is NOT having the issue).
iMac and Winblows machine are both on ethernet connection (they sit next to each other, ironically)
Windows machine does have a VPN client running; but if the VPN client was an issue, MBP would have the same problem.
It certainly feels like iMac causes the problem, but it has no network management software running on it, so I can’t think of what can be causing this.
Jul 14, 2019 9:18 PM
It’s getting late here so I will be signing off, but I do have a few more questions for you if you don’t mind.
Since they are close, are both connected to the same Ethernet switch? Actually, a bit more information on the network path between the iMac and the server would be helpful. That is, what networking hardware lies between the two to make the full connection? For example, do they both directly connect to an Ethernet switch like I mentioned or do they each connect to an Ethernet wall port, and in turn, an Ethernet run to a central Ethernet patch panel, to a switch, and then, to a router?
I would also like to know the Ethernet settings on your iMac from In System Preferences > Network > Ethernet > Hardware tab. Does the iMac (& server) both assigned static IP local addresses. Are they configured for IPv6? Is the iMac configured as a DHCP client? Is the iMac configured to only use Ethernet and is Ethernet at the top of the list on the System Preferences > Network window?
Sorry, for all the questions, but they may reveal some clues to what may be the culprit.
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