Win server shares keeps disconnecting

Philgr said:

I have a house full of iMacs and a MBP, and I have a win server box in the loft with all my media on, I can connect to this server no problem but it keeps dropping the connection to shared folders and disappearing from finder in mavericks

And pointers for how to maintain a more reliable and stable connection to this server

Thanks in advance

Phil G

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You are connecting via SMB correct?

I assume they are connecting via a wifi AP.
Connect via ethernet cable to a switch and verify the problem still occurs

Run a prolonged ping to the server to determine whether or not you're dropping packets. Then you'll know if it's a network issue or if it's a configuration issue.

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Follow-up:

I too have a Windows box as my home media server, and sometimes after some dormant time passes, or after I reboot my iMac, the server isn't in the finder sidebar. I have to go up to "Go -> Connect to Server" to connect to it. I've stored the server there in that connection dialog so I don't have to type it in every time. I'm not sure if you're referring to this, or if you're saying that you can be in the middle of working with the server and your connection drops.

If it's the former, then I do think there is a timeout period where the SMB connection drops and you have to re-establish. I've saved my credentials for the windows box in keychain, but I can still tell when it's having to re-establish that connection after some time has passed. I'm sure there are ways to keep that going, and I know you can go to the login section of your user preferences and tell OSX to connect to the server when you first log in.

If it's the latter, then do the ping test & prepare for a possible reconfiguration of your network infrastructure. If you have low wifi connectivity then you may need to bolster it or run ethernet wire.

Due to the very nature of Windows, TCP, and timeouts - this is bound to happen.

We need some more information in the sense that, are you mapping them as shared drives, or are you simply connecting via the side bar (which is a different thing)..

If the latter, (or the former), still need more info.

Philgr said:

Thought i would revisit this thread



Anyway last week i decided to change direction and i wiped the Win 2012 R2 server OS and replaced it with XPEnology (Synology OS) and so far the network is rock solid, fast with no drops at all, i have a feeling it was an issue with the windows server config

PG

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I never heard of XPEnology, very interesting. I am curious why you picked the XPEnology OS over linux or free NAS?

There is a default disconnect timer in windows servers

Here is an article describing the default disconnect of Windows Server shares.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/297684

Not sure if this is what you are experiencing.

charlyham said:

Here is an article describing the default disconnect of Windows Server shares.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/297684

Not sure if this is what you are experiencing.

Click to expand...

The disconnect is on Mac machines, not on windows based machines. The windows machine is the server

dimme said:

I never heard of XPEnology, very interesting. I am curious why you picked the XPEnology OS over linux or free NAS?

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It's a ripoff of Synology's excellent DS OS. My guess it's as stable as a Hackintosh.

blueroom said:

It's a ripoff of Synology's excellent DS OS. My guess it's as stable as a Hackintosh.

Click to expand...

Hack's can be pretty damn stable

I am in love with Synolofy DS though.

Same Issue Here. I'm Trying the Registry Fix Will Advise on Outcome

I've had the same issue going on for as long as I've owned Mac computers. I dropped a shortcut into the Dock, and find that the folder changes appearance when the connection drops.

I run Windows Server 2008r2 Standard Edition, which has the registry key already installed, with a disconnect value of F, which is 15 minutes in hex. The Microsoft knowledge base article recommends FFFFFFFF, which is hex for 4294967295 minutes or 8171 years.

I will follow up with an update so everyone can see what I've learned.

The Registry Fix Solved The Problem!

53 hours have elapsed, and during that time I have not needed to reconnect my Mavericks 10.9.3 client to my Windows 2008r2 server.

So, it appears that the registry "fix" solved the "Drop" problem.

Having said that, I haven't tested for potential server connection resource exhaustion due to excessive stale sessions that may or may not be automatically closed by the server's resource management processes.

In my case, with only a few computers connecting to my server, that would probably never be an issue to reach critical mass. But, in an enterprise setting, it would be prudent to test for occurrence of stale sessions, and either tune the disconnect value to a real-world figure (not the FFFFFFFF recommended in the Microsoft KB article), to maintain connections for a reasonable period, but not the virtually indefinite period that Microsoft suggests, or manually track and close stale sessions.

Doesn't this sound a lot like managing a DHCP scope on an over-populated network with a lot of transient users?

Hello all. I'm glad I found this thread because I have a similar set up and I'm also a Mac newbie, so I'm looking for help.

In my house, I have a Windows Server 2012 R2 Essential set up that hosts all my photo, videos, media on various shared folders. We just got our first Mac yesterday (Mac Mini) and I'm trying to configure it so it can see the various shared folders on the windows server.

I did find a way to connect to a server via SMB but I'm not sure if that's the right way to do it. In Windows, I would mount a drive to each shared folder that I want and assign it a drive letter. P:\ for photos, V:\ for videos, etc. Since in Mac, there's no drives to assign, I'm kind of at a lost as to how to set things up. What I want in the end is for the user to be able to access those shared drives by opening Finder and seeing it listed on the left side.

Can someone point me to instructions/tutorial or explain what the proper way to achieve this?

And thanks Sleepwalker65 for posting about the registry fix. Once I get things set up properly I will have to check if the shares are being dropped when the Mac is idle.