(2) Networked MACS not communicating...

[conmee]

Didn't know about Auto-MDIX, in my 20 years of networking, I never worked with any Macs back then. I went old school with the crossover cable. Could it be a conflict with the Wi-Fi?

View attachment 2633401

I'm old and old school, I didn't know about Auto-MDIX until I started helping OP problem solve in this thread lol.

You may be on to something with Wi-Fi.

@Reesche Try disabling the Wi-Fi adapters on both Mac Pros. Select the Wi-Fi connection in Network Settings and click "Turn Wi-Fi Off" and see if that does anything. Also confirm that the Ethernet connections are at the top of the connection stack by selecting Set Service Order from the Gear Icon.

 

[Allyance]

Follow up please

People have taken the time to offer help and multiple screen shots with arrows and notations, would be nice to know if any of these helped solve your problem.

 

[Reesche]

Sorry it took so long to get back. Here is where we are at NOW.....

Bought the 30 ft long Ethernet cord and there are some things you need to know that are different than we had talked about previously.

After taking out the (2) Ethernet cords out of the carpeting from both machines, I then realized that they were NOT hooked together by one Ethernet cord, they were both plugged into our Motorola WIFI box!

• Richard's Mac Pro 2 is running from the Ethernet port 2 on the back of the Mac Pro 2 to the Motorola (LAN1) input.

• Richard's Mac Pro is running from the Ethernet port 2 on the back of the Mac Pro to the Motorola (LAN3) input.

We hooked up the NEW Ethernet Cable to Richard's Mac Pro 2 and ran it to the WIFI box and there was NO difference.... This machine is not recognizing the other Mac Pro.

Richard's Mac Pro does however, recognize the other machine (Mac Pro 2)

So what now? Is this all a WIFI issue?

Let me know what you guys think.
Reesche

See attached screen shots...

What I see from Mac Pro (2)...

Mac Pro....

 

[Reesche]

Follow up please

People have taken the time to offer help and multiple screen shots with arrows and notations, would be nice to know if any of these helped solve your problem.

YES.... Allyance..... this is still an ongoing issue for me. I am trying as hard as I can to explain my problem with communicating with (2) older MAC PROS.

Please read my last entries to see what is going on. I really appreciate ALL of your responses to my queries. Thank you for all of your ideas!!!

 

[conmee]

Sorry it took so long to get back. Here is where we are at NOW.....

Bought the 30 ft long Ethernet cord and there are some things you need to know that are different than we had talked about previously.

After taking out the (2) Ethernet cords out of the carpeting from both machines, I then realized that they were NOT hooked together by one Ethernet cord, they were both plugged into our Motorola WIFI box!

• Richard's Mac Pro 2 is running from the Ethernet port 2 on the back of the Mac Pro 2 to the Motorola (LAN1) input.

• Richard's Mac Pro is running from the Ethernet port 2 on the back of the Mac Pro to the Motorola (LAN3) input.

We hooked up the NEW Ethernet Cable to Richard's Mac Pro 2 and ran it to the WIFI box and there was NO difference.... This machine is not recognizing the other Mac Pro.

Richard's Mac Pro does however, recognize the other machine (Mac Pro 2)

So what now? Is this all a WIFI issue?

Let me know what you guys think.
Reesche

See attached screen shots...

View attachment 2635129View attachment 2635128

What I see from Mac Pro (2)...
View attachment 2635130

Mac Pro....
View attachment 2635131

Ok, let's start fresh so it's easy to keep track of everything.

#1 - On BOTH Mac Pros, plug the ethernet cable from the Motorola router into the ETHERNET 1 port on each Mac Pro

#2 - On the Motorola router, unplug the Yellow cable to the WiFi Extender (temporarily); plug Richard's Mac Pro into LAN1; plug Richard's Mac Pro (2) into LAN2.

#3 - On both Mac Pros, DISABLE WiFi.

#4 - Turn OFF ETHERNET 2 on BOTH MAC PROs. If you followed earlier instructions the ETHERNET 2 ports on both Mac Pros are currently set to "Manually" - Change to "Off"

#5 - Configure ETHERNET 1 on BOTH MAC PROs using DHCP. The Motorola router will auto-assign IP address, Default Router, and DNS.

If the router is operating properly, each Mac Pro will receive DHCP configuration automatically and both Mac Pros should be able to see each other and reach the Internet. Confirm both machines can open MacRumors for example.

Once you confirm both Mac Pros are able to access the Internet and are seeing each other, you can plug the yellow cable for the WiFi Extender into LAN3 on the router.

Let us know how it goes.

 

[Reesche]

Hello Conmee....Thank you for all of your detailed attention!

I followed your recommendations carefully, and you need to see the attached screen shots below to see how this turned out.

I am sad to say that MP2 is still not show MP.

Take a look at these current screen shots and please let me know what you think. 1-3 MP..........4-5 MP2.
Reesche

MP.....

MP Still not showing up on MP2

 

[Reesche]

One more thing I am noticing..... See attached screen shots.

When you open a hard drive on both computers, MP is showing the "Network" and both machines....when you click on Network on MP, Network is present and displays MP2 and its hard drives.

MP2 does not show any of that information. In theory, It too should have MP and all of it's hard drives.

Is there any settings/preferences for these (2) SIDE BARS?

Just a thought..... any ideas?
Reesche

MacPro......

MP2....

 

[conmee]

O

One more thing I am noticing..... See attached screen shots.

When you open a hard drive on both computers, MP is showing the "Network" and both machines....when you click on Network on MP, Network is present and displays MP2 and its hard drives.

MP2 does not show any of that information. In theory, It too should have MP and all of it's hard drives.

Is there any settings/preferences for these (2) SIDE BARS?

Just a thought..... any ideas?
Reesche

MacPro......

View attachment 2635302

MP2....

View attachment 2635301

It looks like Apple changed some of the Sidebar behavior between El Cap and Mojave. Based on my machines, Mojave displays "Locations" and "Network" as an icon underneath that where you can click and see Network devices. El Cap doesn't have/use/show "Network" in the Finder Sidebar, it has separate "Devices" and "Shared" sections where available network/server resources are listed. We already checked the Finder preferences earlier to make sure all the options are enabled. So I don't think it's a Finder preferences issue.

 

[conmee]

Hello Conmee....Thank you for all of your detailed attention!

I followed your recommendations carefully, and you need to see the attached screen shots below to see how this turned out.

I am sad to say that MP2 is still not show MP.

Take a look at these current screen shots and please let me know what you think. 1-3 MP..........4-5 MP2.
Reesche

MP.....

View attachment 2635286View attachment 2635289View attachment 2635290View attachment 2635288View attachment 2635287 MP Still not showing up on MP2

Ok, I know you don't like the Terminal, but I need you to run ONE COMMAND from Terminal on Richard's Mac Pro (2). Run the command and post a screenshot.

We just want to confirm that Richard's Mac Pro (2) can communicate with Richard's Mac Pro. This will at least tell us the physical link between the older and newer Mac Pros work in both directions.

We can look at firewall and shared settings and routing tables/host files after we confirm ping.

 

[Reesche]

Conmee...... I really appreciate your patience with all of this!!!

Attached is what came up after running your commands in MP2 Terminal.... what do you see? Is this a "Success"?
Reesche

 

[Reesche]

FIREWALL is turned OFF on both machines.

Reesche

 

[conmee]

Conmee...... I really appreciate your patience with all of this!!!

Attached is what came up after running your commands in MP2 Terminal.... what do you see? Is this a "Success"?
Reesche

View attachment 2635345

Yes this is good. So older Mac Pro can ping newer Mac Pro.

Also good that Firewall is turned off on each.

Let's check Sharing. Click on the Sharing icon in System Preferences on both Mac Pros.

Take a screenshot of the Sharing details on each Mac Pro. I want to confirm the network name of each Mac Pro. Also, are any of the services enabled/checkmarked on either Mac Pro?

 

[Reesche]

Conmee.... Attached are the (2) screen shots of what is on the SHARING fields for MP and MP2.

I noticed that Internet Sharing is OFF on MP2 and also Ethernet port is not checked.

Something else I have noticed on MP in the Advanced Network settings Screen shot 1..... Under WINS shouldn't the NetBIOS Name be Richard's Mac Pro ?

Perhaps, the names of the actual computers are varied in different fields.......ex: Richard's Mac Pro (2) VS Richard's Mac Pro 2 ???

Check these screen shots out below and let me know what you think!
Reesche

 

[Allyance]

I think you are on the right track with the sharing. Seeing the picture of the router, the four ethernet ports are just a small switch, shouldn't make any difference which ports are used. Thanks for the update.

 

[Reesche]

Here is an example of different NAMES/LOCATIONS......

#2 screen shot... Way too many Locations with different names.

#3 screen shot... When I changed the Location to Richard's Mac Pro (2) note the not connected message and no IP Address.

 

[conmee]

Conmee.... Attached are the (2) screen shots of what is on the SHARING fields for MP and MP2.

I noticed that Internet Sharing is OFF on MP2 and also Ethernet port is not checked.

Something else I have noticed on MP in the Advanced Network settings Screen shot 1..... Under WINS shouldn't the NetBIOS Name be Richard's Mac Pro ?

Perhaps, the names of the actual computers are varied in different fields.......ex: Richard's Mac Pro (2) VS Richard's Mac Pro 2 ???

Check these screen shots out below and let me know what you think!
Reesche

View attachment 2635356View attachment 2635357
View attachment 2635358View attachment 2635359

#1 - The different location names are used to save different configs - think of them as filenames that store different configs - this does not have to be the name of the Mac Pro. If you want to clean them up, you can delete them all except "Automatic" and then make sure when Automatic is selected that ETHERNET 1 is Using DHCP and ETHERNET 2 and Wi-Fi are Off/Disabled. Both Mac Pros will then list "Automatic" with the proper settings and you won't have a list of alternate location configs. Clicking on Edit Locations from the Location pulldown will let you delete all the additional locations.

#2 - So we keep things the same on both Mac Pros, check/enable "Remote Management" in Sharing on Richard's Mac Pro so it has the same four services enabled as Richard's Mac Pro (2). This shouldn't make a difference, but just to keep things consistent.

#3 - The NetBIOS name is mainly to identify the Mac Pro to Windows devices on the network. The name is restricted to 15 characters and no spaces so you can't use "Richard's Mac Pro" for instance. But just to make sure each machine is uniquely named you can manually change the name to "MACPRO-1" and "MACPRO-2" on each Mac Pro, respectively.

#4 - Don't hate me.... but in addition to updating the NetBIOS field on each Mac Pro, if you can run these four Terminal commands on each Mac Pro we can ensure the computer names are unique and the caches cleared out. You will be asked to enter your password after the first command - it's the same password you use to login to the Mac Pro when you restart it.

On Richard's Mac Pro in a Terminal
sudo scutil --set ComputerName "MACPRO-1"
sudo scutil --set HostName "MACPRO-1"
sudo scutil --set LocalHostName "MACPRO-1"
sudo dscacheutil -flushcache

On Richard's Mac Pro (2) in a Terminal
sudo scutil --set ComputerName "MACPRO-2"
sudo scutil --set HostName "MACPRO-2"
sudo scutil --set LocalHostName "MACPRO-2"
sudo dscacheutil -flushcache

Reboot each Mac Pro after making the changes.

If you run these four commands successfully on each Mac Pro, they should show up in Finder as MACPRO-1 and MACPRO-2. You can rename the computers back to Richard's Mac Pro and Richard's Mac Pro (2) later and without Terminal if that's what you want after we get things working.

 

[Reesche]

TERMINAL #4...... I pull it up and where the gray cursor is I cut and paste all (4) lines Richard's Mac Pro 1 into it.... It asks for my password....I type in my password but I never see it?

Don't know what I am not doing.

So now in Sharing and Network the 2 machines are now named....

Richard's Mac Pro 1

Richard's Mac Pro 2

Let me know what I am not doing.
Reesche

 

[Reesche]

Darn..... Disregard the 2 computer names above. I typed them incorrectly... They are now.....

MACPRO-1

MACPRO-2

I am waiting for you to guide me on the Terminal #4 input.... Thank you again!

 

[conmee]

TERMINAL #4...... I pull it up and where the gray cursor is I cut and paste all (4) lines Richard's Mac Pro 1 into it.... It asks for my password....I type in my password but I never see it?

Don't know what I am not doing.

So now in Sharing and Network the 2 machines are now named....

Richard's Mac Pro 1

Richard's Mac Pro 2

Let me know what I am not doing.
Reesche

If you use cut and paste, only do one command at a time.

Terminal will not show any characters when typing your password. Just type your password and press Return. Then you will be back at the cursor. If the command executes properly you’ll just get a cursor and no message. After the first command the next three shouldn’t ask for the password. When you type them (or cut and paste one at a time) and press Return, you won’t get any message if they execute. It will only give you an error message if you make a typo.

Here's how it should look after you enter in all four commands one at a time. Password will not acknowledge or show any characters. If the commands complete successfully, they will not generate any message. DRT-MOJAVE is my Parallels virtual machine name.

 

[conmee]

Once you are able to successfully execute the four Terminal commands make sure to REBOOT each Mac Pro, see if you are able to see the update MACPRO-1 and MACPRO-2 names in Finder of each Mac Pro.

 

[Reesche]

Actually was able to do ALL 4 of the commands on both machines..... AND rebooted both of the machines.

No difference on MACPRO-2 (the culprit). NO MACPRO-1 listed.

MACPRO-1 is still showing MACPRO-2 and its information Correctly.

I have to go to bed now..... I can not tell you how much I appreciate your help with all of this !!!! I really appreciate all of this Conmee!
NOW.... what's next?

Sleep tight....Reesche

MACPRO-1 info....

MACPRO-2 Side Bar Info

 

[conmee]

Ok. At least now we know both machines are named uniquely, cache cleared, DHCP working, Sharing enabled, and we know that MACPRO-2 can ping MACPRO-1.

#1 - Confirm you can open Safari or any browser on MACPRO-2 and you can access the Internet. Can you open google.com or apple.com? I'll assume yes that MACPRO-2 can access the Internet.

#2 - You don't use a VPN on MACPRO-2 do you? If you do, make sure to turn it off or disable it. I probably should have asked this days ago but VPN never came up in our discussion. I'll assume no that MACPRO-2 does not have VPN.

#3 - Open Terminal on MACPRO-2. This command will list the contents of your hosts file.

cat /etc/hosts

Screenshot your hosts file and post it. There shouldn't be any odd entries. It should look like this.

#4 - Delete the Finder preferences file on MACPRO-2. The easiest way is to use the Terminal. Close Finder. Open Terminal. Issue these two commands one at a time. The second command will ask for your password just like before. It won't show any characters.

cd /Users/RichLeffler/Library/Preferences
sudo rm com.apple.finder.plist

This will delete the Finder preferences file. Then open Finder and confirm all the preferences are selected/active.

If MACPRO-1 still doesn't show up in MACPRO-2's Finder, let's try to at least connect manually.

Open Finder. Press COMMAND+K to open the Connect pop-up. Type smb://MACPRO-1.local in the top field then click Connect. If it works, you will be presented with "You are attempting to connect to the server "MACPRO-1.local" Click Connect to Continue. After you click connect, it will ask you for username and password. Select Connect As: Registered User enter the username and password you use to login to MACPRO-1. If that is successful, you should be presented with a list of volumes to mount. You can mount more than one by holding down the Control key, or just select RichLeffler to mount the home directory, or select HD 1 through HD 4 to mount all the drives from MACPRO-1.

If this manual connection process fails and you cannot successfully connect to MACPRO-1 from MACPRO-2 and you cannot mount any drives, there may be a configuration issue on the router (blocking MACPRO-2 from seeing local shares for some reason) or perhaps something with El Cap no longer works. I'll have to do some Internet searching to see if El Cap exhibits any weirdness with regard to local network shares with newer OS X/macOS versions.

Do you have another Mac you can connect to the router if MACPRO-2 still cannot see or connect to MACPRO-1? Would be interesting to see if another Mojave or newer device can see MACPRO-1 connected to the same router.

 

[Reesche]

You are amazing!

My respones to your questions....in BOLD

#1 - Confirm you can open Safari or any browser on MACPRO-2 and you can access the Internet. Can you open google.com or apple.com? I'll assume yes that MACPRO-2 can access the Internet. YES everything works on 2

#2 - You don't use a VPN on MACPRO-2 do you? If you do, make sure to turn it off or disable it. I probably should have asked this days ago but VPN never came up in our discussion. I'll assume no that MACPRO-2 does not have VPN. No VPN on 2.

#3 - Open Terminal on MACPRO-2. This command will list the contents of your hosts file. No Such File or Directory is all it said. See Terminal screen shot....


Ok. At least now we know both machines are named uniquely, cache cleared, DHCP working, Sharing enabled, and we know that MACPRO-2 can ping MACPRO-1.

#1 - Confirm you can open Safari or any browser on MACPRO-2 and you can access the Internet. Can you open google.com or apple.com? I'll assume yes that MACPRO-2 can access the Internet.

#2 - You don't use a VPN on MACPRO-2 do you? If you do, make sure to turn it off or disable it. I probably should have asked this days ago but VPN never came up in our discussion. I'll assume no that MACPRO-2 does not have VPN.

#3 - Open Terminal on MACPRO-2. This command will list the contents of your hosts file.

cat /etc/hosts

Screenshot your hosts file and post it. There shouldn't be any odd entries. It should look like this.


#4 - Delete the Finder preferences file on MACPRO-2. The easiest way is to use the Terminal. Close Finder. Open Terminal. Issue these two commands one at a time. The second command will ask for your password just like before. It won't show any characters. I entered both of the commands but when it asked for my password, typed it in but it didn't show up and hit enter.... "no such file or directory."

cd /Users/RichLeffler/Library/Preferences
sudo rm com.apple.finder.plist

Then, went to Finder Preference and check both fields. General - all boxes were checked. Side Bar- all boxes were checked.

Connect to Server - In this field it says... smb://Richard's Mac Pro 192.168.0.20 and when I hit the PLUS button, it repeats the information under favorite servers. Option to connect??? not going to do it yet till i hear back from you.

If MACPRO-1 still doesn't show up in MACPRO-2's Finder, let's try to at least connect manually. See the attached screen shots..... Looks like it can NOT find. "Problem connecting to MACPRO-1."

If this manual connection process fails and you cannot successfully connect to MACPRO-1 from MACPRO-2 and you cannot mount any drives, there may be a configuration issue on the router (blocking MACPRO-2 from seeing local shares for some reason) or perhaps something with El Cap no longer works. I'll have to do some Internet searching to see if El Cap exhibits any weirdness with regard to local network shares with newer OS X/macOS versions. I think this is still where we are at.

Do you have another Mac you can connect to the router if MACPRO-2 still cannot see or connect to MACPRO-1? Would be interesting to see if another Mojave or newer device can see MACPRO-1 connected to the same router. Yes we ha ve MAC Laptop with newer OS. What would I need to do and look for on that machine?

Again, thank you so much for your help and time! Let me know where we are at.
reesche

 

[Reesche]

I just booted up our MacBook Pro with Ventura OS..... Under Network on the side bar.... what appeared was MACPRO-2 of all things! I had to sign in to make it happen. MACPRO-1 was not listed.

 

[Reesche]

Here is the screen shot of the MacBook Pro - Ventura .....