Disable file and icon previews over network connection inside dialogue boxes?

[eyoungren]

Per the title…

2023 13" M2 MacBook Pro running Sonoma 14.1. Connection is via a VPN using AFP. For background, I was using SMB but the NAS at work had all four hard drives fail in November and it took IT a month to fix. They updated the VPN and now SMB isn't stable when copying to/from Finder, moving files from Finder, etc.

My problem is that inside apps (such as Photoshop, QuarkXPress, Illustrator, etc) when I go to save, save as or open, almost any app I am in wants to update files and folders and fetch icon previews over the network. It can take a few moments before I can actually save or open a file while all this updating/fetching is going on.

I was able to disable it on my side with SMB, but I can't seem to find anything for AFP.

To clarify (hopefully), I am not talking about icon or file previews in Finder. All that stuff is already disabled. I just can't seem to disable it within Open/Save dialogue boxes.

Is this possible or am I stuck with it?

PS. I do not administer the NAS at work, so any changes have to be client side (my Mac).

 

[eyoungren]

Coming back to answer my own post and perhaps help someone else.

While searching for a solution for a different problem, I found what I believe is an answer, allowing me to go back to SMB connections to the NAS.

So, while I was asking about AFP connections in the above post, that was predicated on still having to work using an AFP connection. This solution seems to have allowed me to return to fully using SMB.

Found here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/MacOS/comments/17jgiyw

In a post by macmaverickk, that user has a solution for SMB issues on the CLIENT side. This is particularly important to me with the work M2 MBA because I can't USE SMB without any instability. And I do not control the NAS at work to make any changes server side.

I've copied and pasted the commands into the M2. This is what those commands do: "This solution disables packet/session signing, caching, and indexing to prevent slowdowns while browsing SMB shares. It also forces SMB v3, enables multichannel connections, and prioritizes Ethernet/Thunderbolt connections over wireless."

The entire post…

Posting this for visibility since Apple has yet to properly implement SMB. Took me years of trial and error to come up with this catch-all solution which has been tested and works flawlessly on Mojave, Catalina, Big Sur, Monterey, Ventura, and Sonoma. This solution disables packet/session signing, caching, and indexing to prevent slowdowns while browsing SMB shares. It also forces SMB v3, enables multichannel connections, and prioritizes Ethernet/Thunderbolt connections over wireless.

If the server is a Mac, you will want to turn off packet signing on it. With file sharing off, run this command and then restart the server:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.smb.server SigningRequired -bool FALSE

On all clients, open Terminal, type sudo su, enter your password and press return, then copy/paste the entire text below:

rm /private/etc/nsmb.conf; echo "[default]" >> /etc/nsmb.conf; echo "signing_required=no" >> /etc/nsmb.conf; echo "streams=yes" >> /etc/nsmb.conf; echo "notify_off=yes" >> /etc/nsmb.conf; echo "port445=no_netbios" >> /etc/nsmb.conf; echo "soft=yes" >> /etc/nsmb.conf; echo "dir_cache_max_cnt=0" >> /etc/nsmb.conf; echo "dir_cache_max=0" >> /etc/nsmb.conf; echo "dir_cache_off=yes" >> /etc/nsmb.conf; echo "protocol_vers_map=4" >> /etc/nsmb.conf; echo "validate_neg_off=yes" >> /etc/nsmb.conf; echo "mc_on=yes" >> /etc/nsmb.conf; echo "mc_prefer_wired=yes" >> /etc/nsmb.conf; defaults write com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteNetworkStores -bool TRUE; exit

That’s it. Enjoy your unthrottled, highly reliable SMB connections on macOS!

The solution writes an nsmb.conf file which configures your SMB connection. Be warned that this will force SMB3 period. No more SMB1/2 connections. You can't even force it by using CIFS to connect via Finder. After the terminal commands, restart.

So far this seems to have solved stability issues and file preview issues for my M2 Mac. Going to keep testing.

 

[svenmany]

It's probably worth noting that "/private/etc/nsmb.conf" and "/etc/nsmb.conf" are the same file. "/etc" is a symbolic link to "/private/etc". That means that the code which writes the nsmb.conf file starts by deleting it. So, if someone already has that file and it has some other content, that would be lost.

 

[eyoungren]

It's probably worth noting that "/private/etc/nsmb.conf" and "/etc/nsmb.conf" are the same file. "/etc" is a symbolic link to "/private/etc". That means that the code which writes the nsmb.conf file starts by deleting it. So, if someone already has that file and it has some other content, that would be lost.

Thanks for that. In my case, I never had either file - on all my personal Macs and on both work Macs that I was issued. There was an early attempt by me last year on the work M2 to create a nsmb.conf file, but it was minimal and didn't solve the problem. It also created a different problem, so was deleted well before this.

 

[Evil Lair]

Did you ever find a solution to the original question of disabling icon previews? I've wanted and searched for this for many years and always came to the conclusion it's not possible. Even when working off a thunderbolt SSD if it's a folder with a lot of images it can add delays and pointless disk activity, all to create ultra tiny illegible icons. And of course working off of a network share its even slower. I don't know, maybe this is something Adobe could control since their dialogs are already so custom and Apple doesn't seem interested in giving us options.