SMB Freezes/Locks Up

[bluewhite4]

I've got a couple smb shares to some windows machines, that through a script, connect at login. This all works fine, but at random, the shares will stop showing the files on the other computers. I also can't "eject" the shares. If I happen to have a document or app open that reference something on one of those shares, it still works and I can save, but can't browse to it. This also prevents me from shutting down or restarting, I end up pulling the plug on it.

Anyone else ever see this or have any suggestions? I'm use to using a PC, so forgive this question, is there a way to stop and re-start the smb service?

-Thanks

 

[walnuts]

I connect to shares with samba at my work on my macbook. They generally behave fine, though some apps suffer while using files from the server- particularly microsoft office. Opening and saving can take quite a while.

 

[bluewhite4]

The shares normally work just fine. For example, one of them contains my iTunes library. Its not a small library, but when the shares aren't frozen, I have no problems opening and closing iTunes. But then I'll go to open iTunes, and it will give an error that it can't find the library file, this is usually the first sign that the smb shares, while still listed in finder, won't let me browse any of their files.

 

[ScoobyMcDoo]

My understanding of SAMBA is that since you are just using client services, there is no service to restart - the SAMBA daemon is used if you share files on your computer to Windows boxes.

Is it possible that it is really a lower level networking issue you have? When start seeing this problem, have you tried to ping the windows servers?

Also, you might take a gander at the logs in /var/samba and /var/log/samaba. I never dug though those, so I don't know how useful it will be - just throwing out ideas.

 

[velocityg4]

First off what are the Power Settings on the other machine? Are they set for the computer to go to sleep or power down the hard drives after a while? If either go to sleep it will cause you to lose the connection and from my experience regardless of network activity the PC will go to sleep.

When a connection is loss it though you will not be able to eject immediately. OS X will usually finally accept that the connection was loss and remove the volume from the desktop. This can take quite a while though.

I can give you some general suggestions to improve stability. Depending on your proficiency with configuring your router you may need to first download the manual from your manufacturers support section on there website.

Router Settings
1. If using wireless change channels
2. Update your routers firmware
3. Set Static IP addresses for all computers and devices on your network
4. If using a cheap router which the manufacturer does not make firmware updates nor does it have the ability to set Static IP Addresses by MAC address you may want to consider a better one, say a Netgear or DLink (from what I have seen Linksys does not allow specifying MAC Addresses for its Static IP).

PC's
1. Disable Sleep mode and hard drive sleep or at least set them to long time periods (the monitor can still be set to sleep)
2. If using a third party firewall make sure your network's IP Range is seen as a trusted connection