I have an access issue with Monterey

[rbpeirce]

I have Monterey on my MBP. Last night I updated my wife's MBP to Monterey. I can access her machine over the network. She can't access mine. She can connect to my machine but none of my directories or attached drives are accessible. She can see them but she can't open them. There is a wrong setting somewhere but I can't find it.

 

[rbpeirce]

I believe the problem is with my computer. I could always access my other computers even tho they were running Mavericks but I couldn't access mine from them. I thought it had to do with 32 vs 64 bit. However, now that my wife also has Monterey I find I can access it from my Mavericks and my Monterey machines. So something is set wrong on my machine.

 

[rbpeirce]

More info. I can access my home directory from the Mavericks machine and my wife's Monterey machine and I can see the directory list but I can't access any of the directories. As far as attached drives I can see they are there but I can't access them.

 

[MacInWin]

Check with System Preferences/Sharing and make sure there is a check beside "File sharing" and anything else you want to share. Click the Lock icon to open the options, then click the "+" below the "Shared Folders" window and add whatever folders you want to share. Sharing will share both the named folder and all subfolders within it, so you don't need to go all the way through the folder to add everything. Note the name of the computer at the top of the panel as that is the name you should see in Finder when you click on "Network" to get access.

 

[rbpeirce]

Partial thanks. The list of accessible directories was empty. I never thought about putting anything there. However, I added a connected drive to the list and was not able to access that. Is it possible and if so what do I need to do?

 

[MacInWin]

Partial thanks. The list of accessible directories was empty. I never thought about putting anything there. However, I added a connected drive to the list and was not able to access that. Is it possible and if so what do I need to do?

Is what possible? I don't understand that question, sorry.

To access a shared folder, open Finder, click on the Locations in the left sidebar to open the list of available locations. One should be "Network" for you. Click on that and the shared drive should appear. Click on it to mount it.

Here is a screenshot of the "Locations" item in the sidebar.



Note the ">" caret that is visible. It is only there if the mouse cursor is over the line with "Locations." Click on it to open the list of locations. What will open up is a list of all external drives and attached devices. Here is another shot from my system:


All four of these are in the network. "Movie Server" and "WDMyCloud" are network attached dedicated devices. "Kitchen" is a Mac mini that is located in our kitchen and which serves as a central server and home automation center for both of us. "Network" is the way to open up to see everything shared in the local network.

 

[rbpeirce]

I spoke too soon. I didn't need to fill in allowable directories to access them. I was able to access everything actually on the other MBP leaving the access table blank. The problem is most directories open immediately but some directories beginning with the letter 'D' don't want to open at all, yet some do! I have no idea what is going on there but it is really strange.

As far as attached drives, I have small USB3 drives mounted on my MBP. When I connect to my MBP from another MBP, I can access Macintosh HD and anything below it. However, the drives show but cannot be accessed. I don't know what to do to make them accessible from another computer.

 

[MacInWin]

Add them to the window, as I said. Then they should appear.

I have no idea why the "D" directories aren't visible. That is really strange. Maybe if you DO put the folder in the window it will appear?

 

[rbpeirce]

Add them to the window, as I said. Then they should appear.

I have no idea why the "D" directories aren't visible. That is really strange. Maybe if you DO put the folder in the window it will appear?

Adding them didn't work. These are not "network" attached. They are attached to my MBP. The other computers can see them but not access them. Listing them doesn't help. Interestingly they can be accessed with Screen Sharing. I don't know how that is different.

I also tried adding a 'D' directory to the list. It didn't help. Further, I can access 'D' directories on Mavericks from Monterey, but I can't access 'D' directories on Monterey from anything. I tried from my mini running Mavericks and I tried both ways on my MBPs running Monterey. This is a very peculiar thing. I wonder if it has been documented anywhere?

 

[MacInWin]

Yes, I understand the attachment. I have a mini with a RAID drive directly attached to it. Then the mini is set to share that drive on the network. That is the "Kitchen" in my images. If I click on "Kitchen," I see the drive. The reason "network" is used is that you get to the drive (that is attached to the Mac by USB) is through the network.

Screen sharing shares the screen, and I would bet that on that screen on the desktop the drive is being shown, which then can be seen, but you haven't authorized sharing the drive itself. All of that is logical.

The "D" is, I think, a red herring at this point. Focus for now on getting the drive visible and the "D" issue can be addressed later.

And just to be clear (and sure), the drive you want to share is attached to a machine. It is on THAT machine that you set that drive to be shared. You cannot "force" sharing on a drive from a different machine than the one to which it is connected.

 

[rbpeirce]

Yes, I understand the attachment. I have a mini with a RAID drive directly attached to it. Then the mini is set to share that drive on the network. That is the "Kitchen" in my images. If I click on "Kitchen," I see the drive. The reason "network" is used is that you get to the drive (that is attached to the Mac by USB) is through the network.

Yes. I have a raid array attached to a mini but it still runs Mavericks and I have zero problem accessing it. I never had to do anything special except I used to use if for time machine backups on my old Mavericks machine and I couldn't figure out a way to do that with Monterey. It still uses the old file structure.

The key now is how did you "set" the mini to "share" the drive on the network? I've not done anything special with my drives and I don't really know what I need to do. Also, the "drive" I need to share is actually a partition on the physical device. My MBP sees it as a logical drive not a physical drive, if those old terms still mean anything.

 

[MacInWin]

My mini is ruling Monterey. I did what I told you to do. I went to SysPrefs/Sharing, unlocked it, turned on File Sharing, dragged the drive to the "Shared Folders" window, and closed SysPrefs. It's visible to all of the other Macs in the network.

Maybe it would help to have a screenshot of Disk Utility showing this drive. I don't think the fact it is not an actual physical drive makes a difference, but it does have to be mounted on the host machine to be visible to the network. And that last bit you added is a new wrinkle.

 

[rbpeirce]

My mini is ruling Monterey. I did what I told you to do. I went to SysPrefs/Sharing, unlocked it, turned on File Sharing, dragged the drive to the "Shared Folders" window, and closed SysPrefs. It's visible to all of the other Macs in the network.

Maybe it would help to have a screenshot of Disk Utility showing this drive. I don't think the fact it is not an actual physical drive makes a difference, but it does have to be mounted on the host machine to be visible to the network. And that last bit you added is a new wrinkle.

I already did what you suggested. My drive is visible as well but it can't be accessed. It shows up as a blue file folder. I have no idea what I'm missing.
I'm attaching the output from disk utility. The important physical drive is Seagate BUP BK Media. It has three partitions [containers] and one of the partitions has two sub-containers.

I pasted the wrong shot first and don't know how to remove it.

BTW, I am aware Apple doesn't like you to use partitions for Time Machine backups but I've been doing it for years without any problems

 

[rbpeirce]

I need to test this later but I'm beginning to think the problem is with my M1 MBP not Monterey. My wife's MBP is Intel so I'm gong to hang one of my drives on it to find out if I can see it. If I can I will then have to determine if this is a general problem or specific to my computer.

 

[rbpeirce]

Solved.

Monterey has much stricter security. For example, beside the attached drives, I could not access User/Desktop, Documents or Downloads. The fix turns out to be very easy, once somebody tells you about it.

In Security Preferences Privacy you have to add /usr/sbin/smbd to Full Disk Access. You get that by using CMD-SHIFT-G and typing in the path.

After that you can access the closed directories and the attached drives. Fantastic but I don't know how people are able to find out about this stuff.

 

[MacInWin]

Dang! I knew that and should have mentioned it. Sorry about that. But I'm kind of surprised that smb didn't tell you it needs access. Every time I try something that needs increased access I get a message to that effect. Oh, well, glad you got it sorted out.

 

[rbpeirce]

Dang! I knew that and should have mentioned it. Sorry about that. But I'm kind of surprised that smb didn't tell you it needs access. Every time I try something that needs increased access I get a message to that effect. Oh, well, glad you got it sorted out.

Never got a message from anything. I wonder why? It might have solved a lot of headaches.