[Macdizzy]

I am wondering how Apple tests the upgrades before releasing to the public. I just installed 10.3.2, and while I did not see major problems, it did not fix SMB networking for me. I still am not able to see any shared volumes on my XP boxes, and really, I am rather ashamed to see that Apple, for whom I really have high regards, can't seem to fix this simple problem. What puzzles me is how do those so-called developers test the upgrade? How come they are not able to see the problems that so many people are experiencing? What is so difficult about connecting to a windows network and trying to see if the shared servers/volumes/folders appear on the finder window? I did not see these problems in Jaguar, and in fact, I was networking happily with all the windows machines until I upgraded to Panther.

Apple - please get your act together! You are beginning to look/behave like Microsoft! I am getting really tired by all this stupid and silly problems of SMB networking.

[Morenix]

my problem with smb:
after sleep i can't access to any smb share. i have to close all my work and logout.

please apple, fix this. this is serious and do not help the mac reputation on a work environment.

[Nexus5]

You, if you want to and they invite you:

AppleSeed

Nexus5.

[jasong]

yeah, I have this awful problem with Windows networking in Panther . . . it works and I have nothing to complain about on MacNN.

I am not saying you aren't having a problem (you say you are, I believe you), but Apple just isn't able to go to your house/office and test their OS on your personal setup. They tested it on a wide range of Windows networks setups, it works on most of them. The OS goes in the wild, hits the myriad of configurations and something doesn't work and it is hard to figure out what is wrong. That doesn't mean they aren't testing.

Think about it, are there maybe 100 people here complaining about it? Let's be generous, say there are 2000 people here complaining about it. That means less than one percent of Mac OS X users are having this problem. That makes it a pretty rare, and this most likely difficult problem to track down.

-- Jason

[cybergoober]

Originally posted by Nexus5:
You, if you want to and they invite you:

AppleSeed

Nexus5.

Of course they're not looking for any new testers, and haven't for a while it seems…

[SMacTech]

Originally posted by Macdizzy:
What puzzles me is how do those so-called developers test the upgrade? How come they are not able to see the problems that so many people are experiencing?

Us so-called developers test the software with the hardware and resources we have. If it works for us, then we cannot know of the issues without first-hand experience.
I feel bad that you have these problems, but ALL of the OS X boxes I admin work fine with SMB and AFP/IP in our corporate network.
Just so you don't feel chided go and view some of Dell's forums and see what happens with other hardware and OSes.

[wadesworld]

Those expecting every bug to be fixed with every update, or even certain "major" bugs often simply don't understand the process.

Apple has to prioritize what bugs can be fixed. Some may require huge changes to underlying code that have to wait until say, 10.5, scheduled for 24 months from now.

Others may be big bugs, but affect such a small part of the population, they get pushed to the back while smaller bugs that affect a large part of the population are fixed.

Others are things they simply didn't have time to get to.

Others are things are "obvious, serious" bugs that a user reported, but Apple could not duplicate it in their testing.

In short, a lot of things go into it.

And no, I'm not saying that Apple shouldn't do a better job of fixing bugs or that there aren't major bugs which should have been fixed that didn't get fixed.

Wade

[larkost]

Macdizzy: the most likely cause of your problems with SMB is that you don't know one of the many important gotcha's inherent in Microsoft's implementation. A couple of notable ones you could be hanging yourself on:

Your boxes could be on another network segment, in which case you would have to specify a WINS server. This would also happen on a PC.

You could be using an active directory server with a high security setting, and you haven't configured AD on the mac. This would also happen on a PC.

You could have a firewall somewhere that is blocking traffic. This would also happen on a PC.

And I could go on... In general I have found Windows boxes tougher to get onto Windows networks (specifically 95 and 98.. although occasionally NT and Xp run into problems too).

[SMacTech]

If he is trying to connect to a Windows 2003 server, it is a known issue that by default there is a digital signed certificate authentication protocol enabled, which prevents Macs from connecting.

See this link for more information.

[Macdizzy]

OK, granted that there are zillions of you without SMB networking problems. I accept that. What I don't accept is why there is such a huge difference between a previous version (Jaguar) and Panther in this issue.

In my office, I am the lone Mac user and it is absolutely ctitical that I can connect to the network. I don't have much time to troubleshoot and learn the quirks of SMB networking. All I am asking is the same ease of networking as in Jaguar!!!

I am now back to Jaguar 10.2.8 and with absolutely NO problems with networking with all the 98, 2000 and XP boxes. By the way, my machine has no hacks, very clean, running just Office as the only extra software. I don't install lots of programs as other people do as I use the Mac mainly for work, entertainmment, browsing and email only.

I must confess I am no Mac expert (I switched a year ago) and I was attracted to the Mac by the elegance of the machines and the OS as well the acclaimed simplicity and ease of use. Say what you want, there are still some problems with SMB networking, which have yet to be ironed out. I am experiencing it firsthand. Otherwise, why is it OK as soon as I changed back to Jaguar? I have religiously set up everything as before, in workgroup name, sharing, appletalk, accounts etc all of which, I learned the hard way thru Jaguar.

Thanks anyway, for all the feedback. I appreciate it.

[besson3c]

Originally posted by Macdizzy:
OK, granted that there are zillions of you without SMB networking problems. I accept that. What I don't accept is why there is such a huge difference between a previous version (Jaguar) and Panther in this issue.

In my office, I am the lone Mac user and it is absolutely ctitical that I can connect to the network. I don't have much time to troubleshoot and learn the quirks of SMB networking. All I am asking is the same ease of networking as in Jaguar!!!

I am now back to Jaguar 10.2.8 and with absolutely NO problems with networking with all the 98, 2000 and XP boxes. By the way, my machine has no hacks, very clean, running just Office as the only extra software. I don't install lots of programs as other people do as I use the Mac mainly for work, entertainmment, browsing and email only.

I must confess I am no Mac expert (I switched a year ago) and I was attracted to the Mac by the elegance of the machines and the OS as well the acclaimed simplicity and ease of use. Say what you want, there are still some problems with SMB networking, which have yet to be ironed out. I am experiencing it firsthand. Otherwise, why is it OK as soon as I changed back to Jaguar? I have religiously set up everything as before, in workgroup name, sharing, appletalk, accounts etc all of which, I learned the hard way thru Jaguar.

Thanks anyway, for all the feedback. I appreciate it.

Maybe because Panther includes a new version of Samba (version 3, I believe)...

This is going to sound Apple apologist, but let's put this into perspective:

Apple does not write Samba, it is an open source distribution that Apple bundles with their OS and integrates within Aqua. While Apple can be blamed for the decision to bundle Panther with Samba 3, and while ultimately the bottom line is that you are inconvenienced with a problem which occurs through OS X, Apple is not soley responsible for the QA of Samba. They probably don't do much actual Samba coding either, nor is there an alternative to Samba. Perhaps Samba 2 wasn't compatible with the Panther stuff merged from the FreeBSD 5 branch? Technical specifities that don't illuminate much on the here and now, I know.

Again, this sounds extremely apologist, but everybody seems to expect that Apple's magic SSH, rsync, CUPS, ftp, etc. should be problem free and completely void of any security holes, simply because the OS in which they see these services in has an Apple logo.

[Macdizzy]

No, I don't think you sound apologist at all. If there is an issue with Samba (sound like a Brazilian dance to me!), well and good - as long as this is fixed in the next upgrade. Actually, all I (and I am sure, lots of other folks too) need is to have an Apple document somewhere that details what we simple folks have to do to get SMB working once we upgrade. The lack of documentation for such an important issue surely is not acceptable.

I have absolutely no idea of the internal workings of SMB networking and that's what makes it so difficult for me. I have a 15-yr-old Mac expert coming over this weekend to try and resolve this issue for me. Meanwhile, I am happy with my good old Jag. No SMB hassle! But no Expose

[Hans M Aus]

We're also having problems with networking in Panther 10.3.2.

Among others, the AppleTalk zone drops in and out sporadically. We don't have network problems with the Macs running either 10.2.8 or OS9. It's all quite disappointing and frustrating.