Fixing File Sharing Following macOS Ventura 13.2 Upgrade

Here at home, I have a Mac mini (2018) running as a file server for the home network. After I upgraded to macOS Ventura 13.2 earlier this week, I realized that I could no longer connect to the file shares on the Mac mini from anywhere. Time Machine didn’t work either.

A quick search on the Internet found several other folks reporting the same problem. I attempted to do the usual steps: turn off file sharing on the server, reboot, re-enable file sharing, and then test. That did not work. I don’t have any file shares configured, as I normally just mount entire drives, which is the default, so there was nothing to recreate there.

I then found a solution from a user named Wade, who posted the following comment.

Ultimately tracked down to the fact that the 3 misbehaving volumes all had custom icons (and corresponding com.apple.FinderInfo xattr)

Source: https://eclecticlight.co/2023/01/23/what-has-changed-in-macos-ventura-13-2/#comment-82720

Sure enough, the drives that I’m having problems mounted all have custom icons, including one of Captain Jean-Luc Picard from Star Trek: The Next Generation.

I performed the following steps.

  • Logged into the Mac mini and removed the custom icons from the two connect drives that were having problems.
  • Disabled file sharing on the Mac mini. (This may not have been necessary, but I didn’t test to see if it worked before doing this.)
  • Re-enabled file sharing.

Once I re-enabled file sharing, I was able to mount my data drive onto my MacBook Pro and access all of my files on it; however, I was unable to get Time Machine working. The ultimate fix there appears to have been one or both of two things.

  • A reboot of the server.
  • Removing the Time Machine destination and recreating it, using tmtuil.

Sadly, I’m not entirely sure which of the two things above did the trick. It might have been one thing or both. Regardless, at this point, I can now mount my remote data drive and Time Machine is backing up my laptop, again.

UPDATE 15 Sep 2023: I haven’t tried to see if the issue has been fixed until last night, when I logged onto the server and added my custom icons back. They seem to work, again. I’m using macOS Ventura 13.5.2, which is the most recent as of today.

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