Some issues were brought to front regarding the blocking of the macOS devices from connecting to CIFS/SMBv1 network shares hosted on Windows servers when using NTLM user credentials.
The macOS users who attempt to access a CIFS or SMBv1 network share from a Windows device after installing a Windows update from June 11, would get an error message which says, “There was a problem connecting to the server ‘{Server Host Name}’. Check the server name or IP address, and then try again. If you continue to have problems, contact your system administrator.”
Both clients and servers of Windows platforms have been affected by the Apple Windows Shares error message, and the list of all the affected Windows platform is long.
The Windows Server, version 1903, Windows Server, version 1809/Windows Server 2019, Windows Server, version 1709, Windows Server 2016, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, and Windows Server 2008 SP2 servers of the respective clients of Windows 10, version 1903, Windows 10, version 1809, Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2019, Windows 10, version 1803, Windows 10, version 1709, Windows 10, version 1703, Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2016, Windows 10, version 1607, Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2015, Windows 8.1, and Windows 7 SP1.
However, Microsoft posted on their blog stating that the issue has been resolved, and Apple’s support website has listed a detailed solution to this problem. Apple addressed the issue as, “macOS Mojave and earlier might not be able to use NTLM credentials to connect to CIFS or SMB1 shares on a server that has received Microsoft Windows Server updates from 11 June 2019 or later.
For the users who are certain that their NTLM credentials which they used to log into the network share are correct can choose to connect to the server using Kerberos authentication. If the Mojave, High Sierra, Sierra, El Capitan, or Yosemite is used for the macOS, the users should use SMB 2 or SMB 3 to connect to the server.
They can do that by going to Go> Connect to Server from the Finder menu bar. From there they have to enter an smb:// address for the server. From there, they have to enable server message block (SMB) signing on the server. However, enabling the signing on the SMB1 server may decrease performance.
