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macOS Sequoia LAN is totally unstable!

I've been having disconnection issues on SSH, VNC and SMB, since I installed macOS Sequoia, to the point that I couldn't keep an SSH connection up for over 5 minutes! In the beginning I thought it was just SSH, so I was trying different settings, different MTU which made it a bit more stable, I even downloaded a version of the SSH client that uses OpenSSL instead of LibreSSL that the macOS is using, but I was getting disconnections with corrupted packets of a huge random 32bit number invalid length. I was using a Realtek ethernet adapter, so I tried eleven different ones without success. I even dug out my old Apple Thunderbolt 2 to ethernet adapter, combined with a Thunderbolt 2 to 3 adapter, which showed a better behaviour on SSH. Using WireShark to capture the connections when they were failing didn't help, since the invalid packet length number wasn't anywhere to be found in the packet itself, as it was most likely on the SSH application layer, and thus encrypted.

However when I was trying to do a tar backup of 4TB SSD on my Synology NAS, the NAS kept disconnecting anytime from 10min to 120min randomly, completely destroying my backup and having to start it over. VNC connections on my Raspberry Pi weren't any different than the SSH.

I thought it was planned obsolescence for my 2019 Intel Core i9 MacBook Pro, but I've heard from others having M2 MacBooks having similar issues.

Is there any suggested solution?




MacBook Pro 16″

Posted on Oct 3, 2024 11:09 PM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Oct 19, 2024 9:08 AM

It's not just SMB. My brand-new shared-over-afp NAS keeps disconnecting mid Time Machine backup. I've been seeing strange disconnections in ssh, and even acquiring an IP address by DHCP has been dodgy.

22 replies

Oct 6, 2024 11:04 AM in response to skesinis

There is clearly an SMB issue going on as I've had similar experiences with SMB related disconnects trying to run previously working Time Machine backups to my Synology, 15.01 is clearly at fault. I had SMB issues (disconnects/Finder crashes) on Mac OS 14, but this only occurred when I had Time Machine running a backup while also transferring files to my Synology.



[Edited by Moderator]



Oct 13, 2024 10:19 PM in response to etresoft

etresoft wrote:

Here are some things to try:

1) Make sure System Settings > WiFi > Private WiFi Address is set to "fixed"
2) Make sure you aren't running any kind of firewall or network filter.
3) Make sure you aren't running any kind of 3rd party "security" or "privacy" app
4) Go through #2 and #3 again. Yes. "Little Snitch" belongs in this category too.

and as of today
5) Update to Sequoia 15.0.1. Supposedly it works better with some of those 3rd party security apps.

Edit: totally spaced this out
2a) Make sure you aren't running any kind of VPN. Some of them work. Some of them don't.

Suggest that you do NOT update to Sequoia 15.0.1 it has spread these problems to droves of users who weren't having them before. 15.0.1 will not keep stable network connections with the firewall enabled. It may have something to do with running Little Snitch at the same time - if you have Little Snitch properly configured, you don't need the Apple firewall. Suggesting people run without any firewall at all, or without their security apps, is TERRIBLE advice. ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE.

Oct 19, 2024 3:16 AM in response to skesinis

Hi,

I faced the issue with the lan access from the apps that aren't of Apple, for example Chrome, Termius (ssh, sftp client) and so on.

In particular I get problems when I try to access in HTTPS or SSH to a local resources like Raspberry, internet router or switch.

To temporary resolv the issue (when it appear), I have to deactivate and reactivate one app from the lan access from system setting -> privacy and security -> Local Network (I hope those are the right names of the menu, I'm not have the engligh language on my mac).

With Safari or terminal I can access to local resources in HTTPS or SSH without any problem.

I think the problems are due to the Network Access feature that it doesn't works right.


[Edited by Moderator]


Oct 4, 2024 10:08 AM in response to skesinis

Here are some things to try:


1) Make sure System Settings > WiFi > Private WiFi Address is set to "fixed"

2) Make sure you aren't running any kind of firewall or network filter.

3) Make sure you aren't running any kind of 3rd party "security" or "privacy" app

4) Go through #2 and #3 again. Yes. "Little Snitch" belongs in this category too.


and as of today

5) Update to Sequoia 15.0.1. Supposedly it works better with some of those 3rd party security apps.


Edit: totally spaced this out

2a) Make sure you aren't running any kind of VPN. Some of them work. Some of them don't.

Oct 5, 2024 12:01 PM in response to D3vildog76

D3vildog76 wrote:

@etresoft while help, is helpful you're prescribing level 1 support concepts to a (original issue) poster that is level 3 all day long.

I have no idea what you are talking about with level 1s and level 3s.


Many people are having general networking problems with Sequoia. In this situation, anyone having such problems must confirm that they have gone through all of those steps. Otherwise, any attempts to help or any further attempts to diagnose the problem are a total waste of time for everyone.


These networking problems affect all protocols. They absolutely must be eliminated before discussing a notoriously complicated protocol like SMB.


As far as SMB goes, I have no idea what people are doing when they report problems with Sonoma or Sequoia. In every case, they always claims it was perfect before the upgrade. But I've used Mac networking with SMB and I know that is has always been far, far from perfect.

Oct 15, 2024 5:00 PM in response to etresoft

The OP does not appear to be using WiFi, but rather wired Ethernet. Does the WiFi setting mentioned at (1) have some effect on Ethernet networking too? I didn't see a "Private WiFi Address" option when I looked just now, but perhaps that's because I have WiFi on but not connected (on for location services, not connected because of Ethernet). Doesn't appear to be a "Private" option for Network > Ethernet either.

Oct 17, 2024 5:59 PM in response to skesinis

Edit: The SMB issues I had with my Synology NAS were coincidental: I have 2x 1TB SSDs in RAID1 for caching and one of them was failing, so it was taking too long to write/respond back, making the SMB connection to timeout when I was copying files. I replaced both of them with new ones, and now that's fixed.

Running an rsync/copy over SMB works fine without any trouble.


However if I try to do an rsync over ssh, or just connect over ssh to the NAS and run a command which would print a lot on the terminal, like a find command on the shared folder, it keeps disconnecting with the same error: bad packet length, followed by a large 32bit integer, close to 3/4billion, and as I mentioned on my first post, I couldn't find this number in the tcp packet using wireshark/tcpdump, because it's most likely on the ssh application layer.

My connection is ethernet, and I have the same issues when I use my MacBook Pro even at work.

I have some 3rd party network filters which are needed for work (Cisco AnyConnect VPN, SentinelONE), but I never had issues before upgrading to Sequoia.


Oct 17, 2024 10:45 PM in response to skesinis

It looks like it's been fixed in yesterday's update (17/10/2024), but you may want to wait until 15.1 is out. I had it though from the very beginning of installing Sequoia, so it wasn't related to a release which I wouldn't want to mention here (other than the date), if I don't want my response to be automatically deleted.

Oct 20, 2024 3:57 PM in response to CaptainProtonMontreal

Update on my above situation. As suggested by many in this thread, uninstalling Little Snitch restored networking and allowed me to complete Time Machine backups to NAS. Reinstalled Little Snitch as a test: all the issues returned. I haven't tried keeping Little Snitch + disabling MacOS firewall yet... I'll wait for 15.1 before trying that.


From what I gather this is happening at a very low-level of the network stack (probably the transport layer), affecting wired and WiFi networking.

macOS Sequoia LAN is totally unstable!

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