Leopard stops connecting to Windows AFP Server

If your new OS X Leopard balks at making an AFP connection to a Windows 2000/2003 Server running File Services for Macintosh, that’s probably because Leopard no longer will allow sending passwords in clear text to a file server. And not only that, but the option to allow sending the password in clear text has been removed from the Connect to Server dialog box. Isn’t that convenient?

But thanks to an article on macosxhints.com I’ve found the fix: The simplest thing to do is enter two commands at a command/terminal prompt. The more in depth fix is to install the developer tools and edit the ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.AppleShareClient.plist file. The terminal commands are pretty painless:

That’s all you have to do. Now you can connect without a hitch again, so back to work!

SOLVED: OS X 10.4.9 AFP error -35

If you are trying to connect to an AFP share on a Windows server using OS X 10.4.9 and are getting an error that looks like this:

Error -35: One or more required items cannot be found

then I have some good news and some bad news for you.

First, the bad news: It appears that some of Apple’s updates have broken AFP and SSH. This is due to some problems with the updated Kerberos (encrypting) code used by both network protocols. There may be a way to roll back the update using a combination of a downloaded update and a package extractor like Pacifist. Good luck with that.

But now for the good news: If you are the network administrator of the Windows server (or know the administrator) there is a change in the file sharing settings that will enable you to connect again with a Mac.

First, right click on “My Computer” and select “Manage”. On the left side, right click on “Shared Folders” and select the option “Configure File Server for Macintosh” (see image below).

On the next dialog box, change the authentication method to include “Apple Clear Text or Microsoft” (see image below).

Now your OS X clients should be able to connect without the error anymore!