Updated Solution to OSX 10.11.5 SMB error -36

Just thought I would post up to let everyone know that this is definitely a SMB problem with the latest OSX version.

Problem: copying files to the Cloud device will end up with a long preparing to copy message and an error -36 message at the end. Smaller files may get copied but large files gets an error. No problems with reading a file/copying a file from the cloud to your mac.

The solution is to use afp or cifs instead.

Thus in selecting Go → Connect to Server or command k,

type in afp://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx replace xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx with your ip number of your cloud
eg. afp://192.168.0.15

or

cifs://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
eg. cifs://192.168.0.15

SMB has always been a slight problem with the mac especially with very very large directories that contains thousands of files. Under SMB it can take up to a half hour to read 10,000 entries where-as afp will read a 10,000 directory in about a minute.

Although afp may be quick in reading the directory it is about 20-40% slower in copying a file.

For now, until Apple releases another update we are stuck with afp. Be sure to head to the Apple forums to complain about this.

1 Like

Thank you for sharing. Hopefully this information will be able to assist other users in need.

@Trancer Thank you for bumping…

Well it seems that Apple still hasn’t posted up a fix yet but here is the Apple Thread where you can whine about it.

El Capitan 10.11.5 update SMB slow (bug) <=== click here

edit: just did a speed test and it is just a tad slower than SMB. With SMB we get around 40MB/s writes and 80MB/s reads, with AFP we get around 32MB/s writes and 72MB/s reads but adequate for daily use.

So Seth Goldin on the Apple forum has gave us a solution but I think WD might need to investigate this signing business.

Here is a direct link to Seth Goldin post https://discussions.apple.com/message/30287193#30287193

and here is my step by step procedure on a Mac

  1. start up terminal
  2. cd /etc
  3. sudo vim nsmb.conf
  4. type in your password
  5. while in edit press the letter i for insert
  6. copy and paste the following text
    [default]
    signing_required=no
  7. hit esc, then the colon : to get to the command line, then type wq [enter]
  8. reboot your mac
  9. now a standard mapping of SMB will work as before.