Troubleshooting

Common Issues & Solutions#

A Share Won’t Mount#

If the application attempts to mount a share but fails:

  1. Network Connectivity: Ensure you are connected to the correct network (or VPN) and the server is reachable.
  2. Authentication Profile: Verify that the assigned Authentication Profile contains the correct, up-to-date password.
  3. Kerberos Tickets: If using a Kerberos profile, open the macOS Terminal and type klist to ensure you have a valid, unexpired Ticket-Granting Ticket (TGT).
  4. NetAuthSysAgent: NetAuthSysAgent is a process in macOS responsible for mounting network shares and handling network authorization. It may display dialogs using NetAuthAgent when necessary. Unfortunately, for many versions of macOS, there has been an issue where the NetAuthSysAgent sometimes gets stuck. This is evident when a mount request is not executed. In this case, the only solution is to run killall NetAuthSysAgent.

Kerberos Share on a DFS Namespace Reports “Invalid Credentials”#

If a Kerberos share uses the domain name instead of a server name (a domain-based DFS namespace such as smb://example.com/shares), mounting can fail with “invalid credentials” although the Kerberos ticket is valid. macOS then requests a ticket for the domain name itself (cifs/example.com), which Active Directory usually does not know. You can check this in Terminal: kgetcred cifs/example.com@EXAMPLE.COM reports the server as unknown.
Solution (macOS 26.5 or later, Macs not bound to Active Directory): Let macOS resolve the DFS namespace through the domain controllers. Create the file ~/Library/Preferences/nsmb.conf with the following content and restart the Mac:

[default]
srv_lookup_enabled=yes

Administrators can roll out this setting for all users as /etc/nsmb.conf (see IT Administrator Guide (MDM)).

Duplicate Name Error#

If you receive a duplicate name error when adding a share, another share is already using that folder name in ~/Networkshares/. Solution: Use the Version 4 custom name feature to assign a unique local name to the new share.

“Profile Assignment Required” Status#

If a share shows this status in the UI, it means it lacks credentials. Solution:

  1. Open Preferences → Network Shares.
  2. Select the affected share and click edit.
  3. Manually assign an Authentication Profile from the dropdown menu.
  4. Click Save Changes.

Advanced Debugging#

For deep IT troubleshooting, Network Share Mounter logs its activity natively to the macOS unified logging system. Open Console.app and filter for the process NetworkShareMounter to view real-time connection logs and error states:
log stream --predicate "subsystem == 'de.fau.rrze.NetworkShareMounter'" --level debug

You can now send logs directly from the application to the developers for troubleshooting:

  1. Open Settings and select General on the left.
  2. Click Diagnostics 5 times in a row.
  3. A new button will appear, allowing you to send diagnostics or log files to the developers of the Network Share Mounter.

Logs of macOS components such as the SMB client can only be included with administrator rights. Without them, only the logs of Network Share Mounter itself are sent.