Ostyman's Rumblings

This is the second time this has happened to me, so I wanted to record a solution that doesn’t require a reboot that took me quite a while to find.

Here’s what happens:

So you’ve been happily connecting to SMB shares via the Finder using smb://my.server.egg¹, when all of sudden, it tells you it can’t connect to the server anymore. The rude little git doesn’t even ask you for your credentials; it simply tells you to get bent.

If you look in Console.app (which I *highly* recommend when your Mac is Acting Weird), you’ll see something like this:

1/18/12 4:04:36 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/NetAuthAgent.app/Contents/MacOS/NetAuthAgent[12396] smb_mount: mount failed to my.server.egg/Share : syserr = Broken pipe

Last time this happened, I think I fixed it by restarting my MacBook. But that’s SO MUCH WORK, so instead I spent a good 1/2 hour² finding a means to beat the system and fix it without reboot.

All you need to do is find the NetAuthAgent process (via ps in Terminal or in Activity Monitor) and KILL IT WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE.

Voilà!

Many thanks to the nice folks at the linked blog for putting this solution out there.

¹ The .egg TLD was founded by the venerable Homestar Runner.
² Don’t talk to be about cost-benefit analysis. I’m not going to listen, and that’s not the point.