When I connect to my SMB Linux server by running:


it shows me 2 shared folders and that's normal. I made the first folder working without a password and that's working fine. The second folder is secured and macOS doesn't ask for a password when I choose to connect to that folder and it shows an error message instead:


How do I establish a connection successfully by getting a prompt to provide credentials (as required)?

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    Welcome to Ask Different :) Kindly edit your question and specify the version of macOS that you are running. – Nimesh Neema Apr 14 at 13:07

I would use WireShark to capture the SMB2 packets and see what's happening.

  1. Install home-brew if needed - https://brew.sh
  2. Install wireshark brew cask install wireshark
  3. Get a capture to the IP address of the server going and then filter for SMB2 traffic. You can tip open any responses and see exactly what's happening.

This is much better than just trying another server or another client or trying to look at the Mac console in my experience. If this is overkill, you could open console.app from /Applications/Utilities and see if there are relevant messages / errors at the time when the error is posted to your screen.

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    once I installed WIreshark the connection requires the password then everything became well. I don't know the relation. anyway I'd like to thank you – ASIL Apr 15 at 3:09
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    I can’t say how many times observing the system actually fixes it over my career. Glad it’s sorted @ASIL – bmike Apr 15 at 3:14

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