How To: Freeze Finder

Same thing happens in UNIX. In FreeBSD, mount a NFS drive from a server. Now shutdown the server. From an Xterm, do a "df -h" or similar command that tries to access the NFS. The Xterm freezes indefinitely, or until the NFS drive is alive again.

Yes, it's very annoying, and yes, I really want it to be fixed...

...but it's not that bad to wait two to three minutes for the Finder to realize the missing network volume ain't coming back, present a dialog box, and let you move on with your work. No lost work, no relaunching all your apps, no reopening your docs... all of which can longer than three minutes anyway.

(If there's some variant that will lock up the system "permanently" until a forced restart, I haven't personally suffered that.)

I second those who point out this is not new. Network shares, including printer shares, have been weak since OS X 10.0. The situation improves a bit with every major revision. If you ever get a dialog offering a choice between disconnecting a share and reconnecting, ALWAYS disconnect.

It must be something wonky deep in a part of the OS nobody wants to touch. Apple keeps whittling away at the problem. I suspect 10.5 will be a bit better, and 10.6 still better ...

I have been irritated by this same problem for so long. However the problem is not just AFP. I just ranted about this:

http://www.anyware.co.uk/2005/2006/10/03/macs-do-freeze-apple-please-improve-mount-handling/

I have seen OS X do the same thing when bad CDs are inserted, and when shared AFP volumes have some corrupt data (I assume - SMB on same remote volume is fine)

Agreed, my external firewire drives are constantly locking up all my macs i've tried it on..

I know an easier solution
Use safari and view a webpage
Beach Ballin for hours.

I HAVE had this happen with SMB shares. Not over wireless, as I don't have a wireless network at work, but with wired, if I forget to disconnect the drive before I pull either the iBook's or the other computer's network cable out.

Fucking pain in the ass.

just pop over to a terminal and sudo umount -f the offending volume works every time. But it is *REALLY* annoying (nfs seems better behaved though)

When I first got my MacBook pro, I mentioned frequent lockups in a blog post. It was days before I figured out that this exact problem was the cause.

Take heart because it may not be your machine causing the problems after all. Several Mac enthusiasts had very rude words for me about said blog post. Apparently if you crash your Mac, the fault lies entirely with the user. Words to live by.

No network required. Drop some 500 to 1000 hi-res images into a folder. Set the folder to icon view, largest size. Copy it from anywhere to the desktop or vice versa. Close your laptop before the new folder has built-up; it never will, now.