MacOS – Repeated errors of “there was a problem connecting to the server”

catalinaerrorfile-sharingmacos

I have been having the following message pop up every few minutes on my Mac for around a year.

There was a problem connecting to the server "***.***.*.*". The server may not exist or it is unavailable at this time. Check the sever name or IP address, check your network connection, and then try again.

The IP address is for an old fileshare that I no longer have access to. So far I have tried every online link I could find but have not been able to get rid of it. Worst case I can just reinstall the OS but would prefer not to do that.

I have checked both my login items as well as my Time Machine disks. I have also checked that I don't have any mapped drives from that share. The drive was only used for files and no programs should be connecting to that drive. The issue persists even when all programs are closed although it doesn't happen for other user accounts on the machine.

Does anyone have any ideas for getting rid of this?

Screenshot of quoted error message above

Best Answer

Try checking your Time Machine settings under System Preferences -> Time Machine. Look for a network disk that you are not using or is not reachable, and delete it. This solved this issue for me.