Who is sharing?

sgould

sgould

Registered
I'm home alone....

Went to shut down tonight and got this message:


"There are 7 users sharing this computer. If you shut down they will be disconnected".

What's going on. I may have a connection to the laptop upstairs, but nothing else.
 
You have file sharing turned on, or you are actively allowing others to remotely log in to your Mac, or you are sharing your Mac's internet connection - apparently with 7 other users.
Are you saying that you don't know anything about that?

If you go to your Sys Prefs/Sharing pane - what is turned on there?
 
I know nothing of seven others.

My network consists of my desktop which is connected by wire to the Draytek router and my MacBook that is connected by wifi.

The MacBook has Parallels installed and that was running. But I don't use it for the internet.

I got the message whenI shut down last night before going to bed.

On my laptop I have file sharing, printer sharing and bluetooth sharing turned on.
 
You did say that the message was on your desktop, when you went to shut down?
Is that correct?
So, the laptop (MacBook) is simply one of those 7.
Do you have file sharing enabled in your Desktop, too?
Do you NEED any sharing services, other than perhaps printer sharing?

Absolutely, on your desktop, turn OFF all sharing services, except printer sharing, if you need that.

Also, I think you should make sure that no one can connect to your wireless connection, other than what you allow. Any wireless router can block out un-welcome connections, certainly by making sure that security is turned ON (you must supply a password to connect, and you should make sure that the wireless encryption level is at least WPA. WEP, for example, is not a secure connection.

What security level do you have on your Draytek router?
There may be settings in the router to either Allow, or Deny access for specific MAC addresses
So, if you allow your MacBook to connect to the wireless, you then pretty effectively block out anything else on the wireless.
There should also be a DHCP client listing in the router, so you can see by IP address exactly what is connecting to the router.

Finally, do you have other devices, such as XBox, or WII, or other devices such as a so-called Smart TV that also have wireless cards? Do any of THOSE connect to your router, either wirelessly, or through ethernet?
 
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The only things that connect to my Desktop Computer are my MacBook, my iPhone and my wife's iPad. She is 200 miles away at the moment.

The printer is a network printer connected to the router by ethernet. I have Printer Sharing on on the computers, but I probably don't need that if it's not connected to a computer, do I?

File sharing is on. I assumed that this is necessary to allow the laptop to access the desktop files.

Scanner sharing is on on the Desktop. Scanner is connected to the desktop computer, so I am assuming that is needed so that the laptop can use the scanner.

Draytek is running WAP2

Nothing else has a wireless connection that I know of. No smart TV or games consoles in the house.

I'll look at the router and see what the log says. Hadn't thought of that........

The only point of weakness I can think of is the Parallels stuff on the laptop which is running Vista. I only run Vista for a couple of car maintenance manuals. I don't knowingly connect to the internet via Parallels and I have never (knowingly) downloaded anything to Vista from the net.

My Time Machine has started playing up. Now shut down.

The only unusual things I have done recently is to upgrade Aperture and merge the two Aperture libraries on the desktop and the laptop. Did that immediately before this problem. Had to leave both machines on all night, which I don't usually do.

And.... I found that Skype had automatically upgraded on the laptop (only) yesterday. Self upgrade now turned off. Could this have caused it? Laptop only had one user connected last night when shut down. Skype does not auto upgrade on the desktop

I have done four trial startups and shut downs today and no extra users reported.

Thanks for everyone's help so far. :)
 
No "foreign" connections shown on the router log. Just connections from desktop and laptop.
 
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Does your router show a list of assigned connections for the DHCP server? My router, for example, shows a listing by IP address, and device (network) name.

Maybe Skype? I don't know if Skype would hold 5 or 6 connections at once? Even then, checking for open apps (such as those that create their own connections like Skype), and closing those should free you up for an errorless shutdown.

And, it's possible that you don't see anything connected at the moment, because nothing other than your own are connected. (the "rogue" connections have moved on to somewhere else) Check this out in your router if you get the same message again.
 
There's nothing on the router, but that's where I'll go if it happens again.

I'm beginning to suspect the Aperture library merge. Maybe dropped connections or something?

After several years the name of my MacBook has been self generated from e.g."sgould MacBook" up to "sgould MacBook 3". Since yesterday it's gone up to "sgould MacBook 7", but I don't know when that changed, it may be a co-incidence.

Still keeping an eye out, but it all seems normal. And all my money is still in the online bank accounts and the credit card is untouched - so far!
 
I have a WiFi router, password protected. Whenever a guest arrives with a laptop, tablet, etc, he connects - and that connection tends to stay long after the guest has departed. Try power-cycling your router before you try to restart your computer.
 
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