Question: On my MacBook, in the Finder's sidebar there's a machine appearing under "Shared" that I don't recognize and definitely doesn't exist on our local network. When I attempt to connect to it, I get this message:

> 
> The server "otseeley-remote" is available on your computer. Access the volumes and files locally.
> 
> 
> 

What is this and how do I get rid of it? I already checked Disk Utility and there are no extraneous volumes mounted or anything.

EDIT:

Additional information based on the questions below:

* There are only two computers on the network, both running Mac OS X - this MacBook, and my PowerBook. The PowerBook shows up in the source list as a separate item from "otseeley-remote"
* There is no Time Capsule on the network, though I do have a Time Machine drive plugged into the PowerBook (not shared, though)
* No VPN
* One wired printer, connected to the MacBook
* Two other wifi networks other than my own appear in the wifi dropdown, so I suppose it's possible that the mystery machine is on a neighbor's network (though why would it show up in my source list?)

EDIT 2:

The mystery computer shows up on both my MacBook's and PowerBook's source list, but not always at the same time. Sometimes it appears on one and not the other; other times, it appears on both.

EDIT 3:

I have two user accounts on the MacBook and both accounts show the "otseeley-remote" item in the Finder. Not sure if that means anything, but just wanted to add another data point.

Answer: 
The message "The server "otseeley-remote" is available on your computer. Access the volumes and files locally" means that what you're seeing in the sidebar is your own computer, not a different machine... *why* you're seeing it is the real question, and unfortunately I don't have any great answers for you.

More troubleshooting is in order, and if this were shorter I would have posted it as a comment....

[There's a very similar question on SuperUser](https://superuser.com/questions/268380/mysterious-shared-server-with-same-name-appearing-disappearing) which unfortunetly has no answers... if I were you, I would comment on that question and link to this one. That will bump that question and possibly get an answer to it.

[Someone has the exact same issue on MacWorld's forums](http://hintsforums.macworld.com/showthread.php?t=112836) however they never returned to give any more detail or let us know if the problem was solved...

Do you have an Airport Extreme with a drive attached to it? [This person](https://discussions.apple.com/message/13387086?messageID=13387086&tstart=0#13387086?messageID=13387086&tstart=0) and [this person also](http://positivelyglorious.com/software-media/snow-leopard-afp-access-the-volume-and-files-locally/) mentioned seeing the same message with an Airport Extreme device which had an attached USB hard drive.

A lot of people refer to this problem when talking about virtualization software. That was my first thought, but you said you're not using it.

If you turn off your airport card, does the share go away?

If you open the Terminal and type/paste in: `ping -c 5 otseeley-remote.local`, what do you see?

**EDIT:** Let's see if this reveals anything. If you use a program like [Bonjour Browser](http://www.tildesoft.com/), do you see `otseely-remote` under any of the services? (You can expand all the levels of the tree by option-clicking on the topmost disclosure arrow twice)

![Bonjour Browser Screencapture](https://i.stack.imgur.com/zJWdf.png)
I tried all the tricks I could find without success, but eventually solved it with the clue here that the phantom names on the network were "stowaways" on the Airport network.

I had about 8 variations on the name of the Mac Mini on our network: some were names I gave it, some were simply appended numbers to one of the names. All three computers (two Mavericks and one Yosemite) on the network showed the same shared ghost devices. Must be a router storing the names of the phantom computers. I have a FiOS router, plus an Apple Airport Extreme connected to FiOs via ethernet, and also an old Airport Time Capsule for backups only (no wi-fi) daisy chained off the Airport Extreme, so there were three possible culprits.

I unplugged both the FiOs router and the Airport Extreme, waited a minute, then plugged the FiOS router back in; after it was back online, I plugged the Airport Extreme back in. Partial success! Some of the newer ghost names went away, but four of the older ones remained. Must be the old Airport Time Capsule. I unplugged it, waited, then plugged it back in. Success! All the phantom names on the network are now gone from all the computers. This is not a problem that can be fixed locally by changing settings or trashing .plist files.