How to fix AFP where some users connect after 4 minutes and others never connect (spinning progress bar and no authentication dialog)? I am having an issue for multiple (but not all) users whereby AFP connections are taking 4+ minutes to connect to the share. Some never connect. The spinning progress bar sits there but no auth window appears. So far I have:


Tested the network cable in a MBP which could connect instantly with correct credentials. 
Power cycle 
Ping AFP share - working 
Ping server IP - working 
Check DNS, added manually 
PRAM reset 
Tried connection over SMB and NFS, SMB would bring up the Auth window slightly faster but still a good 4 min wait 
Created new local user account which was able to connect to the share instantly 


Dumped network settings and location, which produced a strange result; with the AFP connection pending, ditching the Ethernet 2 interface in Network Settings brought about the connection. Upon ejecting the share and restarting the connection however, the same wait followed. Recreating the Ethernet 2 interface and dumping it again brings about the connection.  

Pulling the cable out (with Airport off) brings up the authentication window instantly.

We have restarted the AFP server and all switches.

We have swapped out the Cat5e cabling between the AFP server and the switches.

It appears that all the machines are on 10.7.4.

I have read some posts on Google about NetAuthAgent maxing out CPU cycles, I am going to test the offending machines for that now.

How can I fix an issue with AFP where some users connect after 4 minutes and others never connect (spinning progress bar and no authentication dialog)?
Yup, we saw the same exact symptoms, only on 10.7.4 machines, and after some digging, it appears to be a preference file causing this behavior.

Backup then delete the following:

 ~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist


and

 ~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist.lockfile


then reboot.

See the following link for more info:

http://derflounder.wordpress.com/2012/08/03/odd-afp-and-smb-connection-problem-caused-by-idisk-going-away/

If you delete the files above you'll have to redo your Mouse preferences, and perhaps something else, from scratch, but it was no biggie as far as I could tell.