Linux Mint: SMB transfer stalls when copying multiple files over network

User z120pi on the Linux Mint forums had the following problem:

I have my IBM T-43 running Mint 14 networked with my Windows 8 machine and cannot transfer more than one file at a time from Win 8 to Linux. When I try to copy a group of files or a folder with more than one file from the Windows machine the first file makes it through but then the transfer stalls. The progress bar freezes and nothing further happens even if I try to abort the transfer. The second file appears to show up at the destination but it has zero size. The only way I have found to recover is to kill the process. This problem happens with both wireless and wired network connections. File size doesn’t seem to matter – a single huge file copies just fine. If use my Windows machine to copy a group of files from the Linux machine to Windows the transfer works fine as well. An suggestions?

We encountered this problem as well, when running LMDE 201403 with all updates, Cinnamon v2.0.14, and setting up a network transfer with a Windows machine.  Copying the first few files from an SMB (Server Message Block, often accessed via a Samba client) drive would work fine, but then the transfer would hang in the same manner as described above.

We found that the problem disappears if you mount the remote drive in the command line, using CIFS (Common Interface File System) instead of SMB.  To do this, jump into the terminal of your Linux machine and type in your cifs mount command in the format:

mount -t cifs -o username=USERNAME, password=PASSWD //windows-machine-ip/share-name /mount-point

For example:

mount -t cifs -o username=jim, password=skittles123 //192.168.1.88/shares /mnt/share

The network share should now be available system wide in your Linux machine. Use either the terminal or your file manager to navigate to your mount point and transfer away!