PROBLEMS Replicating OpenDirectory In Mavericks (from MountainLion upg)?

Question

After our 2 week struggle getting OD to replicate properly I felt obligated to share the uncomfortable experience in case anyone was having similar issues.
There's far too much information to be laid down here in this thread as far as what didn't work for our setup. So I'll keep it simple by explaining our desired set-up and how we were able to achieve it.
[Desired Set-Up]
Ultimately we wanted to have 3 OD/DNS servers over two physically different networks (between state lines). Two of the servers (1 OD master / 1 OD replica) would be in one state while the third (OD replica) would be in the other. The master would be a Network Time Server and an OD Master hosting primary DNS zones. Each replica would be a OD replica hosting secondary DNS zones and would be looking to the master as the Network Time Server.
[Set-Up Symptoms]
What we were experiencing was that we could only ever get one server to properly replicate to the Master. This didn't matter if it was the replica that happened to be in the same state as the Master or if it were the replica in the other state. It was simply whichever replica first replicated to the master.
It's worth mentioning that each replica machine was set only to look at the master for DNS queries. Additionally, each replica was set to look at the master as a network time server in SystemPreferences>Date & Time.
[Successful Set-Up - Configuration]
*Assuming you're wanting to upgrade your 10.8 server to 10.9. Otherwise, you'll have to skip some steps.
(master)
<pre-upgrade>
(1) turn off all services
(2) install Mavericks
<post-upgrade>
(3) patch Mavericks to 10.9.3 if necessary
(4) install the new Server app and patch to 3.1.2
(5) launch Server to update services
(6) re-enable services
(7) verify DNS is working properly
(8) re-setup OD master service b/c replica tree will be portrayed inaccurate:
     i) archive OD using the cog-wheel option
     ii) use the sudo slapconfig -destroyldapserver command
     iii) using Directory Utility <System/Library/CoreServices/Directory Utility> navigate to the Directory Editor tab and choose your LDAP node and clear out old replica computer references in the Computers drop-down and in the ComputerGroups drop-down delete old replica references in the GroupMember, GroupMembership, and Member subsections.
     iv) restore OD from archive
(each replica)
* repeat steps 1-7
(8) in the server settings check the "allow remote login using SSH" & "allow remote administration using Server" checkboxes
(9) re-setup OD replica b/c replica tree will be portrayed inaccurate:
     i) use the sudo slapconfig -destroyldapserver command
(10) verify each replica server has FireWall access to udp port 123
(11) turn OD service on and select the option to join an existing domain
* for us, between OR and CA this process took roughly an hour on a 3 Mbps pipe between the two locations.
     i) once replicated, go to Certificates and use the newly created master generated cert.
(12) after successful replication (first on the master then on each replica) in the Services section of Directory Utility edit the LDAPv3 node settings to use SSL
[Successful Set-Up - Attempted Explanation]
As I mentioned earlier, we were trying to set-up one master with two replicas. Anything shy of this configuration is considered a failed attempt. It seems as though the limiting factor in several failed attempts is step 10. After scouring the logs from each and every attempt there was a clue indicating at some point during the replica set-up the machine was trying to reach an external time server (Apple's). Up until the point of successful configuration, our replica machines had always been referencing our company's internal network time server on the master (which was pointing to nist.gov). Each replica also previously wasn't allowed FireWall access on udp port 123 (which is used to communicated with time servers). It wasn't until we granted FireWall access to the replicas that we were able to successfully replicate (both machines) to the master. This was a wholly unintuitive aspect to the whole process. We may have discovered a way around a bug in this version of Mavericks and/or Server app. Another gotchya is step 12. Until you enable SSL between master and replicas, you'll keep getting rsync errors in the logs. Enabling SSL will resolve this aspect. We didn't re-create the environment to keep testing these findings because we had spent so long trying to get a working set-up we just stuck with it as soon as it was achieved it.

Answer 1

kinda late but pretty sure it's the WD 3.0 USB Drivers, just uninstall them or manually remove /System/Library/Extensions/SMARTLib.plugin