Great! I hope it works an keeps on working
Better a good hack than a regular procedure that does not work.
Google told me that if you automount an external (USB) drive the drive is not actually mounted until it is used. Perhaps cops wants to use it and it takes to long to respond, so "file not found".
I use my pi (and linux computers) 99.9% headless. I never encountered this problem. I learn something new every day
I will write up something short about samba tomorrow (it approaches midnight over here). Promise!