How to disable WIFI extender in Airport Express but leave ethernet working? I am using an Airport Express as an extender for the purposes of using its ethernet cable for a network device. In this setup, The Airport Express also the behavior of extending my network from my Airport Extreme. However this is causing me problems with our Apple TV since the Airport Express WIFI spec is much slower than the Airport Extreme.

We don't need to extend the wireless network. Is there a way to turn off wireless extension and leave the ethernet connected?

Yes you can do this in Airport Utility. Unfortunately I don’t have it open in front of me so I can’t show you a screenshot of where in the settings to do it but if you were able to configure it  in the first place then just go back to the same place and there should be an option to disable wireless entirely.

If you have an older Airport Express then you’ll need Airport Utility 5.6 running on an older version of OS X. If you don’t have that handy, you’ll have to make it happen by installing an older version of OS X in a virtual machine.

Hope this helps.


Read Only Keychain Elements There is a way to add applications to a "always allow access"-list for a specific keychain entry. Those applications get read/write permissions to that entry. Is it possible to make keychain only grant readonly access to certain applications?

The short answer is no.

This question straddles the line between a general discussion how the API works and how a user can use the tools as written.

The Keychain API only allows access - it's up to the programmer / developer to determine if a read or a write will happen and end users can't realistically change that behavior.

Using the built in Keychain tools and the Keychain app supplied by apple, you can't define a group of apps. You can't even select four or ten apps at once and add them in one step for a specific keychain entry. (The picker for adding apps simply won't allow you to select multiple apps or a folder containing those apps or aliases to those apps you wish to add together.)

The only workarounds would be to write a utility that knows how to handle a group of apps or a folder of apps and iterates over each and calls the keychain API to do the work. There is a basic dictionary or keychain in AppleScript, but it doesn't have any ACL specific commands, so you'll have to dig in the developer documents to see if it's even possible to automate with that tool.


How can I enable Time Machine encryption on the command line? Is is possible to enable encryption for a Time Machine target disk with a script or using the command line?

Is an encrypted Time Machine disk really just the same as a normal disk, full-disk-encrypted using FileVault?

I'd like to automate as much as is convenient when installing a Mac for a new user. This includes backups. We're using OS X Mountain Lion.

Additional discoveries:

You can ask a target to be encrypted from the Time Machine preferences GUI. This does not make it show up as such using the fdesetup command. It will however list as encrypted using diskutil cs list
If first encrypting a drive, the Time Machine prefs GUI will say "Encrypt backups" for that entry. This would support the method suggested below by Rene (except he suggests doing it on an encrypted image placed on a disk).

No, sorry chickpee, I believe you're incorrect.

  Is an encrypted Time Machine disk really just the same as a normal
  disk, full-disk-encrypted using FileVault?

Yes. It is. This would be "FileVault 2" we are talking about, aka CoreStorage, Apple's newish logical volume manager. This is different that the previous TM and FileVault technologies, which are based on AES-encrypted sparse-bundle disk images (which are still used for network backups, etc.). The process that starts in System Preferences (these days) when you enable disk encryption (whether on an external disk, for Time Machine, or on the boot drive for FileVault), provided the disk is suitable, it does an online conversion from a traditional GPT Partition Table to a single monolithic data store, with a very small partition for the CS firmware. Logical volumes (in logical volume groups) are then carved out of this, and these (software) volumes are then HFS formatted and encrypted.

I believe the most straightforward method for doing this would be to:

Attach the disk you're going to use, wipe it. Free space or a single HFS+ partition.
diskutil cs create/convert (wasn't/was formatted; unimportant) to initialize and add a new LVG
diskutil cs createVolume, create a single LV. You could enable encryption at this point, with diskutil cs encryptVolume, if you know the passphrase you're going to use;
if not, leave it unencrypted for now.
diskutil partitionDisk diskX -- see below -- CS volumes appear as if they are completely autonomous, separate disks, so you partitionDisk.

Then: mount and unlock the volume on your new user's machine. Once the disk is unlocked, there shouldn't be any trouble 'adopting' it for use there. If you want to put it into a config script, I believe it's just something like tmutil -a /Volumes/Foo, tmutil startbackup -ad disk.... This is the part I'm least sure about, but I'm also sure its easily doable. I haven't done this for Time Machine per se my self, but I pre-encrypt disks for FileVault like this all the time, and the OS sort of just knows what to do with if after that.

A properly suitable CS-enabled-disk is going to appear like this in diskutil (although you might not have the third partition on disk0 if it's knows it's not going to be a boot drive:

/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *251.0 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage                         250.1 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Boot OS X               250.0 MB   disk0s3
/dev/disk1
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh LV           *249.8 GB   disk1

disk0 will not appear as encrypted, ever, since this is what the volume manager basically has to 'boot' off of. disk1 will be encrypted and will require the passcode to mount.


How to install subordinate CA certificate into keychain from Terminal? I'm a Windows engineer, setting up a Active Directory PKI, but know very little about Macs.  I'm aware of how to install root certificates into the system keychain using:

sudo security add-trusted-cert -d -r trustRoot -k \Library\Keychains\System.keychain rootca.crt

However, I'm not too clear on how to install a subordinate CA's certificate (that was issued by the root CA).

Do I simply use the exact same command, or would i use add-certificates instead?

What is the difference between the resultypes: trustRoot, trustAsRoot, unspecified?

Since the subordinate CA's certificate is already "trusted" due to the root CA's cert being in the System Roots, you just need to use the add-certificates command, specifying the System keychain.

sudo security add-certificates -k /Library/Keychains/System.keychain your_cert_file


How to stop Mountain Lion to stop shutting down and closing all my applications? I tried to look up related problems with this, but I haven't been able to find a solution. After leaving my computer on, charged, and step away, sometimes it logs my account off. When I come back, log on, all my applications have been turned off. I have adjusted the settings under "Energy Saver" and allow the computer a longer sleep time, but that doesn't seem to work.

OS X Version 10.8.2
Any suggestions?

When you say it "logs your account off" do you mean that you have to enter your password?

My guess is that someone has set Security & Privacy settings to require a login password after sleep or screen saver begins. Go to Apple menu > System Preferences, click Security & Privacy, and then click General to see.


What tool is best for removing pages from a PDF? I have a set of PDF documents that each have a few extra pages. I'd like to remove the first two and last pages from each of them. Preview only lets me look at and annotate a PDF, not edit one. Can anyone recommend a (free/freeware) tool to do this? I'm using 10.5 PPC so that does limit some of my options. Command line or GUI is fine.

Ok, in Preview it seems I can delete pages by hitting ⌘⌫ on the thumbnails, but it will then not give me the option to save. I can then try printing the altered document to PDF, but I am leery of this because I don't want to loose any metadata (I have to double-check all the files to see how much metadata there is if I decide on this course).

Just tried Acrobat at work, that doesn't work. The files are mod-protected by a password.

For the command-line I can recommend:
pdftk, the PDF Toolkit (for the Snow-Leopard installer you can try Pacifist to get the binaries or use the older version)

Merge PDF Documents
Split PDF Pages into a New Document
Rotate PDF Pages or Documents
…

If your PDF is edit-protected, you may want to try qpdf (via e.g. homebrew) to remove the restrictions first.

QPDF is a command-line program that does structural, content-preserving transformations on PDF files. It could have been called something like pdf-to-pdf. It also provides many useful capabilities to developers of PDF-producing software or for people who just want to look at the innards of a PDF file to learn more about how they work.


How do you fix an Apple Hardware Test (AHT) configuration? I have two MacBookPros on which I run 10.6.8. One has a Core i5 (MacBookPro6,1), the other a Core i7 (MacBookPro8,3). I move the SSD from one to other as occasion or whim demands. On the Core i5, AHT runs successfully. On the Core i7, AHT fails to launch. Before the machine shuts down, it briefly displays a window with the error: “Apple Hardware Test had trouble reading env file Configs\AHT_default.env”.

Where is this file located? (note the "\" in the file name). How do I repair it?

For Apple Hardware Test to work, you need to ensure you're using the correct version for the model of Mac you're testing.

Assuming you have the model identifiers correct:

the MacBookPro6,1 is a Mid 2010 17" MacBook Pro which uses AHT 3A175
the MacBookPro8,3 is a Early 2011 17" MacBook Pro which used AHT 3A211

My guess is that you're trying to run the same version of Apple Hardware Test (AHT) on both machines, and this is where you're running into problems.

[UPDATE]

Below are direct links to download each of the above versions of AHT directly from Apple:

AHT 3A175
AHT 3A211

You can run AHT from a bootable USB drive, but first you will need to copy the AHT onto your USB drive and bless it so it can boot your MBP.


Where does Quicktime store its screen recordings? I was recording my screen whilst giving a presentation. Instead of stopping the recording cleanly I closed the lid of my laptop. Later, when I opened it again, the recording had stopped, but there was no sign of the resulting file. Can anyone tell me where the recording may be stored on disk so I can recover it?

As of OSX Sierra, it's here:

~/Library/Containers/com.apple.QuickTimePlayerX/Data/Library/Autosave Information

In there, there is a container/package/directory called Unsaved QuickTime Player Document.qtpxcomposition that contains a Screen Recording.mov file with the actual video. You can copy-paste that mov file wherever to save it permanently.

You can also double-click the Unsaved QuickTime Player Document file directly. That file opens in QuickTime, and allows you to save in a proper place. Note that sometimes QuickTime will fail to save a Screen Recording with the error "The operation could not be completed" (using File > Export As might work, though), so copy-pasting is probably less prone to error.

My battery ran out when I was recording and found my file there.


Do I need to "unregister" an OSX virtual machine? I have an OSX VM (using VMWare fusion 6), and want to delete it.

VMWare's docs say "Apple's updated license agreement allows you to install up to two additional copies of Lion on your Mac which is already running a retail version of Lion"

I remember something in the installation, possibly linking to my Apple ID saying that I could only install 1-2 copies in a VM too (I installed Mavericks, 10.9)

If I'm going to delete this VM, and want to create other OSX VMs in the future, can I/do I need to "unregister" this VM?

There's no registration for OS X, and nothing in the code to detect and prevent you running more than two VMs. It's purely a legal restriction. If you've deleted the VM, then you're fine.


Windows 8 Pro on MacBook Pro 15" early 2011. Multitouch and reversed scroll? I've installed the newly released Windows 8 Pro on my MacBook Pro, and I'd love to get multi-touch gestures working such as pinch to zoom and 3 finger middle click tapping. I'd also like to reverse the scrolling so that it's like Mountain Lion.

Has anyone got any ideas of what would work, or what was great in Windows 7 so that I could try?

I used one under Windows 7, I think it was trackpad++ or something, but I found this to be a bit flaky, and it used to require updates which broke it and required re-installing. I'd rather avoid that if possible.

Thanks in advance.

For the reverse scrolling I use "X-Mouse Button Control".

I'm also searching for a way to implement the other gestures, but have been unable to find anything satisfactory as of writing.


Sluggish mouse cursor with 28" 4K display I got a new MG28UQ 28" 4K monitor and I plugged it into my mid 2015 15" retina MBP using a mini display port to HDMI cable. The monitor itself reports it's receiving image at 60Hz, however, Settings > Displays only lists 30Hz under "Refresh Rate". If I lower down the scaled resolution to 1600 x 900, then it starts using 60Hz and the mouse problem goes away.

I'm using an Insignia Mini DisplayPort to HDMI cable that states it can handle 4K.

What am I missing?

Any scaling that is not exactly half of full resolution will introduce strain on the GPU and cause sluggishness. So on a 4K monitor your choices are either 1080p or 4K. I find neither acceptable. If you want 1440p (looks the best imho) you have to purchase a less crisp 1440p monitor or drop the big dollars for a 5K monitor and then run it at crisp retina 1440p which is exactly half of 5K and will not strain the GPU.


Accessing photos on iPhone iCloud backup Is it possible to access photos from iPhone iCloud backups without loading them onto a iPhone?

After losing my phone, I purchased a new iPhone with less memory. I was able to partially restore my apps and photos on to this new iPhone but not completely due to lack of space.

Now I have a situation where several hundred photos are stored in a iPhone backup but I have seemingly no way of accessing them without purchasing a iPhone with the same memory as the previous one.

Is there any way around this?

(I have looked into a few of the third party tools like 'iMobie phoneRescue' or Dr Fone and if anyone has any first hand experience using these I would be interested to hear from you)

If you have a copy of the backup, there are a couple of ways to get these back.

Free
http://www.itunesextractor.com/extract-photos-from-iphone-backup.html
Paid
https://www.imobie.com/phonerescue/

I would make a backup of your file, then try the free one first and if that doesn't work try the paid version if these photos are important.

Hope one of these will work!


Deleting all but favorite photos and videos on the iPhone I'd like to delete the vast majority of the images/videos on my phone.
There this previous question about deleting all images on the phone which is what I've done in the past. However I would really like to preserve some of my favorites.

Are there any easy ways of doing this on iOS8?

A user on the MacRumors forum has built an app to do exactly this task, find and delete all photos in a folder or in the camera roll that have not been marked as a favorite.

The app is "Deleter" by saleksandras and it's at: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/deleter/id1180101544?ls=1&mt=8

I just ran the app, and it worked perfectly!  It selected the 2,600 photos on my phone that I hadn't marked as favorites and ignored the 600 that I had favorited.  When I hit delete, it moved all of the non-favorites from my camera roll to the recently deleted folder (so I could recover them for 30 days if I needed to).  It took a minute or so to delete everything, but it was 9gb of photos, so I think it can be excused for that :)

It was a bit nerve-wracking to hit delete on that many photos, but I had already backed up my camera roll to my PC using the PhotoSync app (another great tool), so I wasn't really worried.

I don't know why Apple doesn't include a mass-selection tool to easily select all favorite or non-favorite photos, but this app does the job!


Unable to update to Mac OS 11.2.3? I have problems updating my MacBook Pro (2016 edition) to the latest version 11.2.3 Big Sur
First of all, I am running on 11.2:
sw_vers
ProductName:    macOS
ProductVersion: 11.2
BuildVersion:   20D64

Now my System tools will announce that the 11.2.3-update is ready and pester me to install it. When I click "Update", it will start downloading a 2 MB (yes, MEGAbyte) update in an extremely slow speed. This takes around 10 minutes. Then, hooray, an update has been found: "11.2.3", weighing 2,5 GB. Downloading this then takes a day. A whole day! If not more!

Its not my connection, which is with approx 10MBit good enough I would say. In the meantime (i.e. in parallel), I updated IntelliJ and my entire MS Office without problems. Also, I have plenty of disk space free.
Now, after downloading the 2,5GB, the Mac will ask to restart, then announce that "there's an update". Guess which one it is? "Big Sur 11.2.3".
How to get rid of this and install 11.2.3 for real?

I've had success with doing one or more of the following:
Content Caching

Set up Content Caching

Go to System Preferences > Sharing.
Turning Content Caching.
Restarting the Mac.
Apparently Content Caching reduces bandwidth usage and speeds up installation on supported devices by storing software updates on the computer.
We made sure that the Cache Size was unlimited - click on Options. And we also made sure that the option selected beside Cache was All Content.

Reboot
Run the Software Update check again
Once downloaded, go through the normal steps of upgrading macOS

Official Standalone Installer

If content caching fails, download the installer from the Mac App Store

Call Spotlight (Cmd-space) and type "app store," then hit return
Search for "big sur" at the top left hand side
Select VIEW on the top result of macOS Big Sur
Then choose GET

Once downloaded, go through the normal steps of upgrading macOS

Terminal
First-party software can be updated from the terminal using softwareupdate.

List available updates: softwareupdate -l
Install all available updates: sudo softwareupdate -ia
As of macOS Catalina 10.15, fetch the full installer: softwareupdate --fetch-full-installer --full-installer-version 11.2.3
Once downloaded, go through the normal steps of upgrading macOS

Semi-official Standalone Installer
Another route is pulling the standalone installer from Apple's CDN via an open-source Python script called installinstallmacos.py.
Install git

If git isn't installed or raises a xcrun: error, install/update git

Homebrew install: brew install git
Manual download and install

Setup script
# create git directory and download git repo
mkdir -p ~/git && cd $_
git clone https://github.com/munki/macadmin-scripts.git

# change to the new directory
cd ~/git/macadmin-scripts/

# make executable (may not be necessary) then run the script
chmod +x installinstallmacos.py
sudo ./installinstallmacos.py

Choose OS and download installer (output edited for brevity)
installinstallmacos.py - get macOS installers from the Apple software catalog

 #      ProductID    Version    Build   Post Date  Title
 1      001-15219    10.15.5  19F2200  2020-06-15  macOS Catalina
 2      001-68446    10.15.7    19H15  2020-11-11  macOS Catalina
 3      001-04366    10.15.4  19E2269  2020-05-04  macOS Catalina
 4      071-08935     11.2.2    20D80  2021-03-01  macOS Big Sur
 5      061-86291    10.15.3  19D2064  2020-03-23  macOS Catalina
 6      041-91758    10.13.6    17G66  2019-10-19  macOS High Sierra
 7      041-88800    10.14.4  18E2034  2019-10-23  macOS Mojave
 8      071-14766     11.2.3    20D91  2021-03-08  macOS Big Sur

Choose a product to download (1-16): 8

Once downloaded, it will be archived in a DMG
Open the DMG and go through the normal steps of upgrading macOS


What is .git folder and can I delete it? I used DaisyDisk to get info about my drive. I found a folder named ".git" in my documents. Its size is about 15 GB. what is it? and can I delete it?

Git is a version control system and stores the history in a subdirectory .git

That is a way of keeping copies of snapshots source code or other documents in a way so that you can go to the complete set of documents at an earlier given time and/or see when and who changed a file and what change was made.

A version control system can be used just for your documents or put in a shared place so people who collaborate all can see and make changes.

You can use tools like SourceTree to view what is in your history.

Thus is you are not using git you can delete the .git directory but I would ask how did it get there. It is possible that another application could use git, I would see if any of your apps say they keep old copies of data however I would hope that they would not do this for all of ~/Documents as this would mess up other peoples' use of this directory. The actual directory .git is in would help to identify the application using it.


Can I get any compensation for 2-week turnaround on 2015 MacBook Pro battery recall? I have a 2015 MacBook Pro (still under AppleCare) that is covered under the battery recall issue. However, the machine is my primary work computer, and the Apple Store has said that they have to ship it out to have it repaired, since they do not have the tools in-store to safely replace the battery.

Being without this computer for two weeks will significantly hinder my ability to do my work. Is there any way to receive compensation from Apple due to this?

Not likely. Apple can't ship these devices by air due to safety reasons, and there are a lot of them.

If everyone who was inconvenienced by this got together and collectively sued Apple, and won, you might get enough to pay for a fast food meal. In 2024.


How can I create a keyboard shortcut for LaunchPad on OS X Lion (10.7)? I know how to open Launchpad via a gesture, creating a hot corner and obviously clicking on it in the dock .... what I am looking for is creating a keyboard shortcut to open Launchpad. I tried going to System Preferences | Keyboard | Keyboard Shortcuts | Launchpad & Dock, but I cannot add any shortcut for the "Show Launchpad" checkbox that is there.

Has anyone figured out how to add a keyboard shortcut? I believe that would make Launchpad infinitely useful.

You can also set a shortcut of your choosing by adjusting Lion's built-in keyboard preferences. If you go to System Preferences --> Keyboard, one of the settings menus on the left side bar is for Launchpad & Dock.

Make sure the check box next to 'Show Launchpad' is selected, then double click to the right under the listed shortcut to turn dock hiding on/off. You'll see a data entry box selected, and you can then enter whatever shortcut you'd like.


Is it possible to disable Versions for all applications? I've never used Versions, and the extra step needed to Save as are enough reasons for me to downgrade to Snow Leopard.

Is it possible to disable Versions in all apps and have a Save As… menu item instead of a Duplicate one?

I guess you're rather referring to Autosave. This post describes the difference.

To disable Versions, I posted the (maybe risky) procedure here:

How to disable Versions in OS X Lion

However for Autosave the easiest work-around might be to use "System Preferences" → "Keyboard" → "Keyboard Shortcus" to define a keyboard shortcut (I used  ⌘ ⇧ S) for the programs that have Autosave support and the "Duplicate" option in the menu:

For Textedit it will then look like this:

So you would press ⌘+⇧+S, which gives you a new duplicate window and then ⌘+S to save as new filename.

However, you original document will also (continuously) be saved and end up in the state where you created the duplicate - and without Versions (or Time Machine) you won't be able to recover earlier states as soon as you close your original document or the program.


MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2017, Two Thunderbolt 3 ports) dual UHD external monitor I plan to run a MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2017, Two Thunderbolt 3 ports) with two external UHD screens 3840 x 2160 at 60Hz using a dock.
My desired setting is:
Screen: LG 27UL850-W-4K https://www.lg.com/us/monitors/lg-27UL850-W-4k-uhd-led-monitor
Dock: OWC thunderbolt 3 dock (https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/docks/owc-thunderbolt-3-dock).
According to Apple, this MacBook suppors two external Monitors up to 4K (https://support.apple.com/kb/SP754?locale=en_US)

Up to two displays with 3840-by-2160 resolution at 60Hz at over a
billion colors

I found some posts reporting problems with dual external monitor settings with

the same screen https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250066564
other screens Dual monitor flickering: the secondary monitor does the flicker

Question:

Should this setting run stable office work (Word, Excel) and video?
Which cable and port do I have to use to connect the thunderbolt 3 dock with the monitors? Dual External Monitors on a (late) 2017 MacBook Pro mentioned:

Monitor A: Connected to mini-DisplayPort port Monitor B: Connected to
daisy-chain Thunderbolt 3 port

I am not sure what is meaned with B.
Could I also connect each screen with one of the TB3 of the dock? If yes, would a TB3 -> HDMI or TB3 -> DP cable lead to a better result?
This question is similar to Dual 4K monitors with 2017 Macbook Pro base model, however more specific.

In regards to question 1: Yes, it should work perfectly fine for those purposes. I use the same dock and similar 4K monitors with several setups here with the 2017 15" MacBook Pro without any flicker issues or similar. It should be the same for the 13" model.
In regards to question 2: The dock has a mini-DisplayPort port as well as a Thunderbolt 3 port for display output. The monitor has HDMI as well as DisplayPort inputs.
I would recommend using a mini-DisplayPort to DisplayPort cable for one monitor, and a Thunderbolt 3 (i.e. USB-C connector) to DisplayPort cable for the other monitor. I use these cables myself.
The meaning of "B" is that one Thunderbolt 3 port on the dock is used to connect to the laptop, the other Thunderbolt 3 port is connected to the monitor so it is "daisy-chained". Essentially this just means that the monitor signal for the monitor travel through the Thunderbolt cable from the computer to the dock, and is then passed on from the dock to the monitor.


Requirements for App Store Review Video? Background:

When submitting an (iOS) application for review which has functionality depending on a specific hardware, Apple asks for a Video, demonstrating the feature(s).

  If we’re not able to access part of your app because it’s geo-locked or otherwise restricted, provide a link to a video of the functionality

(source)

The Question:

Are there any requirements or restrictions on this video?

(Examples: Can it be edited or should it be continuous? Can it be uploaded to a video sharing site or otherwise where should it be hosted? etc.).

You can host it on a site like Vimeo or YouTube. Set the video unlisted and send Apple the private URL.

You can do do some editing to clarify upfront what will be shown next. Please include all necessary steps to use your app.

Shorten a process in post if it takes very long. Indicate that and by how much it was shortened.

Good luck with your app!


How do I reset/recover my superuser password without the boot disk? I lost the superuser password for my iMac and I don't have the boot disk.  I already tried the second answer on this page, but every time I type su from the command prompt, it still asks for a password that I don't have anymore. Is there another way to reset the superuser password?

sudo passwd root

Enter YOUR password and you're in.


Best File System for Sharing Between OS X and Windows What is currently the best file system to use for drives that are regularly accessed (both reading and writing) from both Windows and OS X on a single machine using BootCamp. The most important points are stability and speed.

I've been using NTFS so far, coming from a Windows background. I've tried the NTFS-3G driver with Fuse and, in my tests, it was far slower than native NTFS under Windows. I also tried their commercial driver without much better results.

Afterward I tried Paragon's drivers, which were much faster. They aren't quite native NTFS speed, but they aren't far off either. The problem is I've had crashes with them, and recently had crashes + data loss with them.

I know this question has been asked before, but the posts I saw were older and the driver and filesystem options are maturing.

Options I've seen:

FAT32: Limited drive size? Limited permission settings
NTFS: Limited speed/stability under OS X
HFS+: MacDrive? available for Windows

Follow Up

I have now formatted one of the drives as exFAT and can confirm that this works great for both reading and writing when the machine is booted into either OS X or Windows 7.

If you're working exclusively with Win7 machines (i.e. no Vista or XP), and 10.6.6 or greater on the Mac side, try exFAT. Native read/write support under Win7 and OS X, and none of the file size limits of FAT32. Disk Utility will happily format your drives using it.

As long as you don't need legacy support, it's probably your best option, as it avoids any user-space filesystem drivers, which personally make me a bit uneasy.

Addendum: XP and Vista do support exFAT, Vista as of SP1, and XP with SP2 and the KB955704 update


Keyboard failure, possibly software fault I've got a MacBook Pro (17", 2010 model), and recently I've been having a few issues with the keyboard.  Frequently, some keys on the keyboard fail to respond.  These are mainly on the right-hand side of the keyboard (P, O, ;, return, F11, plus others).  An external keyboard does not have any issues.

At first I thought it may be a hardware issue, but (a) there seems to be no issue when I boot into Windows 7 (Bootcamp), and (b) I can temporarily fix the problem by pressing F12 (Volume Up).

Does anybody have any ideas of what to try?  I could reinstall OSX, but that seems drastic at this stage.  It's still under warranty, but since I need the machine for work, I don't really want to send it in for repair until I've tried everything else.

Thanks in advance.

I would try a Genius Bar at a local mac store if you are located near one. I have seen them fix some weird s/w issues right there.


How to I change the default JVM heap size on OS X? I am looking for a way to change the default JVM memory settings on OS X, not for a specific application.

And, yes I know that each application can override this.

Currently running Java 1.6 on OS X 10.8

This should do the trick:

Go to Applications / Utilities and open the Java Preferences.
Select the Java version you're interested in.
Hit Options and add the Heap size argument, which is -Xmx followed by amount of memory you want it to have. (e.g. -Xmx1024).


How do I scale down a video without cropping? The title mainly says it all. I've been looking for a tool to resize a video just by scaling it down. The only options I find when googling is for cropping video but I don't want to do that. I just want to scale a video down.

HandBrake is a free open-source video conversion utility, which in my opinion, is a must-have app.  It has built in presets for video conversion all of which are customizable.

At the bottom of the attached image, you can see the original video dimensions and the scaled down video dimensions of the conversion

You can create a custom preset and enter your own dimensions


Are there any benefits to deleting unused Mac OS X kernel extensions? I find that many of the kernel extensions in /System/Library/Extensions are inapplicable to my MacBook, such as extensions for fibre channel cards, firewire, graphics cards I don't have, etc. Is there any benefit (in boot time, RAM footprint, etc.) to deleting these unneeded extensions?

Actually, any difference in boot up time would be negligible - OS X doesn't boot /mach_kernel — it boots the kernel cache (/System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kext.caches/Startup/kernelcache), which already has the kexts you are using. This gets rebuilt if /System/Library/Extensions gets modified (or if you touch(1) it deliberately).

In terms of the filesystem space, as of Snow Leopard, everything is compressed. Meaning you're not really wasting too much space, either.

There is a downside, however — if you delete kexts, even with kext wizard, or whichever utility, there is a remote chance that some kext will be loaded on demand (e.g. via IOKit probing, on some USB device, for example). In this case, a kext might not be found - and you lose a driver.

In short, if it ain't broken, don't fix it. Leave /System/Library/Extensions intact.


Cant sign into any Google iOS app Cannot sign into any Google iOS app (Google, Google Maps, Google Earth) on my new iPhone 7 Plus.

It says:
"Sorry there seems to be a problem please try again"

Have tried:
-Resetting iPhone
-Signing into the accounts on my iPhone 6 (Works fine)
-Signing in to a different account on iphone 7 (Doesnt work)
-Uninstalling and reinstalling the apps
-Enabling 2 factor authentication

But still no fix

Logging into the account on the computer works fine as well.

Any ideas?

Download the Google Chrome app on the iPhone and sign in to your Google account in the Chrome app.  Then open the Gmail app (or any other Google app) and you should have an option to slide a switch and be logged in to your account in the Gmail app as well.  if you don't get that option try deleting and re downloading the Gmail app.

Problem seems to be between Safari and the Google login, in my case with two-factor enabled.


Does the Apple Smart Keyboard work for all iPads? I have an iPad 7th gen 10.2" and I've been looking for apple smart keyboards for a few days now. I came across one on ebay which was cheaper than usual but the thing is, it says that it's for the iPad 10.5".

How can I know if this works only in a 10.5" air or pro model, or it doesn't really matter?

In general, no. The contacts and physical size of keyboards make it very unlikely you can swap parts. Make sure the return policy is good or use the Apple Store app on your iPad and link your device so it shows which parts are compatible with your device.


How can I make a calendar appointment reminder remind me "5 minutes later" on iPhone like BlackBerry? Confession, I have just converted from BlackBerry to iPhone. On BlackBerry, if I had an event in my calendar with a reminder set for 15 minutes before the event, it have the option of dismissing the reminder or let it remind again in 5 minutes. I have been unable to find anything similar on the iPhone?

Unfortunately, iOS does not have a directly equivalent option. There are some workarounds and apps given here: Is there any way to change the snooze time for alarms on the iPhone?


Why is iTunes duplicating my TV shows? It seems every time I go into iTunes it's duplicated my TV shows again. I could understand if these were shows that I'd ripped from DVDs myself (maybe I'd made a mistake or something), but in the case of CHEERS (see below), all the episodes are purely bought through iTunes.

What's going on? :(

If you click on each of those Cheers you will see exactly the same episode listings across all three. Same goes for WINGS - identical listing. I can't fathom what's going wrong? :( Do I need to rebuild my iTunes database or something?

So I rebuilt my entire iTunes library only to discover the problem was that I'd told iTunes to sort by year. Doh.

Quite annoying because I still want my programs to be listed by year... but not year by season. Hmm.


How can I abort a calculation that is hanging in Numbers for Mac? I rather stupidly wrote a formula that has caused Numbers to get stuck showing the message "calculating...". I've waited over an hour and it's still not completed.

I've also tried force Quitting, but the next time I open Numbers it immediately tries to carry on where it left off.

Is there a way to cancel the calculations?

If you have a Time Machine backup, you can get the file from an earlier state.

From Apple Support:

Restore from a Time Machine backup

Restore specific files:

Choose Enter Time Machine from the Time Machine menu Time Machine icon, or click Time Machine in the Dock.

Find the files to restore:

Use the timeline on the edge of the screen to see the files in your Time Machine backup as they were at that date and time. The timeline may also include local snapshots.
Use the onscreen up and down arrows to jump to the last time the contents of the window changed. You can also use the search field in a window to find a file, then move through time while focused on changes to that file.
Select a file and press Space Bar to preview the file and make sure it's the one you want.

Click Restore to restore the selected file, or Control-click the file for other options.

This should get you back to before you made the errant formula.  Provided you have a recent Time Machine backup.


Why is my attempt at downloading Big Sur failing? I am currently using a MacBook Pro 13" Mid 2018 with Touch Bar.
Today macOS Big Sur was released and I tried to download it but it's getting stuck at 484.4 MB. Initially, it shows 16-17 minutes left, but as soon as it reaches 484.4 MB it's stuck and the timer goes till 10 hours!
My Wi-Fi is totally stable with a speed of 100 Mbps.
I tried to restart my Mac but it still gets stuck.
Earlier there were similar issues in the App Store (even now they are). The issue was I was not able to download an app unless I connect to the US VPN. I even contacted support but they were not able to help out. It wasn't a big deal as a VPN could be used.
But now even with VPN, it gets stuck.

Apple servers had a documented outage to the software updates.

https://www.apple.com/support/systemstatus/

This is why failures happened globally on November 12 during the launch day of Big Sur installations.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201475 How to upgrade to macOS Big Sur

If you are having issues on or after Friday, November 13 and there isn’t an outage listed in the status page above, and step 4 above doesn’t work follow these steps:

Close system preferences
Quit any apps that cause internet usage (All web browsers, streaming or games, etc...)
Open the Mac App Store and find Big Sur

More details are here on recent changes to this weeks releases - https://eclecticlight.co/2020/11/13/still-getting-errors-trying-to-upgrade-to-big-sur/
If you’ve done anything odd like clearing caches or run tools like Onyx, I recommend you do a safe boot to let Apple clean up properly, then run this command from your terminal.
softwareupdate --fetch-full-installer

If you get any errors, don't worry - wait 5 minutes and try again. (Especially errors about SUPreferenceManager: Failed to set object of class - those do not prevent downloading the latest full installer)


Move 'Pictures', 'Documents', 'Movies' etc folders I would like to move folders like 'Pictures', 'Documents', 'Movies' to a different from the default under the root of user's home location, preferably into a sub-folder under the same user's home folder. For example, user/Music would go to user/stuff/Music.

I'd rather not create symbolic links to moved folders, but change system's behaviour altogether, so it knows where to find those folders.

Please bear in mind that I do not want to move user's home folder, but just those ones, for example, move them to /Users/[user name]/stuff/ since I don't like them polluting the home folder there.

Art,

Do you have this working successfully?

Have you tried hiding the folders using something like:

chflags hidden ~/Documents

Then creating a link to it such as (in Terminal):

cd ~
mkdir stuff
cd stuff
ln -s ~/Documents

I believe that this will hide the ~/Documents folder from the Finder but it will still be there so anything writing to it will work OK.  In addition you will see the link in ~/stuff...


OS 10.9.3 Seagate External Drive Won't Mount Updated to Mavericks and now my external 1TB Seagate drive won't mount. Its icon ("Blorp") is greyed out in Disk Utility and all it says about the volume is that it is a "locked logical volume." This is not being used as a Time Machine backup drive, just an external drive. It won't even prompt for a password when I try to mount it. And it shouldn't be locked, since I turned off the encryption prior to upgrading the OS. This started when I opened up the computer and it said the drive was not ejected properly, even though it had been plugged in continuously. Can I get this drive back without reformatting it?

There is no fsck_hfs or similar process shown in Activity Monitor. I have run disk repair multiple times, and it always comes up ok:

I don't know exactly what build changed the mount behavior of OS X, but there are times when you will connect the disk and the OS will no longer mount it until the system has finished the file system check (fsck). There is no visual notification that an extended check is being made, so you have to rely on Disk Utility or the Activity Monitor and actively look to see if a check is in progress.

Connect your missing drive again and then, open activity monitor and select the CPU tab if needed. Then search for fsck - if you see a process with that name (or similar fsck_hfs, etc...) then the system has decided to check the contents before it knows to let you have read-only access to the drive or read-write access.

If that's not the case, then you may have some odd corruption that requires a repair of the drive structure (in your case select the main "Blorp" and not the indented "Blorp" in the left pane of the Disk Utility window. The dimming of the repair button is indicative of a process already running to check/repair that volume.

Most cases, this is a check that could take some time, but often is done within 5 minutes or less and not something that happens every mount but after another problem was detected or logged to that drive such as an unclean ejection or force eject.


How can I quickly add a photo to an album in Photos app? I'm reviewing some photos I've taken in the photos app on a Mac. I'd like to put some of them into an album. However, it seems that to do this, for every photo I want to add, I have to click the '+' button and select "Album", which then pops up a modal dialogue where I have to select the name of the album from yet another drop-down, then click OK. There must be a quicker way than this. (Right?) What is it?

By the way: I know that I can select several thumbnails at once using the CMD key, but the problem is my eyesight is really poor (hence squinting at thumbnails gives me a headache), and in any case I want to check the photos are sharp before I add them to the album. So I'm looking for a quick way to add the photo to an album from looking at the photo itself, not from the thumbnails page. If it can be done by keyboard shortcuts, that would be an acceptable solution.

I'm assuming you're talking about the Photos app on Mac.

One option based on your description is to change the size of your thumbnail images so they're large enough to view the quality of images without having to manually open them up one by one. To change the thumbnail size drag the slider near the top left of the Photos app window.

Once you've got the size right, you can select multiple images (using the Command key) and then drag them across to the album you want. Of course, this assumes you've already created the album.

Another option, once you've selected the images you want, is to then go to File > New Album (or just use the CommandN keyboard shortcut) and this will automatically create a new album including all the photos you had selected.

If you're interested in the full list of keyboard shortcuts for the Photos app, just go to Help > Keyboard Shortcuts. This will give you quick access to a list of keyboard shortcuts as well as Magic Mouse or trackpad gestures.

Hope this helps!


Recovering lost voicemails after carrier switch I switched from AT&T to T-Mobile today, and all the voicemails I had on my iPhone 5S (iOS 11) were lost after my AT&T account was closed.

How can I recover them?

Luckily, this was possible (my important voicemails were not lost!) and you have three options, which I'll describe below. The first two will require a Mac (or maybe PC would work) and will cost you money (if you haven't already purchased the right app, or find an alternative that's reputable and free), while the third may be free.

The best option: obtain from iTunes backup
If you recently backed up your iPhone to iTunes on a Mac (fairly recently, before switching carriers) then you can use an app like PhoneView ($30) or iExplorer ($40) to recover your voicemails from the old iTunes backup.  PhoneView is free for up to the last 10 voicemails, but for more than that you'll need to buy it. With iExplorer, you'll need to buy it for any number of voicemail exports.
PhoneView:

Connect your iPhone to your Mac (be sure to trust the Mac) and open PhoneView.
Click the "iTunes Backups" button in the top bar of the app and then click "View Voicemail iTunes Backups".
Choose the correct device in the Phone dropdown, then select all items (with command + A) and choose "Save Messages" to save them to your Mac.

iExplorer:

Connect your iPhone to your Mac (be sure to trust the Mac) and open iExplorer.
In the left sidebar, click the dropdown arrow next to the most recent backup of your iPhone.
Choose the "Voicemail" button you'll now see in the sidebar.
Click "Export All..." to export all of your voicemails to your Mac.

The other good option: restore from iCloud backup

Check in iCloud settings to ensure your phone was last backed up to iCloud before switching carriers.
Then, factory reset your device (or, better, a separate iPhone whose data you don't care about losing).
Once it resets, set it up by signing into your iCloud account and restoring from an iCloud backup. Be sure to use the most recent backup (before switching carriers) of your iPhone.
Wait for it to restore, then connect it to iTunes on your Mac. Follow the iTunes portion of these instructions to create an iTunes backup of your newly-restored iPhone on your Mac. You don't need to encrypt the backup.
With the iTunes backup made, start following the instructions in the section above ("The best option").

The questionable, but maybe free option: call the GLDC
I contacted AT&T's chat support to ask them what to do before figuring out the methods above. Their representative told me to do the following:

To recover your VMs, you'll want to call the Global Legal Demand Center (GLDC), formerly known as the National Compliance Center (NCC). Their number is 800-635-6840.
Just ask them you need your VMs for legal purposes.

Kind of questionable, but maybe worth a shot!

Hope this helps, and leave a comment below if I can help more.


Accept Invite in iCal - without Mail.app Whenever I want to reply to an iCal event it opens up Mail.app to send the response.  I don't use Mail.app and use Sparrow instead.  Sparrow is set as the default mail client but that doesn't seem to make any difference.  Is there any way to make iCal not open up Mail.app and use "Insert any other mail client here" instead

Theres a pre written apple script solution for this and fairly easy instructions that any apple script novice should be able to follow. You can find the download and instructions here.


Show download speeds in Safari When downloading files in Safari you can see your current downloads in View -> Current Downloads or AltCommandL

If my memory serves me right, this window also showed the download speeds as well (this was in previous versions of Safari when it used to be a separate window). But I can not figure out how to bring up the downloads speeds.

My question: How can I see my current download speeds in Safari (version 6) without the use of any extensions of third party apps?

After reading this thread and with the reproducibility described here, I started to believe that this is a bug. In this thread OS X users complain that sometimes download speed is visible and sometimes not.
It was suggested to completely quit Safari, open terminal and execute:

rm ~/Library/Safari/Downloads.plist

And launch Safari again. That did not work for me.

The following steps might show your download speed (80% change, your mileage may vary):

Start a download
Pause that download
Close the download window
Wait 5 seconds and open the download window
Resuming the download
(after closing the download window, you need to do this all over again)

Screenshot, showing visible download speed (OS X 10.8.5 and Safari 6.0.5):


Configure Apple Mail to always open calendar invites in Fantastical 2 How can I configure Apple Mail to always open calendar invites in Fantastical 2?

Typically in OS X dialogs, you'd:

Right click on file
Select Open With...
Choose the application
Select Always open files of this type option

However, this option isn't available in the Mail dialog.

How do I set this preference?

The OS X Default calendar app preference is set in Calendar.app's preferences. If you select Fantastical there it should yield the behavior you are looking for.

Calendar.app > Calendar > Preferences > General > Default Calendar App


SSH into different port On terminal, I type

ssh root@ipadress

How do I ssh into something if it is not the default port 22, in my case it is 222

You can use the -p option to choose a different port. So:

ssh -p 222 root@ipaddress

You can also look up help using the man (manual) command, like man ssh, to show help information, including usage, command line options, errors, etc. While in the man page, you can type / (the slash character) followed by any text (and Enter) to search for that within the manual.


How to completely delete Bluetooth and network driver from MacBook Air? I need to permanently delete Bluetooth and Network drivers (Wi-Fi and Ethernet) from my MacBook Air running macOS High Sierra, so there will be no way to have any connection except the USB.

Is that possible to do from csrutil and if yes, how?

Note: this is not a direct answer to your question, but provides some alternative points to investigate.

Within the strict definition of 'permanently', anything software is typically undoable with enough intention (e.g. boot from alternative media or operating system, or single user mode, reinstall or enable drivers, etc). Leaving USB accessible will not prevent a USB to ethernet adaptor or wireless adaptor from being installed given enough motivation.

Depending on the model of your MacBook, you may be able to pop the lid open and physically remove the wireless & Bluetooth adaptor. I suspect the ethernet will be soldered to the mainboard so hardware disabling might not be practical. Some non-conductive resin in the ethernet socket might solve that issue…but the USB to network adaptor will still be an available route.

To summarise, it depends on your interpretation of 'permanently', and to an extent the underlying reasons for wanting/needing to do this.


MacOS intermitently shows system messages in wrong, non-default language So at some point last year I set MacOS language to my native language. I didn't quite like it, so after a while I switched back to English. Since then, MacOS keeps sporadically showing me messages in my native language, usually in low level scenarios (during startup, shutdown or update, in some system dialogs like Disk Utility repair disk log, etc.).

I tried every solution I could find (re-add and remove the other language, do it in safe mode, set English as default through the terminal, etc.) with no luck. Messages in my native language keep popping up from time to time. The weird thing is that the same message (like in the attached photo, which shows the restart computer dialog window) will sometimes be displayed in English, sometimes in the other language, with seemingly no logic as to why.

Does anyone have any idea how to fix this? Thanks!

Had the same problem today. I've opened the terminal and ran the following command:

$ sudo languagesetup

You'd have to add the password from your Mac's user.
You'll be prompted with a language list.
Select the one you desire, restart your Mac and just in case disable the option to reopen windows when you log back.


How can Windows be installed to a Mac via Boot Camp in BIOS Boot mode? When looking at answers to several questions on Ask Different concerning installing Windows via Boot Camp, I've seen several references to installing Windows to a Mac via "BIOS Boot". Would somebody be able to explain how this can be achieved?

Assuming you are using the Boot Camp Assistant to install a version of Windows officially supported on your Mac, then Windows will be installed to BIOS or UEFI boot automatically without user interaction.

During the Boot Camp installation process, Windows determines the boot method based on how the Boot Camp Assistant partitions the installation drive. If Boot Camp Assistant choose to keep a GUID partition table (GPT) with a fully protected Master Boot Record (MBR) partition table, then Windows will install for a UEFI boot. The alternative is to change to a GPT and a partially protected MBR partition with entries for the macOS (OS X) and Windows partitions. This is referred to as hybrid partitioning. In this case, Windows will install to BIOS boot. The older Macs only support hybrid partitioning for Windows installations, because there is a BIOS, but not a new enough EFI version in the firmware. Newer Macs support both methods of partitioning for Windows installations, because there is both a BIOS and new enough EFI version in the firmware. However, the newest Macs only support a GPT with a full protected MBR for Windows installations, because there is no BIOS support and enough EFI support in the firmware.


iPod Nano 6G stops playing when display turns off My iPod Nano 6G stops playing music when the display turns off either by time, or by pressing the "Sleep/Wake"-button.
This effect is fully reproducible but only appears with certain headphones, namely:

Sennheiser CX 1.00

JBL Synchros S100i

With several other headphones, the iPod keeps playing music when the display turns off.

Any advice how to get those headphones working with the iPod?

Most of the approaches to this error concern problems with the headphone jack and plug, so it was in this case.

Simply cleaning of the jack with compressed air didn't solve the problem. I had to scratch the inside (the part, the tip of the plug connects to) of the jack carefully with a paperclip and clean again with compressed air afterwards.

Be aware that you may damage the iPod and void your warranty this way!

Annotation:

I don't know, if it was dirt or passivation that caused the erratic behaviour.
The correlation with different ear buds is undeniable. This may be the cause of small differences within the specifications of the connectors, the headphones, or the MP3 device. Since I never had problems with other MP3 players, I tend to blame Apple.


How to stream live Apple Event on Apple TV (4th gen)? Apple provides this web page announces live streaming for tomorrow’s Apple Event on 2016-03-21.

  Join us here on March 21 at
  10 a.m. PDT to watch the keynote live.

  Requirements: Live streaming uses Apple’s HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) technology. HLS requires an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with Safari on iOS 7.0 or later, a Mac with Safari 6.0.5 or later on OS X v10.8.5 or later, or a PC with Microsoft Edge on Windows 10. Streaming via Apple TV requires an Apple TV (2nd or 3rd generation) with software 6.2 or later or an Apple TV (4th generation).

That last line mentions streaming on an Apple TV. But how? What app to use?

The App is called "Apple Special Event".

Have a look at: Apple Events app brings March 21 keynote to Apple TV


Partially redeem Apple Gift Card on App Store After using £200 of the value of my Apple Gift Card in the apple retail outlet(physical shop), I now have a balance of £500 of which I'd like to put £100 of that towards my App Store credits so I can buy iCloud storage, apps, etc. Here are my questions:

In the dialog to redeem a gift card on the app store I'm not sure if I can partially redeem just £100. Is this possible? I'm wary of going forward with this in case all £500 is redeemed to the app store, which would be needless.

Is it possible to buy iCloud storage using balance from a Gift Card?

You cannot partially redeem using the redeem page you're referring to. I don't know whether there are other methods that allow this (such as calling) but the redeem page will redeem the entire card.

If you have a gift card balance, all subscriptions including iCloud Storage will bill to the gift card balance on your account.


Full voice control for Mac What's an app that let's my control my Mac with voice commands, always on, with no keyboard and no mouse? I'm talking about an iMac mounted on a wall that is always listening for voice control commands.

The only app support really needed is a web browser -- I'm not asking to control photoshop with my voice or something!

But it must be a setup that never requires me to connect a keyboard or mouse, even if it crashes and needs a reboot.

If you want to totally control your Mac with your voice, I should strongly recommend to use dragon dictate 3 for mac from Nuance. But you need to know some Applescript to implement some user command.
You should also buy Plantronics microphone for quality based recognition.
Regards
Claude


How to pass path of selected file from Finder to Automator Shell script I am creating Automator Service to unzip selected files in the same folder they are located.

How can I get selected file absolute path in Automator, so I can pass it into my shell script ?

As you can see I am only passing filename for now, but its not unzipping in same folder.

I would like to change folder before unzip, and then execute unzip. I tried cd ~ but it unzips to my homefolder. I would like to unzip in same folder as selected files exists.

Add cd "$(dirname "$f")" before the unzip line.

for f in "$@"; do
    cd "$(dirname "$f")"
    unzip -o "$f"
done

or without changing to the directory, use the -d option

[-d exdir]
          An  optional  directory  to which to extract files.  By default, all files and subdirectories
          are recreated in the current directory; the -d  option  allows  extraction  in  an  arbitrary
          directory.....

for f in "$@"; do
    unzip "$f" -d "$(dirname "$f")"
done


Why won't launchctl automatically load my plist entries? I have put several plist entries in /Library/LaunchDaemons all configured to run at load. However, after booting, none of them load up automatically. Every other script in this directory loads automatically. My only workaround is to use an app called LaunchControl to manually load them, which works fine. Here is the text of one of these scripts

 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
        <key>Disabled</key>
        <false/>
        <key>GroupName</key>
        <string>wheel</string>
        <key>InitGroups</key>
        <true/>
        <key>Label</key>
        <string>com.usseinstein.dns</string>
        <key>ProgramArguments</key>
        <array>
                <string>/usr/local/sbin/dnsmasq</string>
                <string>--keep-in-foreground</string>
        </array>
        <key>RunAtLoad</key>
        <true/>
        <key>StandardErrorPath</key>
        <string>/tmp/com.local.dns.stderr</string>
        <key>StandardOutPath</key>
        <string>/tmp/com.local.dns.stdout</string>
        <key>UserName</key>
        <string>root</string>
</dict>
</plist>

Make sure that your plist in /Library/LaunchDaemons/ has appropriate permissions, which is root:wheel otherwise the system will not process them. To set them use following Terminal command:

sudo chown root:wheel /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.something.plist


How do I fix a MacBook earphone port, stuck in optical mode My 2009 MacBook’s speaker doesn't work (most times).  The digital audio out port gets stuck (a red glow appears from within the socket).  It is an old MacBook with separate headset & mic ports.

I have discounted problems with the speaker as the startup sound goes directly to the built-in speakers.

I think the OS controls which functionality the computer decides to use, but consults some hidden hardware in the socket.  The System Preferences can sense but not control the state of the digital audio.  As far as the computer is concerned, it is outputting digital audio and the speaker is disabled.

I did try to fix the problem by putting in a digital audio connector, but that didn’t help.  I did find suggestions recommending things like poking a toothpick in the hole and trying to ‘unlatch’ some mechanism which (I assume) senses the presence of the plug.

My next step, unless I get a better idea, is to open the computer case in the hope that I can inspect the port from the inside.  Alternatively, I might try to:

look further for software solutions, somehow overriding the computer's belief that something is plugged in; OS X doesn't seem to support this
mechanically probe from the outside (again)
get wireless speakers or headset
get some kind of optical portable or device
re-organise places I go (I carry a phone headset about, and in one office I keep a cheap pair of Logitech wired speakers.  Some places have Apple TVs.)
something else I haven't seen yet

Any ideas about pros and cons?  (I don't have much money to spend and hope to avoid the expensive options above.  I have time, but want to explore more options before opening the case.)

I just used a toothpick, flat headed, did a few swirls around inside the port with very light pressure & it just works, now Internal Speakers is available & the default choice in Sound prefs, volume icon is no longer grayed out in menu bar.


How to unplug from thunderbolt display in a safe way? Whenever to unplug from the thunderbolt display one have to unmount all the devices connected to the display ports. Is there an automated way to do this without having to search for everything in finder?

Jettison from the App Store for $1.99 has helped me with this.

It's a menubar application that helps in 2 ways: You can click and eject all drives (the only problem is that you can't say something like "Only eject drives connected to the Thunderbolt Display"); you can also select an option to eject all drives when putting the computer to sleep (so if you are disconnecting your computer to go somewhere, you can put it to sleep, wait a moment, then unplug everything).

That being said, I now use Launchbar to accomplish this. I just activate Launchbar and select "Eject All Ejectable Volumes". I'm willing to bet other app launchers (Quicksilver, Alfred) can do this just as easily.


Cannot see iTunes Radio on my device after updating to iOS7 I just have a quick question regarding the iTunes radio function. My girlfriend and I updated our iPhone 5 at the same time. She got the iTunes Radio, and mine is nowhere to be found. I open iTunes and cannot seem to find it anywhere. Anyone else experienced this?

I currently live in Norway with a Norwegian account, if that matters :)

According to zdnet.com (today),

  iTunes Radio is only available to U.S. account holders at launch and is also available in iOS 7.

The article is about iTunes 11.1, but I presume the same goes for iOS 7.

Wikipedia (today) states:

  Currently, iTunes Radio is only available in the US.

TechCrunch (yesterday) has:

  Also remember that iTunes Radio is for U.S. iTunes account holders only for now, with no word on when international users will gain access just yet.


Itunes 12.2 format playlist as songs not working I am aware that there is supposed to be a little dropdown in the upper, right-hand corner of Itunes that allows one to change the format of a playlist. However, my Itunes looks like this:

How do I get my formatting dropdown back?

With iTunes 12, playlists can be displayed as a Playlist (your current setting and it seems to be the default), or as Songs, Albums, Artists, Composers or Genres. Change the setting from the menu bar at View->View As, or use ⌘J to open Show View Options.

There is no dropdown for the how playlists are viewed.


Dragging PDFs out of safari Is there a way of dragging an open PDF out of safari into another app without saving it and then having to delete it like to the files app or notes?

So, I just found out I have this unanswered question. The solution is to drag out from the URL/Searchbar. You will then not drag the url but the file.


How many files in a folder is too many? Many years ago I vaguely recall that the Finder in Mac OS X would start having problems if a folder contained 2,000 - 3,000 items or more.

Apple doc says that the HFS Plus file system has a theoretical limit of a 2 billion files per folder all Mac OS X versions.

What is the practical limit?

Will having 10,000 photos in a folder be a problem?

You can easily try this yourself by running the following in Terminal

mkdir ~/t
cd ~/t
dd if=/dev/random of=test bs=1024 count=16
for i in {1..10000}; do cp test test.$i; done

to create a folder containing 10'000 files with 16kB each (replace the 16 in the third line with another number for differently sized files).


Is there a way to see current CPU frequency in macOS from terminal (not Intel power gadget) I am aware of these answers:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9948987/detect-current-cpu-clock-speed-programmatically-on-os-x

View the current clock Speed of a CPU in OS X?

Which refer to Intel Power Gadget as a way to obtain current CPU frequency, is there a program/method to obtain this information from the terminal?

sysctl hw.cpufrequency only shows the nominal frequency of the CPU, i.e. what the manufacturer has stated. It does not consider Turbo Boost or lower frequencies when CPU is idle. (For example if CPU is i5, 1.4GHz, it will always state 1.4GHz)

The C solution given it SO using sysctl.h has the same effect.

Since your comment mentions that you're really just focused on enabling Terminal (or more accurately not desktop)...

I think that the Intel Power Gadget will help you get your info from Terminal. From Intel:

  Intel® Power Gadget also provides a C/C++ Application Programming Interface (API) for accessing this power and frequency data in your program; the API is supported on Windows and Mac OS X. For more information on the API's, see:

And on that same page, also a link to Using the Intel Power Gadget API on Mac OS X

Sorry this isn't a link to an out of the box solution; I spent a few minutes with google to see if I could find someone who already did this without luck.


Siri on Volkswagen RCD 310 using Bluetooth How can I get the Volkswagen RCD 310 radio/CD player to work with Siri?

When iPhone is connected to the car using Bluetooth telephone connection and I press and hold its home button, Siri starts, but nothing happens in the car: It does not stop playing music, the alert sound does not play over the car's speakers, and I cannot hear Siri answer my request even though the conversation is displayed on the phone's screen.

Version indication: iPhone 5S with iOS 8.2

[EDIT] when using the phone as Bluetooth media player, when I press the home button to start Siri, I can hear the tone, but I cannot hear the answer to my requests.

Found a reliable yet cumbersome workaround to have Siri play over the RCD 310 stereo using Bluetooth...

Using your car's steering wheel control, disconnect the Bluetooth link to your phone.
Open Siri by holding your iPhone's home button.
Re-activate the Bluetooth connection from your car to your phone.

Voilà, after a few seconds you can have a dialog with Siri in your car... at least until you leave the Siri screen.


where is ~/.vim folder? and how to install themes? I downloaded color sample pack from http://vim.sourceforge.net/scripts/script.php?script_id=625

it says i should unzip and place it into ~/.vim
but where is this folder?
I tried unzip it to my usr/share/.vim folder but it is not working, I don't see themes added to gvim Edit>color scheme menu, and i tried
"colorscheme sometheme",
"color sometheme"
in my gvimrc.
Both not working for new themes

Isn't the ~/.vim should be the .vim folder in use/share? or I should create a new folder under home?

Note:there is a folder vim73 in my .vim, I guess this doesn't  affect anything

thanks for any help!

~ always is your home folder (/Users/rororo for instance). If ~/.vim exists, that's where you'll find it. Unless you've used vim before, the folder likely will not already exist, so to create the folder, open Terminal.app and type

cd ~
mkdir .vim

Assuming you downloaded ColorSamplerPack.zip to your Downloads folder you can then proceed with

cd .vim
unzip ~/Downloads/ColorSamplerPack.zip

to unpack the content into the folder. A restart of gvim may be required afterwards.

On second thought, the same result can be accomplished by just opening Terminal.app and executing

unzip ~/Downloads/ColorSamplerPack.zip -d ~/.vim


iMac 21.5 Core i3 mid 2010 optical bay swap SSD I've read a few suggestions that you get worse performance placing the SSD in a caddy in place of the optial drive rather than swapping with the main mechanical.

Is this true?

Can I have my boot drive in the old optical bay, and will I still get SATA II speeds for a supported/ or rather a modern SSD?

You shouldn't get slower speeds because both SATA ports are SATA II (3Gb/s).

You can confirm this by going to About This Mac >> System Report.  Then, go down to SATA/SATA Express and select the chipset controlling your optical drive.

(I don't have an optical drive for this example, unfortunately, so mine shows my SSD, but the concept is the same)

Look for Link Speed and Negotiated Link Speed.  Link Speed is what the interface is capable of (SATA II/3Gb/s) and Negotiated Link Speed is what the connected device is capable of delivering (SATA I/1.5Gb/s for SuperDrive).

Provided that both of your SATA ports are SATA II, then the only factor that could slow down the performance would be the caddy; so ensure that you get one that's SATA II or SATA III.

Also, keep in mind that all new SSDs are all SATA III, but they are backward compatible so, even though they are capable of 6Gb/s, the most you'll get is 3Gb/s.


Safari can't verify the identity of the website error When I upgraded macOS to Sierra last month, I started getting this error on a few websites (Lifehacker, Xkcd, etc).  When I try to read anything on Lifehacker, I get a particularly odd version of this error which says "Safari can't verify the identity of the website Kinja.com"  ...but my link is for lifehacker.com

As I said, when I first upgraded to Sierra, I got the error...  but a restart seemed to clear it up and I didn't get the error again until today when I updated to 10.12.1 and a restart didn't fix it (which makes sense.  I don't know why a restart fixed it last time).

How do I fix this?

I had this issue as well. When you get the error, expand it and change the dropdowns to "Always Trust." That should fix it.


How do I apply Apple ID verification on an iPod touch running iOS 6.1.6? I've reset my iPod Touch running iOS 6.1.6. Now every time I try to login to iTunes after putting in my Apple ID and password it asks for an Apple ID verification code, which has been texted to my phone.

However there is no place coming up to submit this verification code.

Append the verification code to the end of your usual password, then attempt to sign in. This is necessary on login prompts which don't support 2FA, such as those on older versions of iOS.


Is it safe to plug my iPhone into a life fitness cardio machine? If I plug in my iPhone over USB on a life fitness machine I will be able to play media on my iPhone onto the included tv screen (Hulu/Netflix etc).

Should I be concerned that it will install malware on my iPhone or is it safe to use?

Your iPhone should ask whether you want to Trust This Computer if the host being connected to wants to access your data.

You should be relatively safe by tapping Don’t Trust, barring any unknown USB exploits in iOS. This is always the big caveat when it comes to security.

Otherwise the platform doesn’t install anything without your consent. If the cardio machine tries to do that, you will get a popup, which you can always decline.

This shouldn’t keep you from streaming movies onto the screen.


Macbook Pro keyboard does not work on startup I'm having this issue since morning. Certain keys on my keyboard don't work when I try to type in my password. A few work and others don't. So I went on safe mode and changed it to no password.

The problem is that my keyboard works perfectly once I've logged into my MacBook Pro. I can type this entire paragraph properly but only only the login screen my keys don't work.

What is wrong with my MacBook Pro?

I would reset both the System Management Controller and PRAM/NVRAM.

Reset the SMC

Instructions for resetting your System Management Controller (SMC) will depend on whether your MacBook Pro runs from a built-in battery or a removable battery.

As your question doesn't provide the exact model, use the relevant instructions below:

SMC 1 - For MacBook Pros, MacBook Airs, and MacBooks where you can’t remove the battery on your own (i.e. it's a built-in battery), here’s what you do:

Shut down your computer
Keep the MagSafe adapter (power cable) plugged in.
Press at the same time shiftoptioncontrol (on the left side of the keyboard) and the power button
Let go
Turn your computer back on with the power button.

SMC 2 - For MacBook Pros, MacBooks etc that you can remove the battery from, here’s what you do:

Shut down your computer
Disconnect the MagSafe plug (power cable) from the computer
Remove the battery
Press the power button for 5 seconds and release
Put the battery back in
Reconnect the MagSafe cord (or power cable)
Turn your computer back on with the power button

Reset your PRAM/NVRAM

Older Macs had what's called Parameter RAM (PRAM), newer Macs use Non-Volatile Random-Access Memory (NVRAM). It may be worth you also resetting this. Here’s how to:

Shut down your machine. Yes, a full shut down, not just logging out.
Press the power button and then press the commandoptionpr keys. You have to make sure you press these keys before the gray screen appears or it won’t work.
Hold those keys down until your Mac reboots again and you here the startup chime.
Let go of the keys and let your Mac reboot normally.

Note: When you log back in you may need to readjust some of your system preferences (e.g. mouse speed, time and date/timezone, etc).

Give these a go and let us know how you go.


How to create /etc/exports in Mojave Im trying to start my vagrant environment on the new macOS mojave getting an error:

tee: /etc/exports: Operation not permitted
tee: /etc/exports: Operation not permitted
tee: /etc/exports: Operation not permitted
The nfsd service does not appear to be running.

On previous versions /etc/exports exists, but not in mojave, why? I cant start my virtual environment :(

I also tried to make a find on "exports" to see if is in other location but nothing was found, this file is renamed in this version?

I just had a similar issue and resolved it by:

going to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy.
Click the "lock" icon to make changes.
Scroll down the list on the left-hand side and select "Full Disk Access"
Click the "+" icon on the right and select the Terminal app (or in
my case iTerm)

You'll now be prompted to close the app if it's already open, restart it, and on next run you'll be asked if you want to allow the app to make changes - grant the permissions and you should be back up and running.


problems installing homebrew on mavericks I tried to install homebrew (OSX 10.9.5) using the recommended

ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

but got

Illegal variable name.

I do have macports installed, so perhaps some commands do not what they are meant to?? But note that ruby is /usr/bin/ruby and curl is /usr/bin/curl.

How can I overcome this problem?

The problem lies with usage of tcsh as underlying shell. tcsh does not support $() as a syntax for command substituion. When using bash instead, it works just fine.


How to always allow any app to do anything / disable Security & Privacy authorization dialogues Currently on macOS Catalina.
I work in sound design and audio development. I use several Automator-scripts and other workflow applications to control various stuff, and for every new project or when I make any change in any AppleScript, I get a nagging dialogue to "Allow for Keystrokes", "Allow for Accessibility", etc. Sometimes I have to re-authorize all my automator scripts after changing a single line in one of them.
This is killing my workflow, and this was implemented in macOS Mojave and forward with the new Privacy and Integrity-routines. On High Sierra this was never a problem, which was the system I used before.
I need to disable this permanently. I want any app to make any change it want. I know the risks, but I don't care. It is not a problem for me running an isolated systems with absolute control over all apps I use. I never install anything new, it's an audio workstation with bare minimum applications installed.
I've tried Disabling SIP, didn't help. Adding an application to "Full disk access" still makes me have to authorized it in all other fields. Sometimes, when I use application A to control application B, if doing changes in App A, the option to again authorize it to control B never shows up, and is not available.
Question is: Does anyone know how I can globally disable the Security & Privacy check in macOS Catalina so that any application I start can control/do whatever it want? If there's no "official" setting, is there no way to hack the underlying preferences or similar?
macOS should have a power user mode.

The only solution that I know of is to approach the problem from another direction.
Writing all of your own Automator apps (which are going to continually run into this problem), and trying to find loopholes to make them work? That's going to be a losing battle.
You might be able to solve this with SD Notary: Notarizing Made Easy from the folks who make Script Debugger. Honestly, I don't know, but it might be worth checking out.
What I would be doing is using Keyboard Maestro to handle the automation. Once Keyboard Maestro has been given the proper authorizations, it can handle any of these situations (I presume, since you don't give specifics, I can't say 100%).
Then you will have one centralized place where you can control and manage all of these various automation actions, as well as a community where you can ask for help as you learn the ropes.

macOS should have a power user mode.

I agree wholeheartedly. 100%. No doubt.
But it doesn't, and I suspect it is very unlikely to add one.
That being said, I think Keyboard Maestro is the closest you can get to a Power User Mode on the Mac. No, it's not from Apple (I doubt they could make anything as good), but I'm not aware of anything that will give you more power and flexibility.
(Non-Disclaimer: I'm just a user of the app. I don't get paid, compensated, rewarded, or anything else in exchange for my endorsement and recommendation. I just happily give the developer my money whenever a new version comes out.)


Get current StartInterval status from Launchd If a launchd job has a StartInterval of 600 and it's been "some time" since the plist was loaded.

How can one determine how much time remains until the next scheduled run?

It really depends on why you care (inherently, you shouldn't, or more likely, there's some better way to do it). It all comes down to your script being smarter. Drop a turd file or use the script to either defer until next run, or go into a holding pattern.


Browsers opens only https sites I have OS X Mavericks on my Mac and 3 browsers (Firefox, Safari, Chrome).
When I try to open any site I see only "connecting..", but when I try https sites it works fine!
Ping and traceroute shows normal information.
Internet works over Wi-Fi. (My iPad works fine and opens any address).

I have tried to restatart mDNSResponder and turn off Firewall. But my problem still persists.

Any ideas?

188.43.69.98 is a Russian IP and announced as owned by 'Closed Joint Stock Company TransTeleCom' and not is not an official Google IP.  It tries to disguise itself by falsifying its reverse dns pointer pretending to be 'cache.google.com' but this is a lie.

Chances are very high your system has been hijacked somehow.  Perhaps not your Mac but your internet router could be compromised.  My guess you have an ADSL connection on a TP-Link or D-Link ADSL router which are easy targets.

Log in into your router and check what the DNS servers are set to.


"Import Files into iTunes" automator action not working I'm having an issue with a simple automator action, "Import Files into iTunes". It's the only thing I have in the workflow but when I drop audio files onto the application, the action encounters an error. In trying to figure out what was amiss, I read that there was a version number conflict after iTunes 10, so I followed the instructions here but they did not fix the issue. Does anyone have a suggestion on what to try or how to diagnose the issue? I'm running Yosemite (10.10.2) and iTunes 12.1.0.50. Thanks for the help!

Did you know about the "~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Automatically Add to iTunes" folder?  Anything you copy to this folder will automatically be added to iTunes.  Have you tried adding content this way?


How to remember only a username in Safari? Chrome and Firefox allow to remember only a username (gmail, for example) without no problem.

But it's not working the same way for Safari.

Safari, if remembers, it remembers both, username and password.

But if I don't save password it doesn't remember only a username.

How can I do this?

Couldn't find any related post.

Go to Safari / Preferences - Autofill. Make sure: User names and passwords is selected.

If you don't want your FB pasword saved, open Keychain Access.

Applications/Utilities.

Select Passwords on the left.

Delete the Facebook keychain. (That's where the password is stored).

Now navigate to the Facebook page, enter your log in data but when prompted for Safari to save that data to a new keychain, click Never.


Are iPad/iOS updates region dependant or serial number dependant? I've got an iPad running iOS version 4.x and I want to upgrade to iOS 5 but I'm currently in the middle east. iPads in the middle east don't have FaceTime installed on them. I'm a little worried that if download the latest version of iOS the apple update site would notice my IP address and give me a version of iOS without FaceTime.

Is the version of iOS downloaded for an update based on location/ip address or device serial number?

AFAIK, hardware wise they are all the same (well outside of storage and 3G) it is serial number that determines some features. The serial number has a country code in it and the update process can determine which applications need to be removed. If, for example the SN country code is in the EU, the volume has to be limited and the radio has to be adjusted for differences in Wifi channels.


Apple Watch4 with OS6 slow/ unresponsive on tap to wake I’ve been using Apple Watch Series 4 with Watch OS 5.x for a year. With disabled raise to wake I had no problems with waking the watch by tapping the screen.

Upon upgrade to Watch OS6, I now need multiple taps to wake. Single tap does not even get registered most of the time. After it finally wakes up, and I turn the screen off, it wakes back up with one tap. But the initial wake is problematic - takes 3-4 seconds and multiple taps.

I also sanitized the watch band with rubbing alcohol. I wiped the screen too. Would rubbing alcohol damage the tap to wake ability?

How do I restore single tap to wake on Apple Watch with WatchOS6.0.1 ?

This is a common issue with a lot of people experiencing it in this Apple Discussion. There is no fix of it as of yet, but as people have complained Apple is aware of it and should release a fix soon. So now all you can do is wait for an update.


How to view multiple inboxes on Apple Watch (individually) It seems like in the iPhone's Watch app for email I can select one and only one mailbox to read from the Watch (Include Mail setting). I really dislike the "All Inboxes" concept, but would like to have two of my four inboxes available, along with a sub-folder or two. Is that possible with the stock Mail app? Thanks!

From the Apple Watch user box (https://manuals.info.apple.com/MANUALS/1000/MA1708/en_US/apple_watch_user_guide.pdf): "Choose which mailbox appears on Apple Watch. Open the Apple Watch app on iPhone, tap My Watch, then go to Mail > Include Mail. You can specify only one mailbox, although if you don’t choose a mailbox, you’ll see content from all inboxes."


DNS servers aren't specific to network? On my Mac, I am trying to set my DNS servers so that they are 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 at my house, while at school they are the router default (they block google's public DNS)

How can I set up my DNS servers to be configured differently for each wireless network?

note: router configuration at my home is not an option.

I am running:
macOS 10.12.3 16D32 Sierra
MacBook Pro 13" w/ 4 Thunderbolt 3

How can I set up my DNS servers to be configured differently for each wireless network?

Set and Change in Network Preferences

You can set your own custom DNS settings on a location basis by defining a "Location" in Network Preferences

You would then enter your preferred DNS settings (click "Advanced") under the DNS tab:

After you create set the configuration to your liking, you can call it up by returning to this preferences page and just selecting the location of your choice.

Or...

You can switch from the directly from Apple Menu ().  Just choose "Location" and select the location you want

Switch using command Line

For a quicker way, you can switch using the command networksetup.  So, to switch to a profile you have already created called "School" your command would be:

networksetup -switchlocation School

Bonus footage...

You could create small bash scripts with the command pre populated and placed (or linked) on your desktop.

#!/bin/bash
#Script to set the location to School

networksetup -switchlocation School
exit

Name it something meaningful like school.sh or school.command (or even just school).  Make it executable by issuing the command chmod +x /path/to/school.command (or whatever you called it).  Make another for Home, Work, In-Laws, or wherever.  When you double click on it, it will change the network location and your preset settings.

Caveat

If your organization (like your school) blocks outside DNS servers and traffic limiting it to the DNS servers they specify, you won't be able to override them.


Restore Mac from Time Machine Backup via Terminal I ran into some major problem today when trying to delete old TM backups from an external drive.

Now that I have a Time Capsule I wanted to clear the old backups from another external drive. At some point, Yosemite suddenly stopped working properly, Keychain errors popped up, my Desktop was empty, user folders cleared, etc. It looked like I accidentally deleted my own User folder. I checked the Terminal from where I attempted to delete old TM Backups and it really looked like I did nothing wrong. I thought, well, I must have overlooked something but for that reason I have Backups in the first place, so I booted into recovery and selected restore from Backup to facilitate my new Time Capsule. Since all Backups are password protected I tried to enter my password but got the error message that the system could not connect. I rebooted into what was left of my user and checked that the Time Machine password was in fact correct.

Anyway, now I got access to the TC via tmutil and was wondering how I can restore the whole machine via Terminal.

You likely do not want to attempt this from Terminal but if you did you would want to use tmutil restore ... Read the manual page - for what that involves. The issue will be you will have to specify via the command line where in the time capsule snapshot the restoration will be sourced from.

For more likely success you probably should re-boot using the Recovery HD or some other graphical user interface mechanism intended for this kind of restore from disaster scenario that will guide you in finding the right snapshot as described in the Time Machine FAQ


How I can install GDB in NetBeans in Mavericks for debugging? I have an error when I debug a C program in NetBeans.

GDB has unexpectedly stopped with return 127

Here is a screenshot of the build tools:

That's what I did to install GDB (under Yosemite):

Install brew: http://brew.sh
Update brew. If you already have installed brew, check for updates. In the terminal:

$ brew update

This step turned out to be decisive for me as, before updating, brew did not find any gdb package:

$ brew install gdb # Error: No available formula for gdb

And after that:

$ brew update
$ brew search | grep gdb # cgdb gdb gdbm pgdbf

Install gdb:

$ brew install gdb

Codesign the binary following these instructions: http://sourceware.org/gdb/wiki/BuildingOnDarwin I copy them here for the sake of completeness and to add some comments:

  Creating a certificate

  Start Keychain Access application (/Applications/Utilities/Keychain Access.app)
  Open menu /Keychain Access/Certificate Assistant/Create a Certificate...
  Choose a name (gdb-cert in the example), set Identity Type to Self Signed Root, set Certificate Type to Code Signing and select the Let me override defaults. Click several times on Continue until you get to the Specify a Location For The Certificate screen, then set Keychain to System.
  If you can't store the certificate in the System keychain, create it in the login keychain, then exported it. You can then imported it into the System keychain.
  Finally, using the contextual menu for the certificate, select Get Info, open the Trust item, and set Code Signing to Always Trust.
  You must quit Keychain Access application in order to use the certificate and restart taskgated service by killing the current running taskgated process (comment: for example with sudo pkill taskgated or restarting).

And then

  Giving gdb permission to control other processes

  If the certificate is known as gdb-cert, just use:

$ codesign -s gdb-cert gdb

  Comment: if gdb is not found, then add the path where it was installed. In my case:

$ codesign -s gdb-cert /usr/local/Cellar/gdb/7.10/bin/gdb

Use either gdb or the path where gdb was installed (for example, /usr/local/Cellar/gdb/7.10/bin/gdb) in the menu /Netbeans/Preferences/C/C++/Build Tools field Debugger Command field.


Cannot get postfix to listen on wifi interface (en1) I have a Mac running 10.8.4 which I am using as a server which is only connected to my network via Wifi (en1), however I cannot get the stock postfix process to listen on en1.  I have tried a variety of inet_interfaces settings, for example the default setting of all, gives:

# netstat -an | fgrep .25
tcp6       0      0  ::1.25                 *.*                    LISTEN
tcp4       0      0  127.0.0.1.25           *.*                    LISTEN

I have also tried:

inet_interfaces = 192.168.1.100, 127.0.0.1
inet_interfaces = 192.168.1.0, 127.0.0.1
inet_interfaces = $myhostname

But I can see no listen on en1.  Can anyone advise?  Should I ditch the stock postfix and use the Macports one?

(note that I have unloaded and loaded postfix using launchctl between config changes).

OK, long-story-short, there was an additional inet_interfaces line right at the bottom of the file, which has the setting loopback_only.  I can only assume it was written there by some automated tool incapable of properly parsing and recreating the config file.


Upgraded to Lion: Time Machine spends a LOT of time indexing backup I upgraded my MacBook Pro to Lion and one of the problems I've had is that Time Machine keeps running and running, and the fans go on.

This usually seems to be in the state where it indexes the backup.

This is to a Time Capsule, there is about 90 Gb left on the drive.  I am connecting wirelessly over an n-network. The backups go about 4 months back.  Left to itself the backup finishes in "quite a while".

Under 10.6 this was an almost invisible process.  Now I am annoyed hourly.  Any suggestions?

EDIT: I grepped for "backup" in the log messages (/private/var/log/system.log) and got the following from the last backup (which I cancelled):

24/07/11 14.42.22,185 com.apple.backupd: Starting standard backup
24/07/11 14.42.24,013 com.apple.backupd: Attempting to mount network destination URL: afp://Thorbj%C3%B8rn%20Ravn%20Andersen@Thorbj%C3%B8rn%20TC._afpovertcp._tcp.local/Data
24/07/11 14.42.31,097 com.apple.backupd: Mounted network destination at mountpoint: /Volumes/Data using URL: afp://Thorbj%C3%B8rn%20Ravn%20Andersen@Thorbj%C3%B8rn%20TC._afpovertcp._tcp.local/Data
24/07/11 14.42.35,981 com.apple.backupd: QUICKCHECK ONLY; FILESYSTEM CLEAN
24/07/11 14.42.39,214 com.apple.backupd: Disk image /Volumes/Data/Thorbjørns MBP.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Time Machine-sikkerhedskopier
24/07/11 14.42.39,287 com.apple.backupd: Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine-sikkerhedskopier/Backups.backupdb
24/07/11 14.45.02,101 com.apple.backupd: Waiting for index to be ready (100)
24/07/11 14.45.21,588 mds: (Error) Backup: doBackupIndexFile could not stat backup location /.MobileBackups/Computer/2011-07-24-144225/Volume/Users/ravn/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Default/History Index 2011-07-journal /.MobileBackups/Computer/2011-07-24-144225/Volume/Users/ravn/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Default/History Index 2011-07-journal. Error 2 with uid 0
24/07/11 14.57.34,633 com.apple.backupd: 23.71 GB required (including padding), 71.79 GB available
24/07/11 14.57.34,680 com.apple.backupd: Waiting for index to be ready (100)
24/07/11 14.58.38,530 com.apple.backupd: Waiting for index to be ready (100)
24/07/11 14.59.56,176 com.apple.backupd: Waiting for index to be ready (100)
24/07/11 15.00.56,663 com.apple.backupd: Waiting for index to be ready (100)
24/07/11 15.01.57,479 com.apple.backupd: Waiting for index to be ready (100)
24/07/11 15.02.57,783 com.apple.backupd: Waiting for index to be ready (100)
24/07/11 15.03.59,499 com.apple.backupd: Waiting for index to be ready (100)
24/07/11 15.05.00,659 com.apple.backupd: Waiting for index to be ready (100)
24/07/11 15.06.01,065 com.apple.backupd: Waiting for index to be ready (100)
24/07/11 15.07.01,923 com.apple.backupd: Waiting for index to be ready (100)
24/07/11 15.08.03,008 com.apple.backupd: Waiting for index to be ready (100)
24/07/11 15.09.03,818 com.apple.backupd: Waiting for index to be ready (100)
24/07/11 15.10.05,692 com.apple.backupd: Waiting for index to be ready (100)
24/07/11 15.11.06,368 com.apple.backupd: Waiting for index to be ready (100)
24/07/11 15.12.06,780 com.apple.backupd: Waiting for index to be ready (100)
24/07/11 15.13.07,700 com.apple.backupd: Waiting for index to be ready (100)
24/07/11 15.14.08,159 com.apple.backupd: Waiting for index to be ready (100)
24/07/11 15.15.09,275 com.apple.backupd: Waiting for index to be ready (100)
24/07/11 15.15.11,044 com.apple.backupd: Copied 0 files (0 bytes) from volume OSX.
24/07/11 15.15.12,154 mds: (Error) Volume: Could not find requested backup type:2 for volume
24/07/11 15.16.42,159 com.apple.backupd: Backup canceled.
24/07/11 15.16.46,704 com.apple.backupd: Ejected Time Machine disk image.
24/07/11 15.16.47,816 com.apple.backupd: Ejected Time Machine network volume.

Is the "Could not find requested backup type: 2 for volume" message important?

From your situation, it's hard to tell if this is normal or if the process is somehow stuck.

You can monitor what is happening from the Time Machine system preference while the backups are taking longer than expected.

For more detail - fire up the Console.app and type backupd in the String Matching / filter control. You might be able to determine if the process is taking a lot of time deleting old backups or something else. You'll also see the timing and the volume of data that might help if you are having slower transfer over the network than before.

Good luck hunting down a cause...

[Edit - responding to additional details on the mount aborting - index failing to get ready.]

OK - this likely won't fix itself. It's always nice to follow the recommended systematic steps to troubleshoot time machine, but I might start first with a verify pass of your existing backup files.

To verify, hold the option key and click your Time Machine icon in the menu bar - the verify process should get you a more concrete error you can understand or it might just fix the issue altogether. Your mac is timing out waiting for a preliminary steo to finish and it's not clear why.