cannot even ssh to localhost MacOS Sierra

I have enabled remote for user git and able to change to that user from terminal with “su - git” command, but not with “ssh git@127.0.0.1”

Verbose ssh as below:

mcb:~ grepmaster$ ssh -v git@127.0.0.1
OpenSSH_7.4p1, LibreSSL 2.5.0
debug1: Reading configuration data /etc/ssh/ssh_config
debug1: Connecting to 127.0.0.1 [127.0.0.1] port 22.
debug1: Connection established.
debug1: key_load_public: No such file or directory
debug1: identity file /Users/grepmaster/.ssh/id_rsa type -1
debug1: key_load_public: No such file or directory
debug1: identity file /Users/grepmaster/.ssh/id_rsa-cert type -1
debug1: key_load_public: No such file or directory
debug1: identity file /Users/grepmaster/.ssh/id_dsa type -1
debug1: key_load_public: No such file or directory
debug1: identity file /Users/grepmaster/.ssh/id_dsa-cert type -1
debug1: key_load_public: No such file or directory
debug1: identity file /Users/grepmaster/.ssh/id_ecdsa type -1
debug1: key_load_public: No such file or directory
debug1: identity file /Users/grepmaster/.ssh/id_ecdsa-cert type -1
debug1: key_load_public: No such file or directory
debug1: identity file /Users/grepmaster/.ssh/id_ed25519 type -1
debug1: key_load_public: No such file or directory
debug1: identity file /Users/grepmaster/.ssh/id_ed25519-cert type -1
debug1: Enabling compatibility mode for protocol 2.0
debug1: Local version string SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_7.4
debug1: Remote protocol version 2.0, remote software version     OpenSSH_7.4
debug1: match: OpenSSH_7.4 pat OpenSSH* compat 0x04000000
debug1: Authenticating to 127.0.0.1:22 as 'git'
debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT sent
debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT received
debug1: kex: algorithm: curve25519-sha256
debug1: kex: host key algorithm: ecdsa-sha2-nistp256
debug1: kex: server->client cipher: chacha20-poly1305@openssh.com MAC: <implicit> compression: none
debug1: kex: client->server cipher: chacha20-poly1305@openssh.com MAC: <implicit> compression: none
debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_KEX_ECDH_REPLY
debug1: Server host key: ecdsa-sha2-nistp256 SHA256:5X8jxUlWln82ByrzHfUmUyXIij67LH62fS1HPVRDtf4
debug1: Host '127.0.0.1' is known and matches the ECDSA host key.
debug1: Found key in /Users/grepmaster/.ssh/known_hosts:60
debug1: rekey after 134217728 blocks
debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS sent
debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS
debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS received
debug1: rekey after 134217728 blocks
debug1: SSH2_MSG_EXT_INFO received
debug1: kex_input_ext_info: server-sig-algs=<ssh-ed25519,ssh-rsa,ssh-dss,ecdsa-sha2-nistp256,ecdsa-sha2-nistp384,ecdsa-sha2-nistp521>
debug1: SSH2_MSG_SERVICE_ACCEPT received
debug1: Authentications that can continue:publickey,password,keyboard-interactive
debug1: Next authentication method: publickey
debug1: Trying private key: /Users/grepmaster/.ssh/id_rsa
debug1: Trying private key: /Users/grepmaster/.ssh/id_dsa
debug1: Trying private key: /Users/grepmaster/.ssh/id_ecdsa
debug1: Trying private key: /Users/grepmaster/.ssh/id_ed25519
debug1: Next authentication method: keyboard-interactive
debug1: Authentications that can continue:publickey,password,keyboard-interactive
debug1: Next authentication method: password
git@127.0.0.1's password:
debug1: Authentications that can continue:publickey,password,keyboard-interactive
Permission denied, please try again.
git@127.0.0.1's password:
debug1: Authentications that can continue:publickey,password,keyboard-interactive
Permission denied, please try again.
git@127.0.0.1's password:
debug1: Authentications that can continue:publickey,password,keyboard-interactive
debug1: No more authentication methods to try.
Permission denied (publickey,password,keyboard-interactive).

Any specific steps to be done?

Run

sudo vi /etc/ssh/sshd_config

and uncomment

#PasswordAuthentication yes


Mapping signatures to aliases in Mail.app Is there any way of mapping a particular signature to a particular alias in Mail.app?

I have 3 email aliases in one account so I've set up 3 separate signatures. When I receive an email to one of these aliases, Mail.app correctly chooses the alias to use when replying, but it won't allow me to tie a particular signature to that alias. Instead it always automatically chooses the first signature, I have to manually change the signature when writing the email.

Is there any way to address this? It seems like a major shortcoming, and at the moment is the only thing stopping me from using Mail.app.

In a word, no . . .

Unless you can create each alias as a separate account (as suggested in a comment to the OP,) Mail.app won't be able to apply a unique signature to them respectively.

That being said, and if you don't want to create distinct accounts in Mail, you might consider using the text expansion feature of OS X.

First, open the Mail app and copy your desired signature into the clipboard.  Then remove it from the account
Open System Preferences / Keyboard
Select the Text panel

Click on the '+' at the bottom of the list of shortcuts
Type a short, uncommon string for use as your signature shortcut in the Replace column.  For example:

&sig1

Tab into the With column and paste your signature text there
Tab out and your shortcut will be active
Repeat for any additional signatures you'd like to use.

Then, at the bottom of your emails, just type the shortcut text ('&sig1' in this example) followed by a space, and your signature will appear in place of the shortcut text.

While it is not ideal, it IS far simpler than changing your default signature in Mail every time you use a different account alias AND you may find the text expansion feature useful in many other situations as well.


How to use Defaults to set an element of an array of an array in a preference file? I am trying to increase the speed of the Text-To-Speech on my Mac.  The GUI Preference pane maxes out at 360 words per minute.  I do accessibility development and this is actually a little slow for me.

I have found the preference file for voice settings:
com.apple.speech.voice.prefs.plist

and I know the key:
VoiceRateDataArray

However, when I read the preference I get an array of arrays.

So how do I write the command line command to over-write the specific element of the array to speed up the voice in OS X.

I cannot seem to find an example to deal with arrays and the defaults command.

WARNING: Although this will do what you're asking, it has shown to make the system speech synthesizer incredibly unstable and crash constantly, to the point of making it unusable. I'm posting this here for future reference in regard to setting nested arrays, but I do not recommend anyone actually tries what's shown here.

I've tried changing this setting manually, but it would seem that the speech synthesizer will not speak faster than 360. Here's how you can see this for yourself:

First, we have to get the "VoiceRateDataArray" key, in order to set the things that shouldn't change, back to their original values, when we make our modifications

defaults read com.apple.speech.voice.prefs VoiceRateDataArray

The output should look something like this:

Then, we can make our edits. First, we must construct the defaults command, containing the entry we don't wish to change, and the modified version of the entry we do. For this example, I will change the second entry. The basic syntax is -array '(item1, item2, item3)' '(item1, item2, item3)'. This creates an array, with two nested arrays inside it, based on my example:

defaults write com.apple.speech.voice.prefs VoiceRateDataArray -array '(
    1835364215,
    200,
    205
)' '(
    1886745202,
    184844493,
    400
)'

As you can see, the last element of the second second array has changed from 271 to 400.
Now you have to restart the speech synthesizer:

killall com.apple.speech.speechsynthesisd


Is there any application to control iTunes using a GUI over its own dock icon Do you know any iTunes controller application which uses its own dock icon as a GUI widget to include play/pause, next, previous buttons? Or is it possible to build one easily? If dock icons does not allow placing buttons (I've seen some advanced usages of dock icons like a progress bar or near-real time preview of virtual OS on parallels etc.), we may try to just design a dock icon containing a UI image skin but trying to receive mouse click events by other means (coordinate estimation, etc). I'd also prefer that to have Last.fm support (love/ban the song), rating functionality on dock menu.

I am not yet aware of anything like I've mentioned in the question, but HyperDock Mac application seems to be the closest thing to what I want. It adds window previews -similar to those on Win 7- to dock apps and enables special functionalities for apps like iTunes, Spotify to play/pause, next etc. You can also assign shortcuts.


Location in Weather Widget is Wrong The location in the weather widget of the notification center is permanently wrong since September 2014. I was in Ampus for vacation. But today I'm at home and the location is not changing!

If I click on the i in the upper right corner, I can't change it manually.

Does somebody know a solution?

Go System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy [tab]
Uncheck and recheck 'Weather' and it's back to normal

See below img


iPhone 5s shows SIM Not Valid after sending it home from USA I have bought an iPhone 5s from USA, and sent it back home, however it shows "SIM Not Valid". Is it factory locked, country locked or something else? How can I fix it?

Depending on which model you bought in the US, you may or may not have a sim in the phone.

Sounds as though you have a sim, you will need to remove the US sim, buy a sim from a provider in the country where you are going to use it (or enable roaming - although it does not sound as if you are having a roaming issue).

You noted in your comments that you used other sims, if so then:

YES, your phone is most probably locked to a US carrier.

To answer your question how to fix it. You need to buy a non carrier locked phone from Apple in the US, or jail break your phone.

This site does not condone jail breaking however I can point you to a very good site called google which will help you out.


Why do I see words when I press shift+esc on Chrome address bar? This list of words also appears when I put a textbox on a PDF when opened in Preview and press Esc. I suspect this has nothing to do with Chrome.

That is normal, I think this was added when yosemite was released. Its basically predictive text for the mac. That shows up every time you press the esc key in a textfield. Hope this helps :)


iPad Air 2 - How to enable device rotation I am working with a new iPad Air 2. I cannot figure out how to change the view to landscape.. There is no side button, and I am tired, but I cannot see a preference in Settings.

There is apparently an option to adjust screen rotation in the Control Center on the iPad Air 2, since it has no side switch. (Control Center can be accessed by swiping up from he bottom of the screen).


How fix broken Macports installation after manual deletion of app? I had GIMP installed via sudo port install gimp. This created the GIMP.app in /Applications/MacPorts/. I accidentally deleted it manually (or with AppCleaner, not sure), so every time Macports scans installed binaries, it warns

Warning: Error parsing file /Applications/MacPorts/GIMP.app/Contents/MacOS/GIMP: Error opening or reading file

This is also what happens when I try to install again. I uninstalled and cleaned the port, but installing again does not work; the .app is not created and the above warning shows. How do I fix it?

I am not quite sure, but after I purged the unused dependencies of gimp, the error went away.


Sporadic static-like white dots on external monitor after upgrading to new MacBook Air After upgrading from a 2011 MacBook Air to a (refurbished) mid-2013 MacBook Air, I'm getting odd behavior with my external Dell 2240M monitor.

Whenever my laptop wakes up, if the monitor is already on (usually asleep), there are this static-like white dots dancing all over the screen. If I cycle the monitor power with the laptop on, they go away.

What causes this? Does the newer MacBook Air have some incompatibility older monitors?

I'd start by suspecting the thunderbolt->DVI adapter you're using (you are using DVI, right?).

Do the dots go away if you just unplug and replug the adapter, or do you actually have to power cycle the unit?


Can't find "floating or inline" option for images in Pages documents In earlier versions of Pages, there was an option to make an image float on the page. I loved that and can't find it in the new Pages.  Can anyone tell me how to navigate to it?

If you mean where Text will wrap around the image.

move below and above the image

or the image will float on top of the Text. (inline)

Then it is under the Fomat inspector -->Arrange tab, -->Stay on Page tab -> Text Wrap.

The inline with Text option

seems to have been change to none


Why is the Page Number menu item greyed out in Pages '09? I want to insert a page number in my iWork document. I clicked on Insert and the Page Number title is grayed out.

How can I get the page number feature to activate? I used to insert it in other documents with no problem.

It's greyed out because it needs somewhere to insert the page number. You have no insertion point active in the document to insert the page number. Click in the body of the document in a text box or other text entry area, then try selecting Insert → Page Number.


How do I bring my Quicktime DV from 2013 to life? Back in 2012/2013 I've imported a stack of home video tapes from my DV camera into iMovie. I also converted a lot of files created by earlier versions of iMovie, some of them dating back as far as 2003 or thereabouts.

For as much as 2 years I haven't touched iMovie or those files. What I did do was update my OSX and all my apps along with it, including iMovie. I'm now on El Capitan (wish I Kept Yosemite) and my iMovie cannot read the iMovie files dating from 2012/13.

Any thoughts? Tools?

Apple fully rewrote iMovie in version 10.x. For iMovie 2014 to open projects of iMovie versions 7.x, 8.x, and 9.x (iMovie '08, '09, '11) you have to use iMovie's 'update' feature which changes previous project files into the new format. To do that, you place the old folders named 'iMovie Projects' and 'iMovie Events' into your current 'Movies' folder. More details here:  https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202853

For even older iMovie project formats ('iMovie HD') one would have to use  import them in iMovie '11 first (File > Import > iMovie HD Project) to bring them into that format, then 'update' the imported projects in iMovie 2014. However, when importing these very old formats into iMovie '11, they get stripped of added audio files, transition effects and titles.


Cannot access the Internet I don't normally move my laptop. Today I made an exception and took it to a friend's house. Once I've returned home, I was no longer able to connect to the Internet. The browser says: "Server not found" and the system clock does not show the correct time. I don't use WiFi, I connect to the Internet using a physical connection. When I connect the same cable to my desktop Mac, I have no trouble connecting to the Internet, so the problem is not with my router or Internet service provider. I restarted my laptop in Internet recovery mode and was able to browse the Internet while in that mode. Please help me restore Internet connectivity.

MacBook Pro
macOS Sierra
Version 10.12.3

OP here. The issue was resolved with the help of an Apple support representative back in March 2017. The solution was to delete the Ethernet entry in System Preferences -> Network, add a new Ethernet entry, and then reset the SCM as described in this article ("Reset the SMC on Mac notebook computers").


launchd keeps restarting my binary in /Library/PrivilegedHelperTools I am looking to install a privileged helper tool using SMJobBless.
My plist only contains the MachServices key and RunAtLoad key. The RunAtLoad is set to true as I want to be launched automatically after install.

Now, the problem is that once the helper tool is installed and launched and it completes its job successfully - it gets relaunched and this keeps happening again and again.

Original launchd Job Ticket

<?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">
<key>Label</key>
<string>com.ak.SMJobBlessHelper</string>
<key>MachServices</key>
<dict>
<key>com.ak.SMJobBlessHelper.mach</key>
<true/>
</dict>
<key>ProgramArguments</key>
<array>
<string>/Library/PrivilegedHelperTools/com.ak.SMJobBlessHelper</string>
</array>
<key>RunAtLoad</key>
<true/>
</plist>

I have tried various things to stop it from launching again but in vain:

Tried to add KeepAlive to false in the plist.
Tried to add KeepAlive as a dictionary with the key SuccessfulExit to false.
Tried to make my app sleep for occult times before quitting like sleeping for 5 minutes, 10 minutes etc. but it still gets launched again.

I have basically run out of ideas, I want it to launch only when I ask and not automatically and that too again and again.

Please help. Thank you very much.

OS: Mac OS X 10.8.4 12E55
Xcode: 4.6.2 (4H1003)

The launchd job ticket in the question is malformed; the root object must be a dict:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
   ...
</dict>
</plist>

Assuming this is a copy and paste error, how quickly does your com.ak.SMJobBlessHelper complete?

Some launchd configurations require the process remain running for a minimum of 30 seconds – else launchd will consider the process as crashed and automatically relaunch it.

Does your com.ak.SMJobBlessHelper conform to the requirements set out in the launchd documentation?


Dropped MacBook, lots of disk io errors. How to fix? My 2011 MacBook just slid off the table and hit the floor face down opened. There was a message saying to reset and I did. After that it wouldn't load OS X Lion; it stays at the gray screen forever. Going into single user mode and running fsck -fy returns a lot of disk i/o errors. After several hours, it's still displaying those and some other messages. Can fsck still fix this drive? Mu windows partition is working.

Sounds like your harddisk is busted.  There is a feature in MacBooks which is there to help protect the disk by parking the head in the event of a fall but it's not foolproof.  Even if you managed to resolve the errors, I wouldn't trust that the disk had not been damaged and you just risk further data loss in future.  Best thing you can do is backup anything you can salvage if you don't already have a backup while the disk can still operate and either have Apple or an authorized repair centre replace the harddisk.  You can also replace the disk yourself if you feel capable.  There are instructions in the manual and also on the Apple support pages.  You haven't said which model of 2011 MacBook you have but here are the instructions for the 13-inch (page 37)

http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/macbook_pro_13inch_early2011.pdf


How to see how much music do I have in iTunes? The new iTunes version has brought some changes. And I just realized that it won't show anymore how much music do I have.

It used to say the size and the total play time at the bottom of the window, but it's gone now. Can I ripristinate the indicator? Or what's the easiest way to check my music library size?

You can bring back those details at the bottom of the screen by clicking Show Status Bar in the View menu, or pressing ⌘/.


using gcc, g++ outside of xcode on mac I'd like to spend some time aside from the IDE for a bit and use command line gcc, g++ compilers.

When i use my terminal, they however, can't be found.

How can i install them?

I honestly am surprised why these two don't come standard.

Please let me know.

If you have not already done so, you should install the development tools that come with your Mac in one of the OS discs, which include gcc. So gcc and other such programs are standard, but not installed by default (I suppose the thinking behind this choice is that either one does not need them and won't miss them, or he won't have no trouble in installing them when needed).


How change language of interface in itunes connect I had English language in iTunes Connect, but today it's changed to russian (I'm from Russia) and I cant find where to change the interface's language back to English (Russian localized - bad).

Found that very frustrating too (I'm Russian as well). It based on your "preferred language" settings in browser. If you use Chrome, it can be found there chrome://settings/languages, move "English" upper. That's it.


How to turn off menu bar autohide in split view mode? I use split view quite a bit for programming and want the menu bar to always be shown. Is there any way to do that?

From the Apple () menu, choose System Preferences.

Click Mission Control.

Deselect the option for "Displays have separate Spaces."

Log out and then back in.


How can I force Apple Mail to COMPLETELY refresh an IMAP account? I have a Gmail account that is configured on three different Macs, let's call them Home, Work, and MacBook. Home and MacBook are on iCloud, Work is not, and MacBook is the one experiencing the issue.

No matter what I seem to do, Apple Mail on the MacBook, for only this Gmail account, displays no messages in any folder, and indicates two unread messages in the inbox. Home and Work display the same account correctly, with an accurate reflection of the inbox and messages contained in other folders.

Things I have tried:

Synchronize
Rebuild
Disable account, quit, remove ~/Library/Mail/V2/IMAP-address@imap.gmail.com folder, then restart
Removed the keychain items for the account from iCloud, remove folder above

Each time, the account comes back with two unread messages out of zero. The Account Info screen shows accurate numbers for everything except the "Sent Mail" folder (though nothing in any folder displays). In experimenting with enabling and disabling IMAP for labels within Gmail, I have seen the item for the "Sent Mail" folder in Account Info display with the correct number of messages, but a title of "Sent Mail" does not exist. Very odd. Sorry I don't have a screenshot of that.

Any ideas?

I'm not sure if this will work for everyone, but I was able to resolve the issue in two parts. To get messages to display properly for all folders on the account, I needed disable/remove the account from iCloud so that it was no longer being synced. Then I removed the mailbox folder described in the question, and added it locally to the MacBook.

After the folders were displaying properly, the index was still a little messed up in that the inbox was displaying an unread count that didn't exist.

To get rid of this, I had to rebuild the full index -- this appears to be different from the Rebuild function that exists in the Mailbox menu, and is more similar to what happens when you open an upgraded version of mail for the first time.

Quit Mail
Navigate to ~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData
Delete any file that starts with "Envelope Index"
Start Mail
Follow prompts to allow Mail to rebuild the index -- this may take a few restarts of the app.


How do I get old photos back in iOS 8 message Since updating to iOS 8.1.2 I can't see old photos on messages just new photos

Not sure what your question is exactly, so I'm not sure I'm answering your problem.

Make sure that in Settings → Messages then scroll all the way down and Check the Message History preferences, the Audio Messages and Video Messages preferences, and after how long they're set to expire.

If you want to restore something into your messages, maybe try to Restore from an iCloud or a local iTunes backup if you have one.


Edit track name of track without changing filename If you edit Name of a file in iTunes, the filename changes too, not just the tag. Is there a way to avoid this? I want top preserve the original filename untouched when I edit Name. Is there a simple easy-to-install malware-less 3rd party tool for this?

It was easier than expected... within iTunes itself, in Preferences→Advanced, there is an option "Keep iTunes Media folder organised". Uncheck it and iTunes will leave the filenames as is.


Why can't I disable cellular usage for an individual app on iOS 7? I thought I disabled cellular usage for several games in the past. Going through the list of which applications I've allowed to use cellular data, I noticed there are a few still enabled. I flip them off and go on with my day. However, I've noticed that there are some applications which keep getting re-enabled!

On iOS 7.1.2 on an iPhone 4S, I am able to reproduce this:

Go into Settings/Cellular.
Disable cellular usage for Angry Birds.
Go back to main settings screen.
Go back to cellular settings.
Angry Birds is still cellular data enabled!

There is no error message, no indication that it didn't succeed. I've even tried rebooting the phone to see if there was some other error. Nope, this app plus several others refuse to keep their "disabled cellular data" setting. I have free RAM and free storage, so I don't think it should be a matter of available resources to complete the operation.

It is worth noting that there are numerous other applications on my phone that allow me to flip/flop their setting with no problems. Some other applications that are preventing me from doing this (if it is an app thing) are Hill Climb, KidsDoodle, Monster Dash, PunchQuest and PvZ.

Has anyone else seen this? Any reason for it? How can I fix this?

I am not considering upgrading to iOS 8 at this time given the unresolved issues and performance impact on a 4S.

thanks!

I had the same problem and the above fixes didn't help either. What ended up working was turning off the apps I wanted off, and then turning off cellular data altogether. Then moved back out of Cellular to the main Settings menu, then back to Cellular and my apps were still off. Then switched cellular data back on and the apps I wanted off stayed off. I also tried deleting and re-adding the offending apps and that worked too.


SFTP - how to tunnel to private AWS server behind AWS NAT I need to SFTP connect to a AWS server behind a NAT server in a private subnet.  Login to both the NAT server and the private subnet server is done using private SSH keys.

In windows, there is WinSCP which lets you create a SSH tunnel through the NAT server and then connect to the private subnet server.

What options exist in the OS X environment?
Fugu is old.
No other GUI seems to support SSH Tunnels

I have yet to figure out the terminal command lines or combination of terminal command lines and existing SFTP GUIs that let me tunnel.

Thanks!

You can use local TCP forwarding in ssh, for example:

ssh -L 2222:private:22 user@gateway

And then connect any of your graphical tools to the private server by connecting to localhost:2222, or just use again command line sftp:

sftp private_user@localhost -P 2222


Is it possible to modify the behavior of Finder UI elements with AppleScript? I wrote an AppleScript that scans my entire iTunes library and tags those files with their Genre (so I can easily access them in Finder by just clicking the right tag).

The next step on my list would be to "modify" the Finder behavior. What I exactly mean is that I want to be able to double click a tag in the Finder window and then all music files that are tagged should be added to a playlist and that playlist should be started.

I have no idea if that is even possible. But if it is, I would really like to get some ideas where I have to start to achieve my goal.

I already googled a bit but couldn't find anything that goes into that direction.
One of my thoughts would be a kind of 'broadcast feature' where AppleScripts may register for specific UI elements and if the user triggers something the script gets informed.

Hopefully someone has a clue and might be able to help me out!

This is currently not possible with AppleScript. AppleScript can't bind itself to the UI in that way.


(2010 Macbook on Sierra) White Screen of Death "Legacy Shim 2" I am fairly confident this is not something that happens often, but I am open to be proven wrong. This is most likely a hardware issue, but I really hope it is not.

My mac starts up with a blank white screen. There is no apple logo or error logo. Every one in ten"ish" times it will actually boot up after multiple times turning it off. When I am finally at my home screen it is extremely slow to run applications.(Even more so than it was prior to the problem)

I used command s to find out if there was an error in code, but even then it wouldn't boot-up properly. When I did get it to work it showed this code

Code:
AppleUSBMultitouchDriver: IOUSBHostHIDDevice: :start: unable to start IOHIDDevice
HID: Legacy shim 2

This repeated many times.

If this is a hardware problem how can I replace the parts inside my Mac? I wanted to replace some of the parts anyway.

If this is a software problem how do I fix it?

Thank you guys,

Scrubs

From what I understand, I think that this is a trackpad driver issue. Try booting up while holding the Command and R keys, and then re-installing macOS.

If that doesn't fix it, then you may need to install a new trackpad. You can find instructions on how to do this here. As for buying a trackpad, you can probably find one on eBay here, like this one.


Mac App enterprise distribution outside AppStore with MapKit Either I'm being stupid (probably true) or there is hadly any documentatio to address the question:

How can I distribute an Enterprise Mac app which uses MapKit?

Background: We have built an iOS app and server which has a Mac app to act as the admin dashboard. Obviously the client doesn't want the OSX app in the app store. It wouldn't be relavant to anyone except their admins and might even attract hostile users. I've managed to make developer signed releases for their team which work in all respects except they won't display maps.

I was hoping for something like the iOS enterprise store for Mac apps but I can't find it and it seems that MapKit is limited to AppStore releases.

Am I missing something?

Ideally, Apple would offer a Mac equivalent to the iOS Developer Enterprise Program. Sadly, this is not currently offered.

Contact Apple

Contact Apple through Developer Technical Support or through the Mac App Store. They should be able to suggest the best approach – which Apple will support. At the very least, it will help prove demand for the capability.

Ad Hoc Distribution

Depending on your situation, you may be able to use ad hoc distribution. It is designed for testing and imposes limits on the number of computers involved.


I screwed up manually deleting TimeMachine backup My TimeMachine backups need to be deleted. I should have been wise and followed this advice, deleting the backups from within TimeMachine.
Can't delete old TimeMachine backup

I didn't do that. I manually deleted all backups by dragging the contents of my backup external hardrive into the trash. Now nothing has changed except for the fact that I can't delete anything from TimeMachine. How do I get the program to recognize that I deleted the file? Or did I not delete enough of the right files?

Never manually delete Time Machine files or directories from the Finder. Time Machine makes heavy use of directory hard-linking, which the Finder doesn't really handle correctly. Chances are your backup is damaged now, making the safest option being a wipe of your backup disk, and making a new backup.


Turn on Text Replacement, Chrome? I know I'm supposed to enable text replacement via Edit > Substitutions > Text Replacement but… I cannot find that menu in Chrome at all. Help?

This is currently not possible because Chrome does few things its own way. Here is the bug that tracks this

https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=42434

Still if you dream about adding a comment there forget it, even if Chromium is Open-Source the team decided that they don't need external feedback and disabled the commenting.

There is also a thread on Google Forums about this bug. But again, Google closed the topic in order to avoid other comments.

https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chrome/CAv_4eUkhzk

I guess that your only option would be use Twitter to tween about this issue. Be use that you mention @Google in your tweet. You will be surprised how reactive are big companies when their PR is affected by their poor experience.


How to play audio files from command line I'm looking for a simple command line tool to play audio files for the command line, I'm looking to play .wav files. I'd also like to be able to stream audio from http and pipe it into this tool. Does anyone have a tool that works?

You can use afplay to play audio files from the command line. Just run afplay in Terminal without any argument to display the internal help file.

$ afplay
Usage:
afplay [option...] audio_file

Options: (may appear before or after arguments)
  {-v | --volume} VOLUME
    set the volume for playback of the file
  {-h | --help}
    print help
  { --leaks}
    run leaks analysis
  {-t | --time} TIME
    play for TIME seconds
  {-r | --rate} RATE
    play at playback rate
  {-q | --rQuality} QUALITY
    set the quality used for rate-scaled playback (default is 0 - low quality, 1 - high quality)
  {-d | --debug}
    debug print output
$


If Migration Assistant is interrupted, will it resume from where it left off? I stopped my MA and started it again and the new estimated spaces to transfer are different (I took a picture before the first attempt). Just want to make sure that’s what’s happening, and not that the backup is corrupted. Thanks.

I stopped and resumed MA 3 times. Each time the estimated space was less than the previous time. It looks as if MA does indeed store partially transferred data somewhere and then puts it all together in the end, or something to that effect.


Setting up HTTP printer in High Sierra I have been using my printer connected to my DLINK DSL-2750U router and had no problem using it with two windows PCs. Recently I've got a new MacBook Air (2017 13-inch model) and having some trouble configuring it.

This is my print server settings, and it is saying that, according to the URL, it is HTTP protocol and not IPP or anything else. However, I cannot find anything online for HTTP printers. I only see IPP etc., This is how it looks like in my network preferences panel.

Please guide me how to add and configure this printer with this MacBook. What have I did wrong? Do I have to install any new software for this to work?

The URL you show says :631, which means the printer is communicating on that port. If you check this list of TCP ports you find that 631 is the port used for Internet Printing Protocol so connect to your printer using IPP.

Enter the IP address of the printer in the "Address" field and leave "Queue" empty and it should connect fine.


App that does not support Smart Folders / Tags - how to access Tags/Smart Folders via Terminal or elsewhere? I am attempting to start organising my .WAV/.AIFF samples by using Tags. Unfortunately the app I want to use them in, does not support Tags. I'd like to spend a few days setting up my 100gb+ sample archive using Tags, and then somehow figure out a way of showing them using the app that doesn't support Tags.

So far I've tried to look at the Finder Status Bar, while in a Tag "folder" to see if there's a path I could paste into the Terminal, and then open up - i.e., a "physical" location for the Tag "Folder". I haven't figured out how. The app that doesn't support Tags does have a way of going into even hidden folders, just by selecting "Go To Folder".

But I'm not sure how to use that knowledge to then dig up where I should inform the app to go.

I've just created a Smart Folder that only shows files Tagged with that specific Tag. However, this seems to be a file with the extension .savedSearch - so I'm not sure how to access that "folder" via the Terminal, figure out it's path and paste that onto the App that doesn't support Tags or Smart Folders.

Also, if I drag a Tag to the Terminal, it will show up as a .savedSearch too, but unfortunately I cannot access that either.

So, how do I organise my files using Tags so that I can access them on apps that have no support for Tags? I don't want to physically move the files around as that will take me months and months to do, time is limited as it is already.

Edit: Nope, I don't want to create tags or smart folders using Terminal, just access them just like if it were a regular folder.

What you could do is running a script which uses mdfind to symlink all files with a specific tag into a folder, and then access the files via this folder.

cd TAG_FOLDER
mdfind -0 kMDItemUserTags="Red" | xargs -0 -n 1 -J % ln -s % .

(Replace "Red" with the name of the tag you are looking for)

If several tagged files have the same name only the first one will get linked (you'll get a warning message for the others). And, of course, the commands needs to be rerun every time you add/remove the tag from a file.

PS: There is a small caveat here. Not all applications handle symlinked files the same way. Test first whether an application writes a changed file back to the original place or just replaces the symlink with the updated version.

PPS:

mdfind -0 finds all files/folders matching the query (in this case the tag). The -0 ensures that the string passed to the next command is terminated by an ASCII NUL character (to ensure that file names containing spaces etc get handled correctly)
xargs -0 -n 1 -J % reads one line of input to build and execute a command. -J % sets the placeholder for the input line to %
ln -s % . symlinks the file/folder in % into the current directory (.)


Connected phone to mac using usb0, but IP address attached to the device is linked to my mac I have a Nokia N900 that's running Maemo (based on Debian Lenny).

I am connecting it to my Mac using USB. On the Nokia I run ifup usb0. In /etc/network/interfaces I have:

iface usb0 inet static
address 192.168.2.18
netmask 255.255.255.0
gateway 192.168.2.17

I connect it to my computer using USB and I get the following:

But, when I run nmap on the IP address 192.168.2.17 from my mac with the -sV option it's displaying: 22/tcp open  ssh     OpenSSH 6.9 (protocol 2.0)

... This isn't the version of OpenSSH that's running on the phone. The version on the phone is 5.1. This is the same version that's running on my mac.

Some how that IP is linked to my mac.

If I use the IP address 192.168.2.18 I get a warning saying the IP address is already used on the network. I've tried changing the IP on the phone in the interfaces file, but it does the same thing each time.

Any ideas what's going on?

netstat -nr from the mac (excluding ipv6):

Internet:
Destination        Gateway            Flags        Refs      Use   Netif Expire
default            192.168.1.1        UGSc          632        7     en1
127                127.0.0.1          UCS             1        0     lo0
127.0.0.1          127.0.0.1          UH              3     5737     lo0
169.254            link#6             UCS             1        0     en1
192.168.1          link#6             UCS             1        0     en1
192.168.1.1/32     link#6             UCS            12        0     en1
192.168.1.1        74:a5:28:f0:f8:9d  UHLWIir       125      258     en1   1186
192.168.1.5/32     link#6             UCS             2        0     en1
192.168.1.5        28:f0:76:4:db:80   UHLWIi          1       16     lo0
224.0.0            link#6             UmCS            2        0     en1
224.0.0.251        1:0:5e:0:0:fb      UHmLWI          1        0     en1
255.255.255.255/32 link#6             UCS             1        0     en1

Try changing your Mac's IP to match the screen below (default route and net mask are likely wrong).

Then run nmap -sV 192.168.2.18


Do not let the viewer go to the first page systematically I edit tex files with Emacs under Mac OS X 10.10.1, compile tex pdf and view it with Preview.

The problem is that each time the code is modified and re-compiled, the viewer systematically goes to the first page of the pdf. Ideally, I want to stay in the same page as before, where is probably the modification.

Does anyone know how to achieve this? Will changing to another viewer do the trick?

PS: I used to do this under Ubuntu with evince and okular, that worked fine.

In Preview there is only a setting that let it start on the page that it was last used, but that is not necessarily the page with the modification made by emacs.


'pgrep -c' in MacOS terminal I would like to translate the following command, which works in linux Ubuntu and CentOS, to work in MacOS:

  echo $(pgrep -c -P$$)

This is designed to be called from within a python script:

  subprocess.check_output("echo $(pgrep -c -P$$)", shell=True)

and run new jobs within a loop when the number of processes falls below a threshold.

The issue is that the MacOS version of pgrep does not have a -c option.

Many thanks for your help!

If you're looking for the count of child processes, you can use pgrep -P <pid> | wc -l since the output is on PID per line and wc -l outputs the line count.


Can't connect to app store after installing VPN software I started experiencing problems after playing with hotspotshield.com,
it may have done something to the core apple connection preferences.

I have looked all over the internet and I can't find a solution..

Here are my specs - Lion 10.7.1

  do you have any other connectivity issues and did you knowingly change any network configurations when you were using hotspotshield?

I had no other connectivity issues beforehand and no i didn't change any network settings to my knowledge.
I've tried connecting thru Ethernet, Wi-Fi, and iPhone USB tethering. The internet does work, but the software update and app store will not connect.
I created a new user to test it and it doesn't work..
Per the new image added, the badge does get updated, but it isn't allowing access..

Interesting.  If you are on Lion, which you seem to be from the screenshots, then you can first try:

man 8 softwareupdate

softwareupdate -l

Would ordinarily list your available updates.  But wait!  Open another tab and in this one you are going  to use the handy nettop(1) command

Just type "nettop" and see what it says.  Do not quit, use down arrow to see the bottom, use left arrow to summarize.  Do not quit.

Now run

softwareupdate -l and see if anything proper happens _on the nettop tab_. ( Paste it here I guess )

The first thing we can try with lion until the next os:

man sysdiagnose  # handy as a gun in a knifefight

There will be no secrets, I believe.

Trivia:

man 8 tmdiagnose
man 8 mddiagnose # spotlight

This is a painfully obvious thing to ask but,

did you try looking at the Console.app?  Or typing

syslog

to see what osX thinks the problem is ?

syslog -F raw -w 20.

will make it act like tail -f

Finally, you can reach for the rum, the chalk, and the chicken and use, if you are using wi-fi that is:

airportd   #there is no man page for this

airportd prefs  # see what is set

airportd readNVRAM # see what your fallback network is set to.

Have you tried rebooting and holding down cmd-R, to get to the recovery partition?  The main drive is not mounted,  it's very cool, assuming you did not have a custom partioning scheme...


Is there a macOS ssh client that allows me to type fluid commands? Terminal and iTerm uses whatever method they are using to ssh that basically slows down if the network connection to the server is slow. All the commands I type would show up on the screen seconds later. Is there a client I can use where the command would render faster on screen regardless the speed of the network?

P.S., with UDP being blocked, I cannot use mosh.

As you cannot use mosh, your choices are very limited.

You can use the following perl-based wrapper for the standard OpenSSH command supplied with macOS to enable line-mode:

https://github.com/mnalis/ssh-line-mode/blob/master/sshlm

Remember to read the instructions before use:

https://github.com/mnalis/ssh-line-mode/blob/master/USAGE.txt


Windows Zoomit like tool from mac I have been using zoomit on windows. With that tool: I can write on screen, zoom screen, draw shapes on screen while doing presentation. Also, I can run a stopwatch for break during presentation. Blacken, whiten the screen. Is there such kind of tool for Mac? I saw zoomit for mac and its absolutely rubbish which only zooms and doesn't nothing extra like window's zoomit.

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897434.aspx

There's a great app on Apple Store named "Draw on My Screen EZ". Link to app


sync iBooks page currently reading between iPhone and MacBook I have a MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015) (macOS Mojave 10.14.6) and an iPhone 7 (iOS 12.4.1).

I downloaded an ebook from the internet, and started reading it on my MacBook.

A few days later I copied it onto my iPhone (using iTunes on my MacBook when my iPhone was connected).

I thought bookmarks would sync between the two devices, so I could continue reading on one device from where I left off on the other.

Unfortunately that isn't happening.

How can I keep my two books in-sync?

To control some settings of Apple Books on your iOS device, you need to have iCloud Drive turned on: Go to Settings > [your name] > iCloud and turn on both iCloud Drive and Books. Then go to Settings > Books.

Under Syncing, you can change settings like these:

Turn on Reading Now to sync your reading progress, current book, notes, and bookmarks using your iCloud account. Reading Now only syncs to other iOS devices, not your Mac.
Turn on iCloud Drive to sync PDFs, EPUBs, and books created with iBooks Author that you didn't purchase from the Book Store that you added to your Library across all of your devices.
Under Allow Books To Access, turn on Cellular Data to stream books while your iPhone or iPad is connected to the Internet via a cellular connection and using cellular data.

You can also change settings in the Books app. Tap Reading Now, then tap the Profile icon or your picture in the upper-right corner. From here, you can redownload your purchases, access Family Purchases, and redeem gift cards or content codes.


Using new docks/dongles on old Macs? I have a fully speced out MacBook Pro 15" from 2015, which I love using. Since I have got too many sound equipments with firewire I still don't have the nerves to move to never Macs.
However I love the one cable world of Thunderbolt 3, and the new cheaper than ever dongles. Can I connect them to thunderbolt 2 port somehow? If I can, how should I proceed? Of course I am talking about dongles which has power supplies.
Cheers,
~bio

The Apple adapter is bi-directional and power pass through works well. You won’t have any issues other than being restricted to Thunderbolt 2 speeds. (Which should be an obvious limitation)

Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) to Thunderbolt 2 Adapter
https://store.apple.com/xc/product/MMEL2AM/A

USB 3.1 to 2.0 works for data and lesser power, so that’s not a full featured as Thunderbolt. Most devices should work fine if they don’t need USB PD.


Install Windows 7 on MacBook Pro via USB? I've read many posts here and on other forums about installing Windows 7 from a USB stick,  and I really don't want to start messing about with the VM Ware Fusion or Parallels options. Last resort will be sourcing an external superdrive, but I thought I'd ask if there's an updated way to achieve this.

I'm running a 15" MBP early 2011 and have a 256gb SSD in the main drive bay, and a 500gb HDD in the optical drive bay.

I've edited Bootcamp's info.plist to enable it to create a bootable USB stick with the Windows installer and drivers on, but upon reboot, it comes up with the missing operating system error.

I've also tried creating a USB stick within Windows with Microsoft's own tool, and used rEFIt to try and boot with the same problem.

And finally I tried booting with a USB Freecom DVD drive and the original Windows 7 DVD, but that ends up just flashing a _ on a black screen.

Are my only options really either using an Apple external superdrive, or a lot of messing about with VMware Fusion and reimaging with a cloning tool?

Having exactly the same problem. It took a long time, and a lot of trail/error/forum reading to get to where you did (editing info.plist). I removed my 'useless' superdrive also.

Refit has a utility to rebuld partition info as Mac likes it (after using gparted, in my case to grow the bootcamp partition as I made it too small), but after that nothing wants to boot into my windows boot usb key to run the final step which is the repair of the windows install/boot config.

Maybe osx adds some boot info immediately after you commence creating the bootcamp environment with Boot Camp Assistant. I remember it always booted into windows until you finish setting windows up... either by 'Option' selecting OSX on boot, then rebooting from system prefs, boot disk page. Or rebooting from Windows bootcamp tools. This worked also into windows setup if your USB was in. Once you have done that though, nothing wants to boot off your Windows install USB. Not even refit.

Unfortunately for me, that's where the windows repair utility lives which will complete the fix of my partition resize.

Obviously recreating the bootcamp partition would do it. But that defeats the purpose of trying to grow it without reinstalling windows in the first place.

Bloody hell, I already had to open my MBP up as the windows installer likes to fail if you have a HD attached to your Super Drive Sata port.

Might have to wipe, disconnect OSX and reinstall windows all over. Paragon Boot Tune is supposed to be able to resize Boot camp, but the damn thing requires a superdrive to burn a boot disc to!

Only other thing I can think of is that refit ruined something. But I don't think so. FYI I also removed refit and can select the Win Boot Camp partition or Boot USB Key but they fail that way  also.

Anyone reading this... make sure your Bootcamp partition/drive is at least 30gb. Windows takes 15-25 (if you include room to move for temp files, caches and updates etc. Then you got apps on top of that.


High CPU utilization due to Firefox in El Capitan 10.11.4 I am using Firefox with 10-14 open tabs (AWS console, JIRA, GitLab, etc).My Mac hangs due to high CPU utilization by Firefox as per Activity Monitor. Can someone help me with this.

Github Gist link to firefox sample from Activity Monitor: Firefox Sample from Activity Monitor

Dmesg Logs

My Macbook configuration is:

MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015)
2.5 GHz Intel Core i7
16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
AMD Radeon R9 M370X 2048 MB
Firefox version is 46.0.1

Q.  My Mac hangs due to high CPU utilization by Firefox as per Activity Monitor. Can someone help me with this.

A.  Cache/permissions would explain the logs.

I'm not sure that high cpu is what is causing the problem, it might be a symptom.

A starting point could be to boot your computer, see which errors do not involve firefox at all, then open chrome and see if/when that generates an error, and then one by one open the websites slowly.  That way you can isolate what come from the system, what come from the browser and what errors come when you have everything running.

There are 3 things that are apparent in the logs at first glance.  The first is a Chrome issue, the second seems to be a permissions issue, and the last one (mdns) might be unimportant but it seems to occur quite frequently.

  Google Chrome He[94343] triggered unnest of range
  0x7fff95a00000->0x7fff95c00000 of DYLD shared region in VM map
  0x28972ae0d1d3028b. While not abnormal for debuggers, this increases
  system memory footprint until the target exits.

  Sandbox: coresymbolicatio(94393) System Policy: deny(1)
  file-write-create /System/Library/Caches/com.apple.coresymbolicationd

  Sandbox: com.apple.Addres(94386) deny(1) network-outbound
  /private/var/run/mDNSResponder

The first issue might eventually require a fairly easy re-install of chrome.
The second is a permissions issue regarding cache.  That is the one that might be the most serious.  Any unusual permissions changes might be responsible for this.  Take a look at this document from apple support on how to diagnose and fix that.
https://discussions.apple.com/message/29625454#29625454
And there are outbound messages that probably should exist or else they should not be denied regarding mdns.  There are different ways of tracing where this comes, but the key would be to fix system and user issues that exclude browsers, then deal with the browser / website / chat client / networking part.

It is the first 2 issues that are most relevant I believe.  If you fix the issues in your log and get the applications working without errors, that would be the first step before looking at limiting the processes.

Once things are running smoothly, nice is something that might be very useful for you.  Cpu limit should not be necessary but I will include it also.

A. Nice  (lowering the priority)

You can also launch the program with a higher "nice" value (lower priority).
https://superuser.com/questions/42817/is-there-any-way-to-set-the-priority-of-a-process-in-mac-os-x

Information about nice levels:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nice_%28Unix%29

A.  You can limit your CPU utilization

You should use cputhrottle through homebrew:
Can I manually limit the %CPU used by a process?

There is a script for OS X:
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20110131001708255


What happens to my purchased music if I cancelled my Apple Music subscription? I have a big music library that I assembled through years of purchasing music from iTunes and CDs.

I would like to give Apple Music a try but what happens to the music that I own? Particularly worried about the music that I bought from iTunes as I paid a lot for that.

Your local iTunes library will stay the way it is—with or without an active Apple Music subscription.
If you subscribe but decide later on that you do ’t want to use Apple Music any longer, what will happen is that on other devices, that are not your main iTunes library device, you cannot stream songs any longer. Synchronising songs will still work as it did before Apple Music came out.
What you put into your iTunes library before subscribing to Apple Music will stay in there.

To quote iMore.com’s Apple Music FAQ:

What happens if I decide not to subscribe after the three month trial?
Any streaming music you've added to your library from the Apple Music catalog will no longer be playable; you'll stop having access to Connect content; you'll be skip-limited when listening to Apple Music radio stations; and unless you have iTunes Match enabled, you won't be able to stream your previously purchased and uploaded music to your devices, and any songs from your Mac's library that you've downloaded to other devices will be removed. (Your Mac's original iTunes library remains as-is.)


Calendar Alarm While Machine Sleeps I have a handful of Calendar Alarms I created in Automator to run at various times on my MacBook Pro (mainly overnight).  However, it looks like if the machine is sleep then the Calendar Alarm is simply skipped.  Is there a way to set it to execute any missed Calendar Alarms when the machine wakes?

(Note that iCal used to do this with events that would "run a script" as a reminder.  But Mountain Lion seems to have deprecated that reminder type, so I'm trying Calendar Alarms from Automator now.)

In Mountain Lion, the Reminders application is able to do this. You create a reminder, then open it up and check "remind me on a day." You can then set a time for the reminder. If your computer is asleep at the scheduled time, the reminder will show up next time it's awake.


iPhones and automatic 911 calls Can an iPhone6 automatically dial 911?  I was in a horrible traffic accident where I lost consciousness.  I obtained cell phone records and was surprised to find two 911 calls originating from my iPhone about the time of the accident.  I do not believe anyone else made the two calls (first call was 1 minute, second call was 3 minutes) and I feel certain that I did not.

As far as I am aware, there is no function to automatically dial 911.
However, anyone with possession of an iPhone can dial an emergency call from the lock screen without unlocking the phone.

Whether that's more likely than you dialing and not remembering it (whether amnesia immediately following a trauma, or shock from the impact to your body or head is hard to guess as an outsider that wasn't there.


I cannot backup my iPhone 5 I have an iphone 5 that I cannot backup. I have tried to backup via icloud as well as via computer backup but neither works. When I try to backup to my computer I get an error that says iTunes could not back up the iPhone because the iPhone disconnected. I am using a brand new OEM Apple cable. When I attempt to backup via icloud I get an error that just says "the last backup could not be completed."

Check the lighting port on your iPhone 5, make sure there's no signs of corrosion/broken pins/debris/accumulated lint or dust. When your cable is connected it should sit flushed with no pivoting space, if it doesn't chancing are there are lint or dust stuck in there, carefully remove them using a small tool.


Xcode 10 Broke Autocomplete When Inserting Include Names for C++, Any Workarounds? I no longer get any autocompletion results when I begin to type a standard header file name in the include statements:

#include <>

Normally, typing in a name such as vector or string would cause the autocompletion list to open and display results for these library names, but it is not happening in Xcode 10.  I'm getting some autocompletion results for other headers, but nothing related to the standard C++ libraries.  Does anyone know any workarounds or solutions to this?  I asked in the Apple developer forums, but I've received no help after a week now.

I know that directory for standard C++ library files is:

/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/include/c++/v1

But I'm unaware where this would be placed in Xcode to hopefully get it to allow for autocompletion of headers for all projects in Xcode (and not just whatever specific project is loaded.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

If there isn't a workaround, can anyone else with Xcode 10 verify this issue on their end?

I can confirm same behaviour on my machine. But you can have the autocompletion for C++ back if you add the include path specified in Build Settings -> Search Path -> Header Search Path. See the picture below.

For all/many C++ projects you may add/modify the Custom Paths in Xcode Preferences-> Locations -> Custom Paths.


Does play count data update on iTunes music is played on the iPhone? If I listened to a song on my iPhone does it update the value on my macbook's iTunes ? And vice versa ?

Simply said: yes it does, as soon as you sync it.

Also see this question/answer on SuperUser.


Typing five-digit Unicode Does macOS have a way to enter Unicode characters with more than four hex digits?  The flags, for example, are ligatures, each with two five-digit code points.  They are supported by macOS fonts, appearing as expected when I paste them into this question in Safari or into TextEdit (from Wikipedia).  And they resize properly with the font.

Flags:

Flags, of course, I can paste from Wikipedia.  But in the past, there have been others where I knew the code but had no copy source.

The proctalgic workaround is to create a numeric HTML entity in a file, open it in Safari, and copy-paste.

I could also expand the Unicode Hex Input IM, but that's not exactly fun, either.

Normally you would use the MacOS Character Viewer (Edit > Emoji & Symbols) to input these, rather than copy/pasting from some external source.  The non-expanded, popover, version of the Character Viewer can be operated from the keyboard alone, via the search box, down arrow, and enter key.

If you want enter codes directly from the keyboard, you should be able to type each 5 digit code point using the 8 character utf-16 hex equivalent via the Unicode Hex Input Source, as described in this earlier answer.


Boot from USB drive on a Macbook Pro with Windows 7 installation Everything I've found says to hold command or option until you hear the boot chime. Obviously I'll never hear that.  Nothing I do seems to work, it always goes to Windows 7.

How can I boot to a USB drive???

Questions from comments:

  What model MacBook Pro are you using?

It says A1286 on the bottom. I hope that's what you need.

  what you mean by "Obviously I'll never hear that [boot chime]" since the chime happens before anything boots

I thought the "boot chime" was part of MacOS, which is why I said "obviously".  I've never heard this macbook do that.

  3) What OS are you trying to boot, and 4) how did you prepare the drive?

I'm trying to boot into Killdisk via USB.  The HDD has Windows 7 installed on it.

Unfortunately, A1286 is not enough information to identify which particular MacBook Pro model you're using, as that's the part number for the 15" unibody case, not the computer.  All non-Retina 15" MacBook Pros made between late 2008 and mid-2012 carry this number.

However, it's a good bet that the model you have cannot boot anything from USB other than the MacOS itself.  Since these models have optical drives, the only Apple-supported way to install Windows on them was to do so from a Windows DVD, and thus the firmware didn't support Windows USB install sticks.

Since you're trying to boot KillDisk, I'm guessing you want to destroy the drive for the purposes of selling or junking the laptop.  Fortunately, you have several options available to you:

Option 1:  Boot the machine to Internet Recovery and use Disk Utility to wipe the drive.  This is only supported on 2010 models and later.  You can access it by holding down CTRL+Option+R immediately after hitting the power button.  This is the option with the least amount of hassle if your Mac supports it.

Option 2:  Extract the drive from the computer and place it into another computer (PC or Mac doesn't matter), and use whatever tool you want to wipe the drive.  Unlike Retina 2012 and newer Mac models, the hard drive in yours is easily removable.  This is the option with the least amount of hassle if you're comfortable with opening up the computer's case and handling components.

Option 3:  You can make a bootable MacOS USB drive.  You'll need another Mac to do this, of course.  But you'll be able to use Disk Utility to wipe the drive once you've booted from it.

Option 4: Connect to another Mac with a FireWire or Thunderbolt cable and boot the machine into Target Disk Mode by holding down the T key immediately after hitting the power button.  The computer will then show up as a removable drive on the other Mac, and you can use Disk Utility from there to wipe the drive. This one is probably the most problematic unless you've got a FireWire or Thunderbolt cable lying around (probably not).

Just FYI, The "boot chime" is one of the defining characteristics of a Mac, and has been present in every model ever made until Apple (curiously) got rid of it in their 2016 and later models.  You should be hearing the chime as soon as you hit the power button, before the OS begins loading.  The only reason you wouldn't hear it would be if the volume were all the way down and the setting was saved that way in the P-RAM.  But the fact that you can't hear it shouldn't affect your ability to use the various startup keys that Macs understand.

You can reset the P-RAM to the defaults by holding down Command+Option+P+R immediately after hitting the power button and you should be able to hear the chime again.  I would recommend doing this anyway, because if you're selling it, the buyer would expect to hear it.


bash command works on Ubuntu but not on macOS I have this command which works fine on Ubuntu but on macOS I get an error.

The command:

sudo $(grep -qxF '127.0.0.1        app.local' /etc/hosts || echo '127.0.0.1     app.local' >> /etc/hosts)

Output:

usage: sudo -h | -K | -k | -V
usage: sudo -v [-AknS] [-g group] [-h host] [-p prompt] [-u user]
usage: sudo -l [-AknS] [-g group] [-h host] [-p prompt] [-U user] [-u user] [command]
usage: sudo [-AbEHknPS] [-C num] [-g group] [-h host] [-p prompt] [-u user] [VAR=value] [-i|-s] [<command>]
usage: sudo -e [-AknS] [-C num] [-g group] [-h host] [-p prompt] [-u user] file ...

The command as written doesn't really make sense, the command substitution will always return an empty string (and the part after the || will fail for non-root users). If you are looking for a way to add a line to /etc/hosts if there is no entry yet, try

grep -qxF '127.0.0.1        app.local' /etc/hosts ||
    sudo sh -c "echo '127.0.0.1        app.local' >> /etc/hosts"

PS: Relying on the number of spaces in the grep part is asking for trouble, maybe better use a regexp instead


Unknown error message in Terminal .bash_profile -bash: export: =': not a valid identifier
-bash: export:0de946b3adfc5de6336ff06ca740ffbeba68f055323038a179def14f63ee3b1b7aa0b50bdd8a7b7578d8c19f1a5e62fff0047843b252e551426e2c0a5f49ee88': not a valid identifier

I was following a guide to install postgres , and i added a PATH to .bash_profile .Then i deleted it and now i am facing this error every time i open the terminal.

This is my bash profile

[[ -s "$HOME/.profile" ]] && source "$HOME/.profile" # Load the default .profile

if which rbenv > /dev/null; then eval "$(rbenv init -)"; fi
if which rbenv > /dev/null; then eval "$(rbenv init -)"; fi

[[ -s "$HOME/.rvm/scripts/rvm" ]] && source "$HOME/.rvm/scripts/rvm" # Load RVM into a shell session *as a function*
export SECRET_KEY_BASE = 0de946b3adfc5de6336ff06ca740ffbeba68f055323038a179def14f63ee3b1b7aa0b50bdd8a7b7578d8c19f1a5e62fff0047843b252e551426e2c0a5f49ee88

If you want to export a variable, the variable name, the equal sign and the value of the variable mustn't be separated by spaces! Especially the equal sign is no valid variable name and surrounded by spaces it's interpreted as such resulting in the "=': not a valid identifier" error message.

So change the line

export SECRET_KEY_BASE = 0de946b3adfc5de6336ff06ca740ffbeba68f055323038a179def14f63ee3b1b7aa0b50bdd8a7b7578d8c19f1a5e62fff0047843b252e551426e2c0a5f49ee88

to

export SECRET_KEY_BASE=0de946b3adfc5de6336ff06ca740ffbeba68f055323038a179def14f63ee3b1b7aa0b50bdd8a7b7578d8c19f1a5e62fff0047843b252e551426e2c0a5f49ee88

and either re-source .bash_profile or close your current Terminal window and open a new one to get rid of the error.


iOS Developer Tools & Utilities (must haves and nice to haves) I'm new to Mac's in general and iOS development. I've used an iPhone and iPad, and I'm looking to write apps for both. I'm a (newly) registered Apple developer and have Xcode downloaded and working my through it.

My question is this: Are there any third party tools that iOS developers with more experience than I (which is everyone) uses?

Example, in the Windows world I use

Notepad++ as a extra text editor.
Depends for dependency checks (yes, I realize there might not be a corollary to this)
Regex Buddy for building/debuggin regular expressions.
etc...

Being ignorant of the iOS landscape, any information anyone could supply on tools (and possibly why they are must haves or need to haves) would be great.

Please Search Prior To Posting!

To search, use the search box in the upper-right corner. To search the answers of the current question, use inquestion:this. For example:

inquestion:this Textmate

If it hasn't already been posted, please follow a few simple rules when adding it as an answer.

Rules

Limit to one tool per answer.
Add a short description
Add a link to the website in the name of the application if possible (no direct downloads).
Use ## [appName](link) for citing the application name. Please do not include prices.

Dropbox

Not programming related, but invaluable for everything that doesn't go in source control. While Evernote is document centric, Dropbox is file centric. If you need files on multiple computers with revision control then you need Dropbox.


Sync iPad 2 before upgrade iOS iTunes pops up a message and ask to sync iPad 2 before upgrade iOS to 4.3.3 due to there're purchased apps. After sync'ing, I only saw purchased apps in iTunes, not those free ones.

Does this mean, if I don't sync iPad 2 before upgrade, only purchased apps will be removed from my iPad 2?

Prior to upgrading, attempt the "transfer purchases" option in iTunes. With your iPad plugged in, go to "File" --> "Transfer Purchases from iPad". See if that transfers over your free applications as well. (I've had to do this sometimes to get all mine to transfer.) Note that this may take awhile to do.

Also note that this only transfers free applications from the app store, not built-in apps like the calendar, camera, etc.

And finally note that I've had occasions where even after I've transfered purchases multiple times, and can verify that everything did transfer correctly, that the upgrade process still insists that there are purchases that haven't been transferred. At that point, knowing I've done everything I can do, I ignore the warning and proceed with the upgrade. Probably won't happen to you, but something I've experienced in the past, so thought I'd pass it along.


Is it possible to install a new HP Envy-4520 printer on a computer running Snow Leopard I am trying help someone setup a new printer (HP Envy-4520) on an older Mac (Snow Leopard 10.6.8) Obviously the best solution would be to replace the computer, unfortunately, this isn't an option. I am not onsite with the Mac at this time.

I found instructions through Google, but they are obsolete*.
The printer does work when printing from a mobile device.
I have tried setting the printer up using the generic driver options, but they didn't work. (The printer received data, but gave an error message referring to the output tray extender).
I can put together a Windows box from spare parts and share the printer from that, if that would work.
I am experienced with Windows and Linux, but my Mac experience is limited.

Any suggestions or is this a lost cause?

*Instructions mentioned above: https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Printers-Archive-Read-Only/driver-for-envy-4520-with-OS-10-6-8/td-p/5385512, points to https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c04510394, which points to https://123.hp.com, which just says "We’re sorry—We don’t support this operating system."

According to Apple's archived support article for supported printers, the ‘HP ENVY 4500 e-All-in-One’ is supported by Mac OS X 10.6.8. I recommend downloading and installing the most recent HP Printer Drivers (v2.16.1) for Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard and see if the printer drivers for the HP ENVY 4500 e-All-in-One will work with the model you have.


How can I wirelessly transfer photos from my iPhone to my computer without using Photostream? Sometimes I take a quick photo with my iPhone's camera and I need to get it onto my iMac.
I'd love to do this wirelessly (like syncing and everything else).

I'm aware that iCloud's Photostream should allow me to do this, but I don't have a new enough version of iPhoto to access it. I really never use iPhoto, so it's hard to justify an upgrade.

When I connect my phone to the computer with USB, there are a number of quick ways to get photos off of it. Image Capture, Preview, iPhoto, etc. But, none of those options are available via WiFi or Bluetooth.

Is there a way to transfer photos from my iPhone to my iMac wirelessly and without using Photostream?

Ideally, Image Capture and/or Preview would see the phone as a networked camera.

You could use an iPhone app like WiFi Photo Transfer (There are a few of those available in the app store), but I don't think this is going to be any more convenient than simply plugging your phone in.

Another way would be to take the photos with Dropbox. The Dropbox iPhone app let's you take phones, which would just appear in your Dropbox folder on your Mac.


Menubar turns solid white or transparent I have an interesting problem for quite some time now. My menubar turns all sorts of states on external monitors.

I have a 3-monitor-setup on an iMac 5K. I use two external Dell displays to the left and right of the built-in screen. On my right display, when it is inactive, the menubar turns completely transparent, except for the status icons. On my left display, everything stays normal, whether active or not. On my main display the menubar turns opaque white (including status icons) when inactive.

Here's a screenshot of the situation on the main monitor:

And here it is on the right-most-display (icons blurred for privacy):

Several reboots and even a macOS update (it happened on 10.13.0, too) didn't fix it, neither did manually killing SystemUIServer. What can I do?

Installed tweaks affecting the menubar (no difference when disabling): Bartender, BetterTouchTool

OS: macOS High Sierra 10.3.1 (17B1003)

I had this same issue. Using dark mode my screen would appear with the whiteout menu bar on my macbook pro when switched to working in my 2nd monitor. It appears there was a colour profile issue in Settings>Display>Colour Tab. I changed my colour profile to a generic colour on both displays then back to my chosen profile. So far this seems to have fixed the issue.


How to distinguish between multiple AirDrop connections? I have iMac A, MacBook Pro B, and MacBook Pro C. I want to copy a file from A to B and C using AirDrop. The problem is that I have multiple instances of the B and C machines showing up in AirDrop. I suspect it is due to multiple users being logged in on B and C. iMac A is also listing itself (under a different user?) as a destination. The problem is that AirDrop lists only the computer name, not the user account name under its icons.

How can I find out which users I will be sending the file(s) to?

I don't want to just send to all of them and later have other employees on these company machines ask me why old AirDrop requests are popping up next time they log in. I also would rather not shut down the machines and bump everyone off, interrupting whatever they might have been working on.

For today I will probably resort to another means of copying the data, but since I use AirDrop regularly I would love to get this solved. Surprisingly Google isn't giving me relevant search results on this.

Thanks

I'm currently experiencing this issue has well.

I will test using sudo scutil to rename computers via bash but still, AirDrop on OS X Mac relies on broadcasting the computers name instead of the iCloud name if multiple users are on the same computer which is not a good idea for a corporate environment.


Magic Mouse 2 and Magic Trackpad 2 are recognized as Mighty Mouse Just got a new Magic Keyboard, Magic Mouse 2 and Magic Trackpad in the mail.

I am running OS X El Capitan; plugged them in and everything was fine. However they are not recognized as "Magic" devices.

Can't scroll, no gestures are working.

I can't even scroll, only move cursor, click and right click. The devices are just detected as regular peripherals.

I also have the Magic Mouse 1 and Magic Trackpad 1 lying around: they work just fine. The keyboard is ok too.

Here are screenshots for the Mouse Settings on my Mac:

Any ideas?

In fact both the mouse and trackpad are recognized as the old Apple Mighty Mouse. This is what I see when connecting any of the devices:

Things I've tried

Deleting ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mouse / trackpad
Resetting PRAM
Resetting SMC
Logging as a Guest user
Creating new location in Networking
Re-pairing both with and without cable

It always comes back as Mighty Mouse. First generation devices do work without a hitch. When both mice/trackpads are connected, preference pane shows gestures for Magic Mouse or Trackpad but only 1st gen devices work.

After fiddling with it for a while I came to the conclusion that I need a software update.

Installing OS X El Capitan 10.11.2 Beta (15C27e) fixed the issue.

Got to say force touch is pretty sweet.


iTunes My Music to Apple Music Artist link searched and searched, and thought you guys might have the answer. I either can't find this feature or Apple hasn't included it in iTunes. It seems so clear to me that it should be part of iTunes somewhere that I'm convinced it's somewhere.

I want to be able to browse My Music library and be able to click a link such as "See Artist on Apple Music" this would bring me to the Apple Music page for that artist allowing me to add more albums of that particular artist. I can't seem to find anything like this other than having to search for that artist and selecting the tab "Apple Music" in the search box.

I'm hoping that something like this exists. Thanks!

just noticed this message after it has been posted a long time ago, anyway here's my answer:

In iTunes artist view (top tab, 'My Music' selected and 'Artists' selected as grouping) select one artist on the sidebar on the left. There are three small tabs just below the artist name after you select one. If you click on 'All' it will show all music from that artist, including apple music (see screenshot below).


Fake ethernet interfaces (feth / if_fake)? Anyone ever seen this? I've been digging into Darwin source to try to find some way to create virtual Ethernet interfaces on Mac/Darwin without adding a kernel extension like tuntaposx. In doing so I've found something interesting that seems to exist but have zero documentation.

Here's the source file:

https://opensource.apple.com/source/xnu/xnu-4570.41.2/bsd/net/if_fake.c.auto.html

Reading the file leads me to think this is similar to a veth pair on Linux: create two interfaces and packets going into one pop out the other.

The only problem is that I can find nothing on the Internet about this.

I have been able to confirm that it exists as of OSX Mojave and assume they exist on older versions too:

# ifconfig feth0 create
feth0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
  ether 66:65:74:68:00:00
  peer: <none>
  media: autoselect
  status: inactive

After looking some more I seem to have found an undocumented option in ifconfig to link two of these:

# ifconfig feth0 peer feth1
# ifconfig feth0
feth0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
  ether 66:65:74:68:00:00
  inet 9.9.9.9 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 9.9.9.255
  peer: feth1
  media: autoselect
  status: active

Now when I add an IP to feth0 and tcpdump feth1, I see a bunch of packets that are things like mDNS announcements that you would expect a Mac to spew into a new Ethernet link.

I'm posting this here because I'm curious about whether anyone else has any clue about this or has ever used it.

Edit: I can now confirm that if you peer them and bring them both up (ifconfig feth0 up, etc.) you can inject packets into either side and see them in the other. It looks like this indeed could work as a layer 2 Ethernet tap device or virtual machine veth pair device without requiring a kernel extension. Not only is this awesome for network virtualization but paired with Apple's virtualization extensions it would also allow a kext-free VM host with full networking capabilities.

Edit #2: We also just found this, which is also not very well documented albeit much better than feth. It may offer a more officially supported way of creating virtual Ethernet devices. We'll have to see how it works. The feth stuff is still interesting though!

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/vmnet

Yes you can create new interfaces and link them however you would like for whatever your heart desires : ) You can utilize this feature for all different things like isolating certain traffic. For ex:  forcing all traffic through a VPN except for some criteria. My router sends all traffic through a VPN which is a separate LAN from my STB/Cable Box. I want to use my mobile device to change the channel but it won’t work if I’m in a VPN, a separate interface can ether tunnel traffic from my device or isolate traffic directed to the mobile app I’m using and route it around the VPN.

As for reference and documentation, Unix utilizes man pages like Linux too for basic and core reference. I like to use cheat.sh for examples, it’s formatted very nicely too when you make a query within your terminal. It’s formatted like this cheat.sh/example. ~ cheat.sh/ifconfig


can you load an app developed on a mac "in the cloud" onto your ios device? I'm curious if it would still be possible to develop for the iPhone with a non Mac laptop. Assume I buy some sort of "Mac in the cloud" solution (they exist), can I download apps I'm developing onto my iOS devices from Xcode on this "remote Mac" via my iCloud/developer account or do I need physical access to a Mac (usb cable) to do that?

This answer seems to indicate that it's not possible to load apps onto local devices from a remote Mac, but he's not sure.

EDIT: Actually, it seems to be possible to debug too, see my answer below.

Yes, if you have a paid developer account you can create signed IPAs which can be installed on the device remotely, or you can use TestFlight. If you don't have a paid developer account but your device is jailbroken you can install unsigned IPAs. Note that this doesn't include debugging which can't be done remotely.


MacOS Sierra - localhost not found while using Hugo (not related to Apache) note this is NOT related to Apache and I'm not looking for Apache-centered answers.

I am using the Hugo static site generator to create sites and trying to test on a MacBook running Sierra.

I am able to start the server with

hugo server -Dw

And the server starts on localhost:1313, however when I try to access that URL I get a 404. 127.0.0.1:1313 works, but then all of the links fail as they try to resolve back to localhost.

I was able to access by enabling a domain name on my router (foo.home) and then I can open the main page with localhost.foo.home:1313, but all of the Hugo links still try to use localhost:1313.

So, two questions:

Can I change the behavior of Hugo to use 127.0.0.1? I tried changing
the baseURL in config.toml to localhost, 127.0.0.1 and the foo.home
domains, but that didn't seem to do anything.
Or, can I change the /etc/hosts file to resolve localhost?

Right now /etc/hosts has four entries - I am wondering if I can add another entry for 127.0.0.1 localhost but there's a warning about not making changes as it will break configuration of the loopback interface.

127.0.0.1       localhostw
255.255.255.255 broadcasthost
::1             localhost
fe80::1%lo0     localhost

The key to this error was the following:

  127.0.0.1:1313 works, but then all of the links fail as they try to resolve back to localhost.

That gave the hint - accessing via IP works but not via hostname.  Thankfully, the /etc/hosts file was also included for examination.  In it we see the following line (1st line):

127.0.0.1       localhostw

The trailing "w" at the end of the hostname localhost will cause the error.  In effect, localhost wasn't defined, but localhostw was.

Removing the "w" will solve the issue.


"Recent Items" menu item disappears from Apple menu Disappearing "Recent Items" menu item

Since upgrading to El Capitan 10.11.1, the "Recent Items" menu item from the Apple menu disappears. Even during a work session, sometimes "Recent Items" is there when I need it, sometimes it disappears altogether.

Multiple Items on Submenu

Furthermore, when the menu does mysteriously return it has multiple items repeating in the list of the "Recent Items" submenu.

Is this a common El Capitan bug? Should I have done a clean install instead of an upgrade? Any way to fix either problem, the disappearing menu item or the multiple submenu items?

Rebuild LaunchServices Library

From this discussion board I learned to "rebuild the LaunchServices library". I do not understand the details, but this one line executed in Terminal.app does the trick:

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user

Then restart your Mac. Relaunching the Finder is not enough, you must restart your Mac to get back your Recent Items menu.

Good news: It works.

Bad news: The effect is temporary. Eventually (days, weeks) your Recent Items menu will either disappear or develop duplicates.

Because this is only a partial workaround, and not a true fix, I will not mark this Answer (my own) as Accepted. Hopefully someone else might post a real fix.

I suspect, but have not proven, that the real solution is a clean-install. I took some bad advice and upgraded in-place to Mavericks and El Capitan. Next time I do a major upgrade I will go back to the tried-and-true method of a clean install.


Mouse "randomly" slowing down or stuck in certain places (especially while starting a drag) Since upgrading to Sierra (but could be other cause), my mouse slows down in certain points (as if something is intercepting the mouse move event and swallowing it). Sometimes this is accompanied by mouse cursor blinking between rapidly between different cursor shape, in a certain point which allows drag&drop (only/especially when drag is started); then the mouse pointer becomes "stuck" as if moving in dense syrup, for a few seconds/pixels. But this happens as well when not drag&dropping as well.
 Though, the effect is weaker (though still negatively affects productivity).

An extreme case is when doing native HTML5 drag in Chrome...

Please note: this is not about scrolling (unlike some questions which seem similar).

MacBook Pro Retina 13", late 2013. Two external DisplayPort monitors.

If this could be blamed on an app (as opposed to macOS sierra itself), then which kinds of apps would have such power to intercept and affect mouse-move events?
Personally in my multiple decades of computing, I've never seen mouse-move being affected in such a way. Usually the mouse was moving the way it should...

Tried Safe Mode (holding shift while booting), but it completely fails to load (progress bar stuck at 100%)...

Time for a new macbook? Or time to go to Windows? :)

This is ruining my productivity (mouse moving at random speeds, sometimes 2-10 times slower).

Thanks for any hints!
Does affect magic mouse 2 and logitech usb-cable mouse.

Problem does not seem to happen on MacBook's touchpad.

I just found this because I had the same problem. I noticed that the cursor would come to a crawl whenever I hovered across a list of links on a website. The culprit: I had my mouse cursor set to a larger size.

Solution: Go to System Preferences › Accessibility › Display, and set the cursor size to Normal (all the way to the left). After restarting Safari, the problem was gone. I can move across a list of links, the cursor switches between arrow and hand, without lag.


Is it normal that the ad-hoc url doesn't work in the simulator? I'd like to test my app's ad-hoc deployment link, but navigating to the URL in the simulator's browser only returns  'Safari cannot open the page because the address is invalid'. The URL I use looks like itms-services://?action=download-manifest&url=[URL TO MYAPP.PLIST] Where going to the apended URL downloads the plist file.

I used XCode 5.1 to archive the build and export it for enterprise distribution with the correct certificates and such. Is the error still somewhere in my build or is this type of install capability turned off for the simulators?

Yes, the itms:// type links don't work in the simulator.


Mac OS Update Error - The Recovery Server Could Not Be Contacted I am not able to update my Mac OS from Sierra to HIGH Sierra. It shows the error below when I try to update from iTunes. How to fix it?

Finally following steps worked for me,

From System preference -> Date & Time, enable set time zone automatically using current location option
Share location for the time being if asked

Press CMD + Space to open Spotlight search, write 'Terminal' and hit
return. It will open Terminal window
Enter the following command in Terminal window

      sudo ntpdate -u time.apple.com


How to bypass iCloud login for iPhone 5 running iOS 7 when email and password was forgotten? I restored my iPhone 5 with iOS 7 without knowing that iCloud account will be asked. I already forgot what email and password I set on that phone.

Now, after the phone was restored and unlocked but no application can be used. I don't know what to do. When I connect it to iTunes, it keeps on asking for the iCloud email and password.

Since you can not bypass the activation lock itself, you need to contact Apple and get control of that account. If you are the original purchaser of that hardware, you might also be able to get them to reset the lock with proof of purchase and identity.

The website https://appleid.apple.com has instructions on resetting your iCloud password if you do not remember it.

You can retrieve the email by erasing the iPhone from iTunes when the device is in normal recovery mode and you will be prompted to enter the password for the email account. Also, if the device is not locked, go to the settings app and look in iCloud for the AppleID that has locked that device for firer activations.


How to install macOS Big Sur update on a Parallels VM? I have a macOS 10.15.5 VM I created using Parallels on macOS. I don't want to upgrade my main OS to the Big Sur beta just yet, so I was hoping to run in in a VM to see how things are before trusting it on my main OS installation. I've gone through the documented steps to enable the Apple Beta Software Program on the VM, but for some reason it will not detect the Big Sur update as being available for install. It's like Apple is blocking the Big Sur beta from being installed on a VM... Does anybody know if this is true? Or, do you have any tips on how to get macOS Big Sur beta installed on a macOS VM running in Parallels Desktop?

See https://github.com/rtrouton/create_macos_vm_install_dmg for a way to create a Big Sur installer disk image. For this to work, you need to download the Installer app onto your main Mac, run the script to create the disk image and then run Parallels with that image to create a Big Sur VM.
Performance may be rather unsatisfactory though, you might be better off with installing Big Sur on an external drive or separate partition, and boot from there.


unknown option: mode-mouse with iterm, tmux I've reset my computer and now tmux is complaining about my .tmux.conf having these directives:

setw -g mode-mouse on
set -g mouse-select-pane on
set -g mouse-resize-pane on
set -g mouse-select-window off
set -g default-terminal "screen-256color"

with these errors:

/Users/mdurrant/.tmux.conf:24: unknown option: mode-mouse                  [0/0]
/Users/mdurrant/.tmux.conf:25: unknown option: mouse-select-pane
/Users/mdurrant/.tmux.conf:26: unknown option: mouse-resize-pane
/Users/mdurrant/.tmux.conf:27: unknown option: mouse-select-window

So I have to comment them out, but then my mouse doesn't work in tmux, which is a pain.

How can I enable the mouse in iTerm2 with tmux?

This works on my other Mac.

I use tmux version 2.1.

This looks like a change in tmux in 2.0 -> 2.1

I've replaced

setw -g mode-mouse on
set -g mouse-select-pane on
set -g mouse-resize-pane on
set -g mouse-select-window off

with just

set-option -g mouse on

and everything seems ok


In Finder's List view, is there a keyboard shortcut to go to top/bottom of list? Before Leopard, hitting the Spacebar would take you to the bottom file in List view -- but that now initiates QuickLook. As far as I know there has never been a keyboard shortcut to go to the top of the list. Or am I just ignorant?

Yep!  You can use opt-↑ to jump to the top of the list and opt-↓ to jump to the bottom.


How can I apply a patch file to a Mac Ports app? I want to use the CD-ripping utility abcde, which I've installed via Mac Ports. I've run afoul of a problem in abcde, which is described in their bug database. Someone made a patch file musicbrainz2.patch which I think will solve the problem nicely.

My obstacle is that this patch hasn't been incorporated into the version 2.4.2 of abcde which is distributed by Mac Ports. Thus I'd like to apply this patch manually. But I can't figure out how to apply the patch to abcde as installed on my system.

The Mac Ports Guide section 4.5. Patch Files seems to be talking about how to patch Mac Ports portfiles and other distribution logic. It doesn't seem to talk about how to patch delivered utilities as installed.

The patch file includes file name references like (abbreviated):

--- debian/control  (revision 292)
+++ debian/control  (working copy)
@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@
 Architecture: all
-Suggests: eject, distmp3, ..., mp3gain, python-musicbrainz
+Suggests: eject, distmp3, ..., mp3gain, python-musicbrainz2

(This is the full abcde issue 3 patch file musicbrainz2.patch, and I can add it to the question if there is interest.)

I'm skeptical that I'll find path names with "debian" in them on my Mac OS X 10.5.8 installation. And the specific contents of debian/control don't match what's in the Mac Ports portfile for abcde. But other file in the patch file do correspond to files in my installation of abcde.

How can I apply this patch to my copy of abcde as installed by MacPorts? Is there a technique which will work in general for this kind of patch file on installations from Mac Ports?

That sort of patch file is what macports refers to, however each patch would need to be in a separate file.

However this case is more complex as you need to patch two things as you have spotted.

Make the program compile and run under OSX which the current macport will have done. In this case this will include fixing the paths with debian in.
Add the extra changes you have in the patch.

As a first start I would note that each macport has a maintainer who can be seen in the result of port info abcde and I would contact them with the issue. If unfortunately there is no maintainer as is true here then it might be worth asking on the macports user mailing list if someone else could do the patch.


Is it possible to change the order of contextual menu items? When one right-clicks selected text on a Mac, one is presented with various contextual menu items. Is it possible to rearrange these items?

Specifically, I would like to move the last item in this menu, which is a Service I created in Automator.app, to the top (or somewhere near the top) of the menu.

I don't think that it is possible to reorder Services in the context menu.

Here is the predefined order of Services in the contextual menu:

Local services (those available to all users).
The user's services.
Base system services.
Services that are loaded from the various applications that may have them.
Contextual menu plugins (located in the various /Library/Contextual Menu Items folders).

The Services in the context menu are sorted in reverse alphabetical order.

Apple is so strange sometimes.

I don't know if others are the same way, but my brain is not sharp enough to quickly, mentally run through the alphabet in reverse. It probably takes me three times as long to scan through a list to find what I want (when a list is in reverse alphabetical order).

I have one (admittedly unsatisfying) workaround to order one's Services
alphabetically.

In Finder, navigate to:

  /Users/Me/Library/Services/

This is where one's custom Services are necessarily saved.

Sort the files in reverse alphabetical order in Finder by clicking on the "Name" header. First, rename the file that starts with the letter in the alphabet that is closest to Z. Specifically, add spaces to the front of the Service name. For this Service in particular, the number of spaces that precede the name should be equivalent to the total number of custom Services in this folder, minus one.

Do this for all of your Services, adding one fewer space to the front of the filename as you progress, until you reach the file that starts with the letter in the alphabet that is closest to A. You can leave this file alone; the filename should contain no leading spaces. The more spaces that a filename begins with, the closer to the bottom of the context menu that that Service appears. You want this Service to appear in the very first slot. Thus, no space.

In short, one can use spaces as an informal way of manipulating the context menu's ordering of Services system-wide.

Once these updated titles appear in your context menu,*(see my below note) they will finally be in alphabetical order. The downside to this workaround, of course, is that now your context menu looks like the side profile of a staircase. Visually, it looks like each Service is nested within the previous Service, which may or may not bug you more than having your Services ordered in reverse.

Me? I would rather have the staircase.

*The process of how Service names are reflected in the context menu, in my experience, is haphazard. Sometimes, the Service title updates immediately after I change its filename in Finder. Other times, even after I restart my computer, the new name doesn't show up in the context menu.

I have found that the method that I describe here is the only 100% reliable way to have a new Service name reflected in the context menu.


Extracting data from old Mac resource files What utility or tool that runs which under Mac OS X 10.6 can I use to extract data (icon images and strings, etc.) from old Mac OS 7 (and earlier) resource files/resource forks?  (...files created using ResEdit.)

Rezycle might work for you. Let us know.


Latest version of Firefox Portable for Mac I would like to know what is the latest version of Firefox Portable for Mac. I just found versions from 2011-2013 and they seem pretty old. By the way, these softwares are not from the official developer (Mozilla).

Like you said there are no up-to-date Portable Firefox for OSX at the moment.

In order to have this to work, it would require to modify the source code to modifiy the directory where Firefox store it's tmp/config files.


Play Audio from a Mac over an iPhone Call I'm trying to play an audio file from my Mac Mini over an iPhone call. I tried using a male to male audio cable to connect the Mac's audio out port, into the iPhone's headset jack, but I guess that would be too easy. I also have a headset splitter but that doesn't seem to work either. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

You should be able to do something like this with a product like IK Multimedia's iRig (or a generic equivalent... of which there are plenty).

The iRig splits the shared audio input and output on the iPhone/iPad headphone port. Plug a patch cable from your Mac's headphone port to the input on the iRig (you might need adapters to go from mini headphone to standard... 1/8" to 1/4").