Photos with a name ending in _n.jpg I have an iMac running High Seirra. I have quite a few photos on my mac that have names consisting of something like this: 11008553_991594160872293_5946103255845449374 and ending in _n.jpg. These look like normal jpegs but i don't understand the naming. What are these files?  They originally came from my iPhone.

My research shows that images downloaded from Facebook always ends with “_n.jpg” !

So you must have downloaded them from Facebook to your phone.

iCloud then synced them with your Mac, unless you transferred them your self.


edit efivars on MacOSX On Linux, I can edit the efivars of my MacBookPro via /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/. E.g. here is a description to disable the AMD GPU via the efivars, which basically is this on Linux:

printf "\x07\x00\x00\x00\x01\x00\x00\x00" > /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/gpu-power-prefs-fa4ce28d-b62f-4c99-9cc3-6815686e30f9

Is it possible to edit the efivars directly on MacOSX? I still can sometimes boot to OSX, so I wonder if I need to use Linux for this or if I can directly edit them with some OSX tools.

(Related questions: here, here)

Yes and no.

Full access to all efivars is not that feasible or easy in macOS / from OS X.

But if you want to achieve the goals from the link and command you cited then go here please: GPU problem - Boot Hangs on Grey Screen

There you will find the equivalent for a pure Mac environment:

nvram fa4ce28d-b62f-4c99-9cc3-6815686e30f9:gpu-power-prefs=%01%00%00%00

Read the whole guide, though. It's still a bit of a dance to apply that variable and manage the consequences of it.


Phantom Email Window Keeps Appearing in Apple Mail Apple mail has found itself in a strange state: an email I tried to send this morning (which apparently failed) keeps appearing for perhaps half a second, then disappearing again. This happens even when I restart Mail or even restart the computer. I have tried interacting with it during it's brief appearance (close button, send button, ...) but it doesn't appear to be reacting to my clicks.

Any suggestions on what may be happening or what I can do about it?

EDIT: I have just upgraded from Yosemite to Capitan. Perhaps that's a contributing factor to the behaviour.

EDIT: I have realised that the phantom window DOES receive keystrokes: if I'm typing into another email when the phantom appears, 3 or 4 keystrokes end up in the phantom, then the subsequent keystrokes appear in the new email after the phantom disappears. It seems the phantom grabs the focus if mail is active - also evidenced by document view popups getting cleared each time the phantom appears.

This seems to be caused by incorrect credentials for the SMTP server that had been associated with the from address of the email. The Inbox for that email now has " - dead" appended to it's name (presumably referring to the SMTP server not working, as am receiving emails). It's a gmail.

As a workaround, first, I can stop the annoying window's phantom behaviour by taking all accounts offline ("Mailbox" menu). Then change the SMTP server for the offending account (fix credentials or use one that works), then re-enabling all accounts. At this point, the phantom email is actually sent and everything seems back to normal.


Google Calendar Delegates? I've decided to start using my Google Calendar through iCal on my Mac. Although I've got a question regarding an annoying issue I'm having.

When I go about adding calendars to my Google Calendar and sync it via iCal, it puts the main calendar where it's supposed to, then it puts the rest of my calendars under a heading called 'Delegates'. I don't know what it means, but is there a way to stop Google from doing this? I just want all my calendars to appear under one heading, the Google one (like the incoming payments calendar in the image below)

I'm not sharing any calendars with any friends or family and I still just can't work this out. Please help me find out where I'm going wrong.

I stopped using Google calendars when iCloud came out, but from what I remember, the delegates thing is just a side effect of how Google implements additional calendars in the CalDAV protocol. I don't think there's anything you can do about it. The upside is that it doesn't break any functionality, it's just a bit annoying in how iCal displays them.


How can I sync old messages between iDevices? Recently Messages stopped working on my Mac. Messages sent by my iPad and iPhone were synced to my Mac, but sending failed. After trying about twenty-eleven possible solutions from here, apple, and elsewhere on the internet, I rebooted my Mac.  This doesn't happen often.  The problem went away, but so did the last 2 months worth of messages.

Is there a way to sync past messages between multiple devices?

Iphone/ipad are on iOS 10, Mac is on Yosemite.

Generally speaking, the answer is no. Messages are saved on Apple's servers for up to 30 days, but only if the message has not been confirmed as received by the device. Even if it was still on the server, there's no way to get the server to resend it to your device. Nor is there a way to sync messages between devices.

You could save Messages history off your iPhone with something like iExplorer, but there's no way to integrate that into the Messages app on your Mac.

As far as them disappearing when you rebooted, under Messages > Preferences ensure "Save history when conversations are closed" is enabled.


Mac OS announcing notifications There is an option in Mac OS to announce alerts, when they are displayed or to have it announce the time in regular intervals.

My question is: Is there an option to announce notifications, or even better a way to select which app's notifications should be announced?

With regard to speaking notifications, this does not appear to be possible in OS X 10.9, Mavericks. Please take the opportunity ask for this feature via Apple's feedback page.

You can however have the time announced at regular intervals. The setting is in the Date & Time panel of System Preferences:


Mac Mini 1TB HDD being 100% full - cant mount, cant boot I just unburied an old 2007 Mac Mini Server which I had put a 1TB drive into. I had kinda forgotten why it broke, but after a while I remembered...the hard way.

That Mac's hard drive is so full and loaded that it pretty much literally has not a single bit - not byte, bit - of free storage. As MacOS tries to extend the disk journal when mounting, it hits a limitation and fails to mount. I realized that during Target Disk Mode when I was hoping to get in there in order to hopefuly just erase some stuff off it so it would boot properly again.

It does actually go into the boot, but it does NOT actually boot - it just hangs up, and stalls.

I am currently considering to try and breach in using GParted - but I am actually not sure if I had encrypted the drive with FileVault... So just in case, here's the question:

How can I possibly resurrect that old Mac Mini Server from my own Mac? I can see the drive as /dev/disk3 and especially the mount voluem as /dev/disk3s2. But with each mounting attempt, a new disk node pops up, eventually even growing beyond 10 (disk10, disk11, ...).
If I can not do that from another Mac, is there something else I can do? Like, I had considered to utilize GParted, but I bet there are also other solutions. Which ones would you recommend?

I also can not absolutely - although its not very likely - rule out that the disk itself is broken too - either the reader or the motor. Any way that I can figure this out?

Thanks!

Create a bootable USB stick and boot the Mac off that. Make sure to use a MacOS version that is at least as recent as the Mac Mini’s date of manufacture, but not so new that it doesn’t support a 2007 Mac Mini. Apple’s instructions for creating a bootable USB drive are here. Then you can mount the hard drive (as long as you have the password, if it’s encrypted) and delete some files. Remember to empty the trash to actually get rid of them.


How do I stop devices that are not on my network from appearing in the list of Airplay targets? I basically have no trouble seeing my own devices but I also see devices that aren't on my network in the list.

How can I get those AppleTVs that are not on my network to not show up?

This image is the devices that should appear (are actually connected to my network):

I'll go to click one of those two which are always in the menu immediately, but since the list is populated asynchronously (there appears to be some extra discoverability step) another one will appear and invariably cause me to click the wrong device in the menu.

...sometimes multiple times...

So I've discovered that this is a function of Bluetooth and disabling Bluetooth stops the behavior.

Unfortunately Bluetooth is kind of useful, so I'm still interested in other methods.


Macports keeps 3 different versions of LLVM installed I am using the latest Macports 2.3.3 on OS X 10.10.3. I installed Gimp, Ufraw and Enblend (among others), which required py27-numpy, which gave me 2 different versions of LLVM:

$ port rdependents llvm-3.3
The following ports are dependent on llvm-3.3:
  ld64-latest
    ld64
      clang-3.5
      libgcc
        py27-numpy
          py27-pygtk
            gimp2
              gimp-app
                gimp
              gimp-jp2
              gimp-lqr-plugin
              gutenprint
              icns-gimp
              ufraw
              xsane
          vigra
            enblend

$ port rdependents llvm-3.4
The following ports are dependent on llvm-3.4:
  cctools
    libgcc
      py27-numpy
        py27-pygtk
          gimp2
            gimp-app
              gimp
            gimp-jp2
            gimp-lqr-plugin
            gutenprint
            icns-gimp
            ufraw
            xsane
        vigra
          enblend

For some reason, I even have llvm-3.5:

$ port rdependents llvm-3.5
The following ports are dependent on llvm-3.5:
  clang-3.5
$ port rdependents clang-3.5
clang-3.5 has no dependents.

This means that upgrading Macports builds LLVM 3 times in various versions, which takes a ton of time and heats up the Earth and whatnot :)

Is there any way to streamline this? Somehow tell the packages "go use llvm-3.5"?

I was forced to uninstall all packages depending on llvm-3.3 and llvm-3.4, and then reinstall them. In my case, all of reinstalled packages had dependencies on llvm-3.5, not on llvm-3.3/3.4, thus there were no problems when I uninstalled both llvm-3.3 and llvm-3.4. I hope it works for you.


Where to find list of downloads in Safari 13.1 for macOS Mojave? I am using Safari 13.1 on macOS Mojave.

The Downloads icon button in the upper-right corner of Safari's toolbar is now gone. The Customize Toolbar feature does not offer any such widget.

Is there some other way to see a list of recent downloads and where they went?

Open Safari Preferences window (by going to Safari Menu bar → Preferences... or using the keyboard shortcut Command + ,), go to the General tab and check if Remove download list items: is set to Upon successful download.

If yes, then the Download button is shown in the Safari toolbar (towards the right end of the Address and Search bar) as long as one or more download tasks are in progress. As soon as the last active download task completes, the Download button is automatically removed from the toolbar.

The Show Downloads command is also greyed out under the View menu if the Downloads button is not visible in the toolbar.

To view the button, you can change the Remove download list items: setting to a different desirable value.


Very low audio output to headphones on Macbook Pro Retina 13 inch I get great sound output to an external speaker with my Macbook Pro, however, when I output to headphones the sound diminishes greatly.  I have reset PRAM and the sound volume output improves, but only for a short time.  Settings all appear to be set properly.  I'm thinking there's a hardware problem.  This is why:  I have a monitor that I connect to my Macbook with an HDMI cable.  The monitor has a headphone jack.  If I plug my headphones into the monitor's headphone jack the sound output is great.  Any thoughts?  Thank you.

Could definitely be hardware related. Try testing out the headphone audio in a new "test" user account. If it continues, its most likely hardware. If its still under warranty I would take it into the Genius Bar and have them test / replace the logic board. You can check the warranty status here. https://checkcoverage.apple.com


SSH Key Error, sudo works fine When I try to ssh (using ssh user@server.com) into my server at home from either the local network or from outside, I get the following error:

But if I use sudo ssh user@server.com, it works with no problems:

I'm sure I just need to place some kind of key in that /Users/mattlove/.ssh/known_hosts directory, but I'm not sure how or why.

Any of you UNIX buffs out there have an answer?

E D I T :

Here are the results of running ls -l ~/.ssh/known_hosts as requested by @LoïcWolff

The first time you connect to a server, you are prompted to accept the fingerprint for the host you are connecting to. The fingerprint is a combination of a digital signature, the host name and the IP address of the server. When you do accept, the fingerprint is saved in ~/.ssh/known_hosts as being a "trusted" host.

For some reason, the server's fingerprint has changed since the first time you connected to it. This may be because it is not the server you expect it to be, for example when your request is being intercepted and redirected to a different server. Hence the security warning. The explanation might also be less malicious, for example when the server was replaced/reinstalled without restoring it's previous digital signature, or when the IP address has changed.

If despite the security warning, you still trust the server you are connecting to, you should open ~/.ssh/known_hosts and look for the line starting with the address of the server you are connecting to. Remove the entire line and save your changes, then reconnect to the server. The first time you connect, it should again prompt you to accept the updated fingerprint, after which you should have no more troubles connecting to that host.

The reason why it would work with sudo is because in those conditions you are running it as a different user (root), and each user has it's own known_hosts file (for root this is located at /private/var/root/.ssh/known_hosts). root may have never recorded the previous fingerprint of that host, and therefor has no way of comparing it to the current one, and no reason to distrust the server.


iPad Air 2 running iOS 8.2 I have an iPad Air 2 that is currently running iOS 8.2. When I search for iOS 9 it says that my iPad is up-to-date using 8.2. I plugged the iPad into my computer and looked through iTunes, same issue, says it is up-to-date. I've done a complete reset deleting all settings and media and it still says that it is up-to-date. Has anyone ever seen this issue or know a way around it?

If OTA upgrades are stuck, plug into iTunes and testore it there.


New Mac User needs help installing Picasa and then importing all i photos into picasa with correct titles Have i photo with pictures in named folders. Want to install Picasa. When I did this picasa imported all the iphotos with goofy names, not like the iphoto names. would like to install picassa then put the iphotos into picasa the same as it looks in i photo. BTW, i am a new mac user, and recently copied all my photos from picasa to i photo. now i want to put picassa back on new mac. I prpbably should have installed picassa first on to the mac and put the photos from thePC to picassa on the mac. Now iam stuck. So, how to put picassa on mac and then put all (4,000 pictures in named files)from the iphot back into picassa for mac. Help

Delete the photos from Picassa
Export the photos from iPhoto to a folder named by titles (or as you like)
Import from the filesystem to Picasa


How can my company get our custom Java software to run on the iPad? I have small company and we have custom software that is written in Java.

I am planning to buy a tablet.  Originally I intended to get an Android tablet, but I am really impressed by the resolution of the new iPad screen.

The 1M dollar question is: Is there any way to make Java programs run on the iPad? Can I compile them or get an unofficial Java Virtual Machine that will run them on Apple's tablet?

You won't be able to take your existing Java binaries and run them on the iPad, since there is no Java Virtual Machine (JVM) on the iPad, nor can you install one.  Apple doesn't permit third-party language runtimes or plugins to be installed on iOS.

Jailbreaking your device may provide you with more freedom in that regard, but I'll assume you're not interested in that.  (If you are, see questions here tagged jailbreak.)

The only remaining potential solution not involving jailbreak is to adapt and compile your software into a native iOS application.  This will take some work.

Since you mentioned your software is custom software, you should have the source code.  With original source code and some not-so-trivial effort & expertise, it is possible to port your custom software to a native iOS application. A natively-compiled, self-contained iOS application doesn't require a runtime to be present on the device.

There are a couple of ways to go about doing this:

The orthodox way to develop iOS applications is to use Apple's own Xcode & Objective-C.  Your Java code can be translated, by a competent developer, into an Objective-C implementation for iOS.  This is a considerable amount of work, yet is likely to yield the best end product.
There also exists third-party development tools to enable apps to be created with other languages/frameworks, such as Java, C#, ActionScript, JavaScript – to name a few. One such framework for Java in particular is Particle Code.  I have no experience with this – I suggest more research if you want to follow this path.

While the second approach allows more code re-use, there is still likely a considerable amount of development involved to adapt the application to a mobile form-factor.

For follow-up questions about developing for iOS, please refer to Stack Overflow.


Reclaim root access - High Sierra I installed the Security Update 2020-001 for High Sierra. As a result of this, I am no longer able to use sudo. It just exits with the message

sudo: 4294967295: invalid value

As requested, here are the two id results:

> id $(whoami)
uid=501(my_username) gid=20(staff) groups=20(staff),12(everyone),
    61(localaccounts),79(_appserverusr),80(admin),81(_appserveradm),
    98(_lpadmin),701(com.apple.sharepoint.group.1),33(_appstore),
    100(_lpoperator),204(_developer),250(_analyticsusers),395(com.apple.access_ftp),
    398(com.apple.access_screensharing),399(com.apple.access_ssh)

> id root
uid=0(root) gid=0(wheel) groups=0(wheel),4294967295(nogroup)

The culprit seems to be root being in the nogroup group which has an "invalid" id.

Having a look at /etc/group, the group has an id of -1.

> grep nogroup /etc/group
nogroup:*:-1:

Figured out how to list group memberships on macOS:

> dscl . read /Groups/nogroup
AppleMetaNodeLocation: /Local/Default
GeneratedUID: ABCDEFAB-CDEF-ABCD-EFAB-CDEFFFFFFFFF
Password: *
PrimaryGroupID: -1
RealName:
 No Group
RecordName: nogroup
RecordType: dsRecTypeStandard:Groups

The group does not have any members. And I don't seem to be able to find the root user on this system:

> dscl . read /Users/root
<dscl_cmd> DS Error: -14136 (eDSRecordNotFound)

New question: How do I remove root from the nogroup?

While trying to enable the root user, I got the error

dsenableroot:: ***Failed to enable root user.

So I looked into that and found out thanks to an answer to Why would dsenableroot NOT work on a 10.7.5 OSX Server? that I had to check my root user in the file /private/var/db/dslocal/nodes/Default/users/root.plist.

Sadly, the file was missing. And this was the root cause of the problem: I didn't had a root user. After copying it from another macOS installation,

sudo started working again
id did no longer show the membership to nogroup
the command dscl . read /Users/root said that it finally found a user
and I was able to find root in the directory browser


macOS Preview function performance drop since update I have a 2011 13' i5 8GB MBP, the user has always used Preview to combine PDFs as part of her work flow. To the best of my knowledge her process hasn't changed, however Preview is now failing to process this, it just locks up and fails to respond. A force quit show it has partially combined the PDF's but only ever adds the first page of the inserted file.

We have a text only PDF (roughly ~35KB) and a 2 page scanned document (~750KB).

The first file is opened in preview, we hit 'edit > insert from file' and choose the larger scanned file and the whole lot locks up.

This worked before the update to macOS (she'd been holding off for other reasons that are now resolved, hence updating only this weekend).

I see lots of people reporting performance issues with PDF's after the transition to Yosemite, with lots of people complaining of unresolved bugs around the performance of this app but very little with regards to this latest version.

How can I measure what might be slowing this down or decide if I need to look to another program / tool to perform this work?

The first thing to do is check on some common sense items:

Open Activity Monitor - is the system totally idle or 99% CPU used.
Open System Information (About this Mac) and check the storage - do any cleanup and if you are on a hard drive - consider freeing up 25% of the space to let the optimization run post OS upgrade.
Turn off automatic log in so that when you reboot your Mac - you get to choose which account to log in.
Open the Mac App Store app and apply all updates to Sierra.
After cleaning out CPU / Disk Space - boot to Recovery HD and let Disk Utility repair the Disk, then repair the Macintosh HD, then repair the disk one last time. If any errors are fixed, power down the Mac and start Recovery HD a second time and repeat until you have no errors detected to fix.
Now make a new user account and copy the files you’ll use to test to /Users/Shared - restart and log in to the new account and repeat the test for PDF.

This procedure is very general and catches 4/5 of the issues we have at work with our Mac. It’s not specific to preview, but will ensure you don’t look at a specific app when you actually have a system issue slowing down your Mac.


Firefox: double-click on titlebar maximize window instead on open new tab Recently, I noted that Firefox started to behave differently when I double-click on its title-bar / tab-bar.

It maximizes the windows as if I clicked on the semaphore + button, instead of opening a new tab like it used to do before.

Anyone knows how to get the old behavior back?

Double-click to maximise is a System pref

 menu > System Preferences > Dock

Uncheck "Double-click a window's title bar to…zoom"


Option + arrow left/right moves window rather than moving caret Normally, I would expect that when I hit option plus left arrow or right arrow the cursor (caret) would move back/forward one word. And if I hold shift I would expect to easily highlight the words as I move along. In fact there are questions that mention this behavior (How to use Ctrl+left/Ctrl+Right (instead of Alt+left/Alt+right) to move to the previous/next word)

The current behavior I have observed is that instead of moving the caret the width of the window is adjusted by maybe 50-100 pixels smaller or bigger by moving the right side of the window.

How can I get the functionality I expect?

Version:
OS X El Capitan
10.11.6

EDIT:
I've also noticed now that command + left/right seems to switch windows rather than going to the start/end of the line. I would like this to be changed back as well.

This can be caused by custom software. In my case the problem was that I was running the window management tool Slate which changes this with it's default configuration.


Initialize Time Machine backup without clicking the menu bar icon Is there a way to start 'Backup now' without going to System Preferences, enabling Time Machine Menu bar and clicking it if I have the icon hidden?

Clicking on the drive doesn't let me backup:

tmutil is a command line utility for "controlling and interacting with Time Machine." Try man tmutil. (I'm on OS X 10.10.4).

You can also control/right click on a Time Machine drive in a Finder window or sidebar. If a backup is running you can stop it, if not you can "Back Up Now."


Prevent changing default app for some file extensions Is there anyway to prevent that whatever app change the default app for some kind of files?

As an example, my default app for movies (mp4, mkv, avi, ...) is VLC, and I don't want this to be changed for whatever reasons.

I'm using OS X 10.10.1.

The file that stores the "Open With" data seems to be ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices/com.apple.LaunchServices.secure.plist

Assuming you've setup all of your apps' "Open With" settings, you can ensure that they're not permanently overwritten by removing write permissions from the above file:

chmod 444 ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices/com.apple.LaunchServices.secure.plist

It kind of works.

I tested this using a .docx file. I set my "Open With" preference to Pages.app and then removed the write permission of the LaunchServices plist file. I found that despite changing the permissions of the preference file, I was still able to change the .docx's "Open With" preference to Microsoft Word. However, after restarting the machine the setting was reverted to the one in the "com.apple.LaunchServices.secure.plist" file as it couldn't write the new data to the file.

I assume OS X stores in memory the "Open With" information if it can't write to the LaunchServices file, which is lost after a restart.

Not a great solution and I hope there's a better one, but it's a start.

You can revert the change by running this command:

chmod 644 ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices/com.apple.LaunchServices.secure.plist


Does macOS have something like Linux's binfmt_misc feature? Linux has binfmt_misc which allows arbitrary executable file formats to be recognized and passed to certain user space applications. Does macOS have a similar feature?

No, macOS does not come with a similar feature.
If you're interested in adding it yourself, you can could take a look at this project:
https://github.com/georghe-crihan/imgact_linux
It is a kernel extension that extends the kernel's exec_shell_imgact() function to recognize other file types (namely Linux ELF binaries) and pass them to a user space application to be executed. The source code is available, so it could potentially be tweaked and extended to provide functionality similar to binfmt_misc.


Is it possible to route my iPhone calls through my MacBook Pro sound system? I have external speakers and microphone hooked up to my MacBook Pro running Snow Leopard and an iPhone 3Gs connected to it with a USB cord. Is it possible to route calls from the iPhone through the external speakers and mic (with or without bluetooth)? Put another way, is it possible to use my MacBook Pro, external speakers and microphone as a speakerphone for the iPhone?

There are several bluetooth solutions, that should be useful:

Phone Amego ($29) - This should do the trick. Works and has interesting features. I recommend it.
BluePhoneElite 2 - No longer developed and supported. I see almost everything vanished, but I think you should be able to locate a working copy somehow.

Edit: As of OS X 10.10 Yosemite and iOS8 this will be included in the OS itself. It's called Continuity.

ps. I'm not in any way connected to the authors of the software, mentioned in my answer.


Disable the "Connection lost" message when Bluetooth keyboard out of range I have an Apple Bluetooth keyboard connected to my mid 2014 Macbook Pro. Sometimes I use the computer on my lap, in a room which is just on the threshold of connectivity. Every few minutes I get a message "Connection lost", then "Connected", popping up in the middle of the screen. Sometimes it happens so frequently it's actually hard to get work done because the middle of the screen is obscured so much.

Is there a way to disable this message? Turning off Bluetooth altogether is a bit disruptive. Everything works just as I'd expect it to - I just don't want the notification.

You can do this by disabling the Bezel UI, here are instructions on how to do so from an answer from another question related to that:

  To turn off bezels for this user until next login:   launchctl unload -F /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.BezelUI.plist   To
  undo, change unload to load, or just log out and back in.

  For macOS 10.12 Sierra: Disable System Integrity
  protection,
  then:   launchctl unload -F
  /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.OSDUIHelper.plist   Don't
  forget to enable System Integrity protection when you're done.

  To turn off bezels indefinitely for this user:   launchctl unload -wF /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.BezelUI.plist

  For macOS 10.12 Sierra: Disable System Integrity protection, then:
  launchctl unload -wF
  /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.OSDUIHelper.plist   You can
  now enable System Integrity protection again -- your settings will
  persist.

  To undo, change unload to load.

  To turn off bezels indefinitely for all users:   sudo defaults write /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.BezelUI Disabled -bool
  YES

  For macOS 10.11 Sierra: Disable System Integrity
  protection
  before doing the above.

  To undo, change YES to NO, or:   sudo defaults delete
  /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.BezelUI Disabled

  For macOS 10.12 Sierra: Disable System Integrity
  protection,
  then:   sudo defaults write
  /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.OSDUIHelper Disabled -bool YES
  You can now enable System Integrity protection again -- your settings
  will persist.

  To undo, change YES to NO, or:   sudo defaults delete
  /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.OSDUIHelper Disabled

  Users can override this global setting using the two methods above.

  More info: launchctl is the command-line interface to launchd, the
  program that manages services and jobs on Mac OS.

  To reverse any of the above actions, just change unload to load.
  -w means write preference to disk so that it will be used for subsequent logins
  -F means force un/load regardless of the global Disabled key

  You can read more about it in man launchctl.


In Lion, if I keep pressing a key, why doesn't it repeat? I don't know if there are any settings to toggle, but I figured out that if I keep pressing a button on my keyboard it doesn't repeat it and displays only one character! Can this be fixed to go back to the previous repeating behavior?

This is a new "feature" that Apple introduced in Lion.  To disable no key repeat, enter

defaults write -g ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool false

in Terminal, and then restart your computer.

Source: https://discussions.apple.com/message/15678809


Password Reset using Mac OS X install media I forgot my password for my imac. If I reset my password using the Mac OS X install media, will I loose all data stored in my computer?

No you will not, resetting your password using the installation media will leave all data intact. However if you are using Filevault you would need your password or the recovery key to access any encrypted data.


Yosemite Upgrade changed numeric keypad "Enter" key to issue "^[33OM" On Mavericks and previous, the "ENTER" key on the numeric keypad mimicked  the "ENTER" key on the main keyboard.  I can't find a way to map this back to working like an "ENTER" key again.  Where this is showing up is while using the Terminal app in xterm emulation.  It is only a problem in Terminal.  I am using a full size Logitech Illuminated K740 keyboard.

Any clues would be greatly appreciated. This has been my default/habitual Enter key.

Thanks in advance for clues...

Jeff

Actually, I found the simplest answer...  In Terminal Preferrences, Advanced Tab, I unchecked the box in the 'Input' options section: "Allow VT100 application keypad mode"

Now the keypad ENTER key is identical to the main keyboard ENTER key!

Simple and sweet, I found this when looking through the TMUX help information.

I didn't realize that the only place where the keypad ENTER was issuing "\EOM" was in my tmux sessions, since that is the default mode in my remote admin sessions.  Thanks for the information above, but this was all I needed to do.  I've I'd given more background people may have had better clues.


When in Extend Mode, can I use my AirPort Extreme's WAN port as a LAN port? I have two AirPort Extremes. One has its WAN port connected to my modem, and the other as been configured to wirelessly extend the first, meaning none of the Ethernet ports on the back are connected. I plan to connect four devices to this second AirPort Extreme. I know I can use the three LAN ports on the back to connect devices, but can I use the WAN port?

Yes.

When an AirPort Extreme is configured to extend another AirPort Extreme wirelessly, the WAN port is not used for WAN, and this means it is automatically switched to be a LAN port, identical to the other three LAN ports already on the back of the unit. This was tested by myself with an Apple AirPort Extreme 802.11n 1st Generation, and this answer was posted with a computer which is connected to the WAN port of said router.


2006 macbook give me flashing folder with question mark without disk I am currently using a early 2006 macbook running on os x 10.5 and I am facing the flashing folder when turning it on. I have tried holding command & c and etc but nothing happens when I hold option after hearing the chime the arrow come up and i don't see no folder but it stays like this. I do not own any disks to put into my macbook because it was given to me. i do not want to take it to the shop because it will cost more than the laptop it self will cost. Is there any type of way to resolve this issue?

The folder with question mark on start up means that the Mac is unable to locate your boot drive.

Many possible causes:

Corrupted boot disk.

You can try Disk Utility using a boot via external unit (CD-ROM, external HDD, USB) to repair the disk. If you are unable to see the primary disk via Disk Utility follow the two possibility below.

HDD broken.

Replace your HDD and install a fresh copy of OS X or try to extract your data form the broken HDD and move it to the new one.

HDD SATA cable disconnected / broken.

Your HDD is connected via SATA flat cable. Open your Mac, check this cable if it is disconnected or try to replace it.


Switch input language depending on physical keyboard attached I use a swedish keyboard at home, and an english at work. I have one laptop for both places. Every day I have to switch the input language manually back and forth, and for every app I'm using it seems.

Is there any way to just have the input language match whatever keyboard I'm using, automagically?

This type of functionality is sometimes called location management. Basically, the machine determines its location using hints from network connections. In the Mac OS 9 days, Location Manager was built in to the OS. Not so with Mac OS X.

Here is a discussion of a similar capability, although I don't know how current it is:

http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=2010042707531680


Mac OSX microphone input volume level auto-adjusts - can it be disabled? I've found this issue and various discussions online about this, but no obvious "just do this", so I'm wandering over here from ServerFault to ask this.

Is there a way to disable or hard-set the input level on a mic?  In the Sound preferences on the Input tab if I click on the device and set a level and then start talking it picks up the sound and then start to auto-adjust the mic input level.

This causes issues when talking with someone on Lync/Skype/etc because one minute the sound is fine and then if you raise your voice for a second and then lower it back down (or shift around in your chair) the auto-adjust causes the other party to think your whispering or yelling.

I'd like to be able to disable the auto-adjust if possible.  Yes/No?

NOTE: The issue is similar this one: iMac OSX 10.8.4 Volume adjusts by itself but rather on the input side and not the output side for me.

Turns out that the auto-adjusting mic level was not MacOS, but rather Skype (Version 6.6.0.467).  There is a check box in Skype Preferences to enable/disable it, and once I turned it off the level stays where I set it.

The problem is that, apparently, Skype's notion of auto adjusting the mic volume is simply to crank it up to max, no matter what -- even when no call is active.  At around 90% the mic starts picking up background noise, probably the Mac disk or fan, and by 100% that background noise is overwhelming.

I found that on my MacBook Pro (c. 2008) the mic level at about 75% was good, and I also found it helpful to check the "Use ambient noise reduction" check box (just below the mic level slider in the System Preferences/Audio).


Error when installing Apache 2.4, PHP 5.5 and MySQL via Homebrew I tried to install Apache and PHP on Mac OS X version 10.9.5

brew install httpd24 php55 --with-mysql --with-homebrew-apache --homebrew-apxs -v

exit with this error

  local/Cellar/apr-util/1.5.4/libexec/lib/libaprutil-1.la -lexpat -liconv /usr/local/Cellar/apr/1.5.1/libexec/lib/libapr-1.la -lpthread Undefined symbols for architecture x86_64: "_TLSv1_1_client_method", referenced from: _main in ab.o "_TLSv1_2_client_method", referenced from: _main in ab.o ld: symbol(s) not found for architecture x86_64

Yosemite ships with apache 2.4.9, php 5.5.14 already installed, tuned up and ready to roll.

MySQL is readily available from their website in either tar or pkg format. It is a drop-in installation, php already knows about it. There is occasionally a socket issue, easily fixed by editing the php.ini file or just making a symlink.


Imac keyboard malfunctions at startup Imac having odd problem.  Entering password at bootup, the computer does not respond to keystroke (usb keyboard), until it's been tapped multiple (but not consistent) number of times, then it will spit out several iterations of the same letter (but not as many as taps).  Very difficult to backspace to correct.  When that frustrating process finally gets a password, the computer works fine.  After some use (a day or so) the keyboard starts not responding in a similar fashion. Rebooting is necessary.

We swapped out keyboards, disconnected any bluetooth devices that had at one time been connected. Run techtools and disk utility, no issues appear. Any clues/suggestions?

kt

I would reset both your PRAM/NVRAM and your SMC. See below for instructions.

Reset your PRAM/NVRAM

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

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

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

Reset the SMC

Your computer's System Management Controller (SMC) can also be reset. The instructions for doing this on an iMac are:

Shut down your computer
Unplug it from the power
Press and hold the power button for 5 seconds
Plug it back in and turn it on.


OSX Yosemite change sound output while headphones plugged in I've a problem which is my headphones' jack is broken into my computer. I can't hear any voice neither from headphones nor from internal speakers.

What I need is, to hear some sound from internal speakers while my headphones' jack is broken in my computer.

Thanks in advance..

If you have a Macbook Pro with only one jack input (no separate inputs for microphone/headphones), try alt (option) clicking the Sound Menu in the menu bar and selecting "Use Audio port for" -> Input. This way the system will think that you want to use what's plugged in as microphone and not as headphones and you will be able to use the speakers once again.


Touch ID available only after sleep but not when starting the laptop I just got my new MacBook Pro and the fingerprint is available only after sleep but not when starting the laptop. Is that the normal behavior?

Yes this is normal behaviour.
Like on an iOS device, Touch ID is unavailable immediately after a restart.

  Note that you must type your password to log in after you start up, restart, or log out

  In some situations, you need to enter your password instead of using Touch ID:

  If you've just restarted your Mac
  If you've logged out of your user account
  If your fingerprint isn't recognized five times in a row
  If you haven't unlocked your Mac in more than 48 hours
  If you've just enrolled or deleted fingerprints

Use Touch ID on MacBook Pro


How to get last active tab in Safari using AppleScript? I'm pretty new to AppleScript and wanted to make a simple script for Safari.
In fact, I want to activate the last active tab after closing the current tab.
This is where I'm stuck

tell application "Safari"
    close current tab of front window
    set current tab #(some code to get last active tab)
end tell

Answer: this is not possible since the list of active previous tabs isn’t stored in a way AppleScript can know how to go back and undo a window close operation.


Why my ipad mini 1 (A1455 Late 2012) is slower than my ipad 3(A1416 early 2012)? My ipad mini 1 (A1455 Late 2012) is very slow and it is even much slower than my ipad 3(A1416 Early 2012). Both are running iOS 9.3.5. Why? I thought later model should be faster.

I've tried to reset the ipad mini several times, and removed most of the apps, but it is still very slow. Sometimes it does not respond to the taps or delays a few seconds. Web page loading is also very slow.

Any idea and solutions? Wanted to Jailbreak to see but it requires donation.

Thanks in advance.

Model check:
https://support.apple.com/en-au/HT201471

iPad 1st Generation has an A5 processor while the iPad 3 has A5X (Much faster). This is very similar to iPad Pro 2017 and the iPad 2018. Even though the 2018 iPad is the latest, it doesn't mean it is faster than previous models. It's a matter of the processor itself. In fact, I have an iPod 5G and it contains the same processor as iPad 1st gen. It is kind of slow.


Remove VIP mail box from sidebar in Mac Mail I accidentally set one of my contacts to be a VIP in Mac Mail, it then added this folder in the image below into the sidebar, when i removed the VIP status of that contact the VIP folder still remained in the sidebar.. any idea how i can remove it ?

I found what worked was:

Remove all VIP contacts
Close Mail
Reboot the machine

Upon reopening Mail, the VIP section in the sidebar is now gone.

UPDATE - At the time of writing this initial post i was running OSX 10.9.


Cannot create home folders on the server for network accounts I have a problem with creating home folders on the server for network accounts. The goal is to share the same files on multiple devices. A quick overview of what I do:

I go to the Server.app.
I create a folder (in my case on /Volumes/Macintosh HD/Network Users).
I enable the File Sharing service.
I add the /Volumes/Macintosh HD/Network Users as a shared folder.
Once added, I edit it and make sure it is able to be used for home folders (AFP).
I create a new network account and set his/her home folder location to 'Network Users'.

When I try to log in on a device (in my case a MacBook Pro), it gives me the following error saying I can't login:

You are unable to login to the user account "williamdedwards" at this time.
Logging in to the account failed because an error occurred.

I am 100% sure that this is related to the permissions. When I add my user account manually and give it Read/Write access to the 'Network Users' folder, it used to work (not anymore, I still get the same error now). When I set the home folder to 'Local', I can login and everything is fine.

I also came to this conclusion with Apple Support.

What am I doing wrong here?

It might be something with the authentication process of the clients. Open Directory needs to be running on the server (try to delete and rebuild it) and this server must be assigned as a directory server in the the clients account preferences. You might be able to check permissions by accessing the a home folder via CMD-K and the AFP:// URL from the Finder of any client. If you get read/write access then permissions should be okay.


Compatibility of Mid 2011 MacBook Air 13" Parts I am replacing the upper case of my MBA 2011 13", I found something on eBay but am unsure on the compatibility, my serial number is, C02GRGLVDJWT.

Link to the part: 13" Apple MacBook Air A1466 Palmrest Upper Top Case 069-8219-A.  Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Serial No: C02GRGLVDJWT
Apple MacBook Air i5 1.7 13" (Mid-2011)
Part No: MC965LL/A
Model Identifier: MacBookAir4,2
Model No: A1369

Apple MacBook Air i7 2.0 13" (Mid-2012)
Part No: MD232LL/A
Model Identifier: MacBookAir5,2
Model No: A1466

Between these 2 machines, casing parts are NOT interchangeable


Multi-colored lines only on screen when booting 17" iMac Core Duo 1.83Ghz New to StackExchange/Ask Different. Been a lurker for a long time, this is my first question/discussion. I hope somebody might point me in the right direction.

I was recently given a couple old iMacs that were going to be thrown away by a family member. The others all work fine after a format and memory upgrade. However, one of them does not. It is a 17" iMac Intel Core Duo 1.83Ghz. Here is a link to the exact model info.

On bootup, I get the normal Apple start sound, but the screen only displays multi-colored lines. Here is a picture. I pulled the plastic bezel off, and tried removing the screen panel, and reseating the screen cable. I also removed and reseated the memory, and tried resetting NVRAM, all with no change. I don't need to worry about losing any data on this system, I will format it and clean install OSX when I fix the screen.

What should I try next to figure out what is causing the screen issue?

Thanks in advance!

Probably a hardware issue either with the GPU or something between the GPU and the screen (screen itself, cable, etc.) dying. I know you reseated the screen and cable, but if said components are failing/have failed that won't be enough.

If you have an external monitor, try plugging it in and see if it works. If so, run Apple Hardware Test and see what it reports back. If you GPU is indeed dying, chances are this won't work. To my knowledge the GPU is attached permanently to the logic board, so you can't replace it.


What typeface is used by macOS to render unicode glyphs? What font is being used in the following screenshot (on a latest macOS/Safari) to render the Unicode glyphs?

The screenshot is taken from the page http://www.alanwood.net/demos/wingdings.html

Is this font available somewhere publicly as an SVG?

(Cross-posted from here.)

All glyphs are Unicode glyphs!

In the absence of fonts specified in the webpage itself, Safari will use its default font, Time New Roman. However, TNR does not have glyphs in the range shown on this page  so Safari cascades to its default for each Unicode range.

For the glyphs in your screenshot, the pointing hand symbols, that seems to come from:

/System/Library/Fonts/Apple Symbols.ttf

Other glyphs on that page are from:

/System/Library/Fonts/Apple Color Emoji.ttc.

You can of course create outlined SVGs from any font character using a vector artwork editor like Adobe Illustrator, Affinity Designer, Graphic, or Inkscape.


Macbook Pro buttons are pushed on their own I play a game, for example Kerbal Space Program, and sometimes (pretty often) buttons are pressed on their own. No mods. It can be spacebar (stage separation) or "m" for Map. And it could be a problem in the game, but it's not because some similar stuff going on in Terraria, suddenly your character  starts to go in one direction. It's like some button is stuck, but actually it's not, keyboard is ok. What is it can be?
MBPr 2014 El Captain 10.11.1

There is a very good chance that your battery must be replaced. Check it in Applications → Utilities → System Information → "Power": check the "battery condition": when it says "replace" or "service" replace it asap. Do not buy non-apple crap, they die faster than they are bought. In OWC there is a possibility that they have a replacement oem battery which is good. Only there.
Note: a bad battery swells (and can go leaking also) and presses the keyboard on the underside.


LDAP Network Account Logins in Mavericks I'd like to be able to link an LDAP server to Mavericks to permit users to login with their LDAP credentials. I have the following problem:

Although I know the fully qualified DN for a user (in the form cn={username}, ou=USERS, o=ORGNAME), I cannot lookup an attribute of password for the user. (This may be anticipated.) The user can authenticate against the LDAP server though.

I have managed to link the LDAP account in Directory Utility, and do actually get a list of users in the "Directory Editor" but I have no idea how to actually propagate that into the system. Specifically (as this is an OS X Server install) I wish to import them in the Server admin app, so LDAP users can log into wiki's, etc. In the Server app, no users appear in the User browser.

In advance, I know that that DN looks like an AD DN, it is. However, this server is not on the domain and I do not have domain or LDAP admin rights, so this authentication needs to happen without that.

Can someone guide me into how to configure this? I've spent some time with Google, but either I'm searching for the wrong thing (possible) or none of the results help.

It's possible that you need to set the Authentication Search Path inside of Directory Utility -> Search Policy -> Authentication...Make sure "Search" says "Custom Path", and that your Active Directory domain is listed below.

If you do not see your AD domain in the list, you can authenticate to Directory Utility by clicking the lock in the lower-left corner, and then add a new search path by clicking the "+" button below the list of paths. Your domain should show up under "Available Directory Domains".

This setting should allow users to authenticate against Active Directory when connecting to your server. However, if AD users can authenticate against your OS X server successfully, the Search Path is not likely to be the culprit.

Alternatively, Workgroup Manager still exists, and may allow you to investigate the AD node more explicitly.

Lastly, you may be required to enable cleartext authentication to be able to authenticate your AD users to your OS X Server hosted wiki (the article applies to Mountain Lion and lower systems, but may be the same procedure that is required for Mavericks).


Change login info in Screen Sharing recents list Running Big Sur 11.2.1 on my laptop, I have a Mac Mini I connect to via Screen Sharing -- it is in the Recents list.  However, the Mini's login changed, and I can't update it:

Changing it when logging in doesn't do it (it works for that login, but next time it reverts to the old values).
I've looked at the .vncloc file in ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.ScreenSharing/Data/Library/Application Support/Screen Sharing but there's nothing in there about login info.
I've deleted the .vncloc file, but when I enter the address of the mini (it's at a fixed IP), it presents me with the old credentials again.

Thanks in advance.

Credentials are stored in your keychain, which you can browse using Keychain Access.app in the Utilities folder of Applications.
Search for items named the hostname (or IP) of the device and delete the relevant password item.


Speed up disk cloning over USB My MacBook (13-inch Aluminum Late 2008) lacks a FireWire or Thunderbolt port. So I must attach an external disk (Voyager) running over USB 2 to do a full backup (cloning disk with SuperDuper app). Not fast, hours and hours.

Any tips or techniques for helping this disk cloning go faster?

Disable Spotlight

Spotlight is Apple’s technology for indexing all your disk’s contents to facilitate fast searching.

When making a disk clone, you do not want the booted Mac to re-index all that copied content. No need. Worse, Spotlight is fighting for the limited USB to read from that external disk while SuperDuper is trying to write to that external disk.

Fortunately Apple provides a "Privacy" feature where you can pick a folder, or even an entire disk, telling Spotlight to ignore the nested content. In System Preferences app, in the Spotlight option, click the Privacy tab. There you can add your external disk to the list of exclusions. Click the plus-icon button and select the external disk.

This sped up my disk-cloning multiple time faster, at least 3-5 times faster. At first, after 10-20 minutes, it looked like 233 gigs would take 24-30 hours to clone. Then I used Spotlight > Privacy. Over 10-20 more minutes, the throughput reported a doubling of speed. Cloning took 4 hours.

Remove Drive

…try at your own risk…

Another option is removing the hard disk from inside the MacBook. Then use Voyager-type or such to attach to another Mac with FireWire/Thunderbolt ports to do the copy.

Removal is easy enough to do if you have a model with a removable battery. The disk is accessible through the battery bay.

The only trick is sometimes the rubber strip that hold the drive in place. If that comes loose while sliding the drive back in, things get tricky.


cfgutil no longer works via ssh after upgrading to Sierra I use the cfgutil from Apple Configurator with iOS devices on an OSX host via SSH. After upgrading to Sierra, I get a NSCocoaErrorDomain message and it fails. It works fine at the terminal, however.

Here's my output of trying it successfully at a local terminal, then sshing and the failure:

~ cfgutil list
Type: [...] ECID: [...] UDID: [...] Location: [...] Name: [...]
~  ssh localhost /usr/local/bin/cfgutil list
Password:
cfgutil: error: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=4097 "connection to service named com.apple.configurator.xpc.InternetService" UserInfo={NSDebugDescription=connection to service named com.apple.configurator.xpc.InternetService}

I assume this comes from some increased security measures from Sierra, but for me it's a pain. Any ideas how to disable this or work around it?

I've found a very awkward workaround, though input is hidden:

Create a file, e.g. /tmp/cfgutil.sh on the server
Populate that file with the command you wish to run, e.g. cfgutil list
When you ssh in, run open -a Terminal /tmp/cfgutil.sh

Here's a minimal example:
echo "/usr/local/bin/cfgutil list" > /tmp/cfgutil.sh && ssh localhost open -a Terminal "/tmp/cfgutil.sh"

I suspect it only works if the user is logged in via the UI as well.


Can iTunes Genius (or song metadata) be improved so songs without a match can use the feature? My question boils down to: "Technically, how does the Genius feature work?" so that I may use it in instances where it fails to fine enough matches for a specific song.

Part of this question is — what is stored in your library or meta-data on iTunes or on your iPhone that allows the songs to combine into auto-playlists? In other words, what is it delivering when it says "Delivering your Genius results..."

More than just academically interesting, I'm wondering if there is anything I can do to adjust the metadata of those songs that get the Genius error messages so that they work.  I have had a few lately that are popular songs and should have been able to find results easily but didn't.

The way I understand it, Genius not only uses your mp3's metatags to organize Genius information, but also gets a lot of information from what people put in their playlists. This makes sense, as the point of Genius is to automatically put together a list of song that go together, without having to do it manually.

I read an article about this once, where a guy had Genius create a playlist for him, and he couldn't figure out for the life of him what the songs had in common. They were from all different years, genres, etc., even including spoken word. Finally, he realized that the tracks all had one thing in common -- they were Canadian. Of course, this isn't the most intelligent behaviour as tracks that are Canadian are not necessarily those you would like to listen to in succession. But of course, it would not be uncommon for people to create a "Canadian" playlist for other reasons than listening to it as a collection, and that's why Genius thought they might go together. The Genius feature slowly loses its charm as the track progresses from Celine Dion to a CBC Radio archive to (heaven forbid) Justin Bieber.


VirtualBoxVM instances and Apple ID I've got a late 2013 Mac Pro running VirtualVM on it. I currently have a couple of VMs, and I'm looking to add a third. When installing the OS, I'm prompted to "Sign in with Your Apple ID". I enter my apple id and password and hit [Continue]. It pops up an error message

Create an Apple ID
Cannot create Apple ID

This Mac is no longer eligible to create Apple ID accounts.
Create an AppleID using a different device.

[Back] [Continue]

Now I'm a bit flummoxed. I'm not creating a new ID, I'm trying to sign in with an existing ID. What's going on here?

EDIT:

The VM is running macOS 10.13 High Sierra (64-bit).
The country I'm choosing is the US in all cases.
None of the VMs currently have a working Apple ID

If you are signing in on multiple VMs with the same account, Apple's account server may have noticed and stopped you as you have reached the limit for the number of devices on your account.

Check how many devices you have linked to your account by going to https://www.icloud.com and click Settings. Remove some if there are any that you don't use anymore and try again on the VM.

Clicking the 'Sign Out of All Browsers' button may also help as it will deactivate any sign-ins that may still be valid but unused. You'll have to sign in to your other VMs again afterwards however.


Ignore global shortcuts when using iTerm I'm using tmux in iTerm2. To resize the tmux panels, I think I'm supposed to press Ctrl+b+Arrows.

For example, if I press Ctrl+b+Down, it shows all the windows in the current app, probably because it catches the Ctrl+Down shortcut.

How can I fix this, so when I hold Ctrl+b+Down (or another arrow key), the panels will be resized?

The only way to fix this is to turn off or change the global shortcut for Ctrl-down.

You will find it in System Preferences-Keyboard-Shortcuts under "Mission Control".


Hammerspoon get working directory from finder I am a new user of hammerspoon, I want to make a new shortcut (ctrl-alt-T) that opens the Terminal app in Finder's working directory. Do you know how can I get the working directory of Finder from hammerspoon?

Here's some AppleScript for you:

tell application "Finder" to get POSIX path of (insertion location as string)

If you don't want to get the Desktop if a Finder window isn't active, use this instead:

tell application "Finder" to get POSIX path of (target of front window as string)

This will get the location of the frontmost Finder window, even if none is selected. If there are none open, it will fail.

I don't know how Hammerspoon works, but if it can run Terminal commands, you can use osascript to run the AppleScript.

Also, you don't need to use Hammerspoon to do this. There's already a Service for this, or you can use Automator to make your own:

Create a new Service.
Make it take No Input in Finder.app.
Add a Run AppleScript action, and put this in the box:

on run {input, parameters}

    tell application "Finder" to set p to POSIX path of (insertion location as string)
    tell application "Terminal" to do script "cd " & quoted form of p

    return input
end run

Save it appropriately, like "New Terminal Here".
Add a keyboard shortcut in System Preferences, if desired.
Enjoy!


Can't I use different Wi-Fi networks for different Locations? I'm having trouble understanding what I'm doing wrong here: I'm trying to set up two network Locations, one for my home network via my cable modem and a second for Wi-Fi tethering via my mobile phone. What I'd like to be able to do is change the Location (under the Apple menu > Location) and have my Mac automatically connect to the proper Wi-Fi network: either my home network SSID or my WiFi tethering SSID.
I defined two locations, switched between them, and set the preferred network list for each location. But when I change the preferred network list for one Location, it changes the list for the other Location as well!
Am I doing something wrong or is it really not possible to maintain a separate list of Preferred Networks for each network Location? It seems doubtful it's not possible since just about every other netrok setting depends on the location...
I am using OS X 10.7.2.

The Sidekick app (which used to be called NetworkLocation) is an ideal tool for automating changes based on the location of your Mac. It's a veritable swiss army knife of tools, works well in Lion and has plug ins and terminal support for extending it should the built in tools not cover your additional use cases. For simple network location changes, you are covered with this app.


2006 Mac Pro - vmware fusion - snow leopard / VM's with Mavericks Can a 2006 Mac Pro that can't go above Snow Leopard physically on the host run Mavericks with vmware Fusion virtually?

I'm guessing you can, and here's why (from VirtualBox):

  VirtualBox supports 64-bit guest operating systems, even on 32-bit host operating systems provided that the following conditions are met:

  You need a 64-bit processor with hardware virtualization support (see Section 10.3, “Hardware vs. software virtualization”).
  You must enable hardware virtualization for the particular VM for which you want 64-bit support; software virtualization is not supported for 64-bit VMs.
  If you want to use 64-bit guest support on a 32-bit host operating system, you must also select a 64-bit operating system for the particular VM. Since supporting 64 bits on 32-bit hosts incurs additional overhead, VirtualBox only enables this support upon explicit request.

VMWare Fusion says something similar (search the FAQ for "64-bit").

Assuming your Mac Pro is the 2.66 Quad Core, EveryMac confirms that your processor is 64-bit.  Give it a try, hit the forums, and good luck!


What is the physical size of the Lightning connector? The title has it... What is the physical size of the new Lightning connector? That is, what's the size of the tip of the connector that gets plugged into the device? I want to use this information for comparison of physical size of micro USB and Lightning.

I haven't seen any precise measurements of the connector itself, but you can see from these iPhone 5 blueprints (which come from Apple for case manufacturers) that the width of the area the connector goes is 9.05mm (including the plastic housing).

I used a hires image from iFixit's iPhone 5 teardown to get an estimate that the metal tip is about 84% of the width of the plastic housing, which works out to about 7.6mm, give or take. Using the same methodology, I'd estimate the height of the metal connector to be about 1.4mm.


Can I execute a Terminal command in a new tab? It just occurred to me that it would be incredibly useful if I could type a command in one Terminal tab, and then execute it in a new background or foreground tab. For example, this would be awesome when editing files with nano. I could cd to a location and then quickly nano sys_201406271933.log, nano 415ab40ae9b7cc4e66d6769cb2c08106e8293b48.key two new background tabs. The alternative is to manually open two tabs and flip between them, using the mouse to copy-paste the long, unmemorable filenames.

I've spent about 30 minutes researching whether this is possible and found no satisfying answer.

iTerm 2 is a powerful replacement for Terminal.app and it has support for AppleScript. You can use AppleScript to tell it to run commands in a new tab or window.

For example, let's make a little AppleScript action that's callable. Enter the following in to the AppleScript Editor:

on run argv
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to {" "}
    tell application "iTerm"
        make new terminal
        tell the current terminal
            activate current session
            launch session "Default Session"
            tell the last session
                write text argv as string
            end tell
        end tell
    end tell
end run

and then save it as a Script in ~/Documents/Scripts/run-in-new-iterm-tab.scpt. We can now call it from the command line like so:

/Users/ian
> osascript ~/Documents/Scripts/run-in-new-iterm-tab.scpt ls ~/Documents/Scripts

/Users/ian
>

and I get a new tab in my iTerm session with:

Last login: Thu Aug 28 22:17:17 on ttys003
ls /Users/ian/Documents/Scripts

/Users/ian
> ls /Users/ian/Documents/Scripts
edit                         keep_drives_alive.sh         run-in-new-iterm-tab.scpt    touch-in-order.pl
find-missing-itunes-files.pl keep_drives_alive.sh~        start-utorrent.scpt          touch-in-order.pl~

/Users/ian
>

Which is not too bad. There are some refinements you can make to the AppleScript like maintaining the current working directory when you call the command. But that's gets you in the ballpark.

If you use this hint in this question you can turn the whole thing in to a bash-wrapped script that's even easier to execute:

#!/usr/bin/env osascript

on run argv
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to {" "}
    tell application "iTerm"
        make new terminal
        tell the current terminal
            activate current session
            launch session "Default Session"
            tell the last session
                write text argv as string
            end tell
        end tell
    end tell
end run

Save that to a spot on your PATH and make it executable and then you only need to run:

run-in-new-iterm-tab ls ~/Documents/Scripts

to get it to work.


How can I replace the original AppleIntelCPUPowermanagementClient.kext in OS X Lion? I was playing around with Coolbook and stupidly enough deleted the two kernel extensions (kexts) without saving them to a backup location.

How can I recover just AppleIntelCPUPowermanagementClient.kext and AppleIntelCPUPowermanagement.kext without reinstalling my OS?

These files exist in /System/Library/Extensions/ and I am running OS X Lion 10.7.3 preferably. I have searched for these on internet downloads, but can't find any and wouldn't want to blindly trust them if I can't tell they are unaltered.

The first thing you should try is installing the OS X Lion Update 10.7.3 (Client Combo). If that doesn't replace those files then you'd have to reinstall OS X over your existing install.

However, since you're already messing around inside the System folder, you may be interested in trying to copy those files from your Recovery HD partition. To do this, you need to mount the Recovery HD, then mount the Base System image on it.

Mount the Recovery HD in Terminal with this command:

diskutil mount "Recovery HD"

Mount the BaseSystem.dmg with this command:

hdiutil mount /Volumes/Recovery\ HD/com.apple.recovery.boot/BaseSystem.dmg

You can then try copying the files from the "Mac OS X Base System" disk image to your system folder. After copying, make sure the owner/permissions are correct (running Disk Utility's repair permissions would be a good idea).

I haven't tested this, but the file sizes of each is the same in both the Base System image and the full install of OS X, so it seems likely they're the same.


Yosemite keeps dropping WiFI connectivity After upgrading to Yosemite, my Macbook Air drops off the WiFi connection many times a day. The following ping test demonstrates that restarting WiFi leads to a successful reconnection.

$ ping 8.8.8.8
PING 8.8.8.8 (8.8.8.8): 56 data bytes
Request timeout for icmp_seq 0
Request timeout for icmp_seq 1
Request timeout for icmp_seq 2
Request timeout for icmp_seq 3
Request timeout for icmp_seq 4
Request timeout for icmp_seq 5
Request timeout for icmp_seq 6   (Turn Wifi Off, Turn Wifi On)
Request timeout for icmp_seq 7
Request timeout for icmp_seq 8
Request timeout for icmp_seq 9
Request timeout for icmp_seq 10
Request timeout for icmp_seq 11
Request timeout for icmp_seq 12
Request timeout for icmp_seq 13
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=14 ttl=49 time=68.005 ms
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=15 ttl=49 time=203.014 ms
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=16 ttl=49 time=227.464 ms

Why does Yosemite keep dropping Wifi? Mountain Lion was working great. My iPhone is connects to the same Wifi network without a problem.

This isn't a solution, and it isn't a definitive answer, but WiFi/Bluetooth issues have been reported by many users (including yours truly) of OS X Yosemite. Apple is reportedly working on a fix, which may or may not help all of these users.


What stops fake password prompts? When performing actions which require administrator privileges macOS offers a standard privileges elevation dialog:

How a user can be sure such dialog is legitimate? From my perspective such dialog can easily be imitated. From there it can be used to capture users's password which leads to essentially root privileges on the machine.

Is there anything which can make this process safer?

Is there anything which can make this process safer?

Yes.  The user.
90% of hacking is social engineering.  It's not what people think it is; some bleary eyed geek sitting in a dark basement surrounded by high caffeine content energy drinks and a seeming endless supply of Hot Pockets tapping out cryptic code on a keyboard as they somehow overcome whatever defenses you thought you had.
There are the vulnerabilities and the exploits that hackers do take advantage of and some of them are really cool (for instance, I can take control of a domain connected Windows machine simply by making the on screen keyboard launch command prompt as an admin, but that's another story for another day).  However most of the hacking is how we can get people to give up the goods.
Where this applies is to be cognizant about what you're doing.  The "knee-jerk reaction" to seeing a dialog box with a password is to do exactly what you are thinking right now:  type in your password.  What you need to do is get the habit of doing is taking a pause and asking yourself why.

If you're doing what you've always done and suddenly out of the blue you get a password request...ask why it's showing up now.

If you're installing something, ask why does it needs admin rights - it's probably legitimate, but a quick pause to mentally verify is always good (I do this when shopping too..."do I really need this thing?")

If you're on a website and you see a pop-up, ask why would they need that?

The key here is to take a moment and rationalize why you're entering your credentials.  *You can always hit "cancel," you won't break anything, if you're not sure.
Something to consider...
Remember, most hacking is social engineering.  Hackers know that most people don't want to go through the hassle of remembering different passwords for different accounts.  If they can get your email address by examining cookies and then trick you into revealing a password, they now can try virtually every service (Facebook, Gmail, Twitter, etc.) to see what can be compromised.
Something more to consider...
Hacking is not about taking complete control of your system to make the mouse do crazy things or move files and folders.  It's about lateral jumps, or in layman's terms:  what access can I get on computer A that will give me access to computer B or system C?  Hosing up your system only alerts you to their pretense which means you'll likely shut the door.  They don't want that.


My SSD Drive has been converted to a Core Storage drive and cannot be erased/reformatted? I put an SSD drive into my macbook pro.
I should say that this drive hadn't been formatted and was a bootable drive with Yosemite OS on it, taken from another macbook pro...
I booted the system up in restore mode and began the process of restoring from a time machine back, on an external plugged in via firewire 800 caddy.
It said, "erasing drive", it asked me for a password, I wasn't sure why so typed my usual system password. I received the message, "drive could not be erased"
Since then the SSD drive has only show up in disk utility, not on deskop or in finder, and it cannot be erased in disk utility.
I gather from speaking with a few more enlightened apple people that it has been converted to a core storage drive...
I will post up a couple of helpful terminal read out pictures.
How do I get my SSD drive back??
Thanks in advance,
Chris

You can blow away a corestorage disk partition by booting in Single User Mode...  then use this command:

WARNING: THIS WILL RUIN ALL DATA ON THE DISK!

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/disk0

After a moment you will see an error that the corestorage volume has come offline unexpectedly (that is because you have destroyed it).  You can now type Ctrl+. to stop ruining the disk.

Then you can boot in Recovery mode (hold down Ctrl+R upon boot) and proceed to format this disk.


The data in file-bookmarks can be converted to an NSURL object.  If you know at least a little about macOS programming, you can load this data using the UserDefaults system and parse it back into a path using NSURL's URLByResolvingBookmarkData method.

There is some Objective-C sample code over at StackOverflow that still works on Mojave, reading data from FXRecentFolders and outputting the path to stdout.  I am not skilled enough in Swift, but it is probably not difficult to convert that to some equivalent Swift.


Do I need a special external hard drive to use with Time Machine I am searching for a hard drive but I wonder if just about any will allow me to partition it so that I can use a part of it for Time Machine only. Thanks.

No special drive required. It only need support being partitioned as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) (also known has HFS+) -- which just about any external drive from major manufacturers support. Make sure it supports a physical connection protocol (USB 2, USB 3, FireWire, Thunderbolt, etc.) that your specific Mac happens to have and you're good to go.


Apple Watch Fall detection requirements What does an Apple Series 4 Watch require to have Fall Detection + Emergency 911 calling fully operational?

Does the watch need to be paired with a certain iPhone Model/iOS release? Does the watch need GPS+Cellular or is the GPS model alone capable and under what conditions? Does anything need to be manually configured/enabled on the watch?

I have an elderly friend who's interested in this product and it would be useful to know the minimum requirements to get this operational for them.

What does an Apple Series 4 Watch require to have Fall Detection +
Emergency 911 calling fully operational? Does the watch need to be paired with a certain iPhone Model/iOS release?

You only need to meet the minimum iPhone and iOS requirements.*

GPS + Cellular:  iPhone 6 or later running iOS 12 or newer

GPS only:  iPhone 5s or later running iOS 12 or newer.

Obviously, either model will support fall detection.  However, for fall detection to work with the GPS only model, you will need to have your iPhone with you whereas the cellular model, you don't.

Does anything need to be manually configured/enabled on the watch?

Yes.  You need to configure both Emergency SOS and your Medical ID information.  Full details on how/what is involved can be obtained from this Apple Support document, https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208944
Pay particular attention to these caveats:

https://support.apple.com/guide/watch/make-an-emergency-phone-call-apd4ea933124/watchos

Some cellular networks may not accept an emergency call from your Apple Watch Series 5, Apple Watch SE, or Apple Watch Series 6 if your Apple Watch isn’t activated, if it isn’t compatible with or configured to operate on a particular cellular network, or if isn’t set up for cellular service.

https://www.apple.com/watchos/feature-availability/

The availability lists countries and has a footnote explaining in footnote 2

Device must have been setup for cellular service with a carrier but does not require an active cellular plan. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207578

Footnote 1 says series 5 is needed:

The international emergency calling feature requires an Apple Watch Series 5 (GPS + Cellular) model.

*Apple Watch Technical Specifications


Terminal doesn't force quit When I click Terminal in Launchpad, it says "The application Terminal is not open anymore." But it shows up in the Force Quit window and it has the open-app indicator on the dock.

I can't quit the app, restart or shut the computer down.

I think this could be the root of the problem:

I was running a program in Terminal overnight and then it said something like, "Terminal is paused...run out of memory." I quit it and when I opened it again, this happened.

Using
MacBook Air
OS X El Capitan v. 10.11.2

Sounds as if you may have run your system out of RAM, which is quite possible with the anemic Air designs Apple is passing off as computers these days.

you may well need to do a hard shut-down and reboot.. hold down power button till it shuts off, then wait 5-10 seconds and reboot.

If terminal does the same thing after that, then you may have an actual issue..


Will generic lightning cables and the "authentication chip" present in the genuine cables work with iOS 8? I have an iPad Mini that doesn't charge anymore because the lightning cable stopped working. Since the warranty is over, I can't get a free replacement. I don't really feel like buying a new lightning cable because they're expensive AND STILL fragile. I thought about buying one of those cheaper, generic lightning cables, but some of them are not compatible with iOS 7, and the rest state that they work only with iOS 7. With iOS 8 coming out later this month, I don't think those would work after the update anyway.

Now, I know Apple makes Lightning-to-MicroUSB connectors. I like the idea of that, I have a few Micro-USB cables lying around that are sturdy and NOT fragile, so I could use one of those with the connector. I think this would last me way longer than another lightning cable. My questions are:

Why do the generic lightning cables specify iOS version compatibility and why aren't they readily compatible with all iOS versions? Is it because they lack the authentication chip inside?
If I buy this adapter - is it guaranteed to work with iOS 8? Is it universally compatible with ALL iOS versions and does it have an authentication chip inside?

For your first question, fake cable manufacturers are probably aiming for lots of sales, and explicitly stating that it only works up to a certain OS version would turn many people away. (the original cable doesn't have a version limit, so this one seems weird, I'm not buying that)

For your second question yes, this adapter has the useless authentication chip/whatever crap in it, and since the micro-USB standard (fortunately) doesn't have any of that nasty stuff you can plug in any cable from any charger and it'll work assuming the charger itself is good.


Apple Watch Remote Old iPhone My setup is as follows:

I have the Apple Watch on my wrist, and I have an old iPhone 4s with iOS 8.4 sitting on a docking station

Can I control the music playing through the iPhone through the Watch? - I can control the music playing on my mac & newer iPhone 6 but can't figure out, if possible, how to do it on the old one?

You can't control music on the iPhone 4s because Apple made it so the iPhone 4s doesn't support the Apple Watch.


How to delete system file in Mac OS Catalina 10.15.3? Can't use sudo command in Terminal for destroy some unused system files. How can I do this? Who have a working answer for this?

I would boot to Recovery HD and use terminal (it is in the Utility menu) to remove the files you want to delete. SIP doesn’t need to be disabled on your system, just use a different system to do the delete and then restart back in the now modified system.

Keep in mind, deleting the file is easy to understand and execute. Making persistent changes (across updates or if Apple recreated the file you chose to delete) or effecting
permission changes is significantly harder on Catalina due to the system / data split.

Catalina not allowing to change read/write permissions despite having SIP disabled


I switched to Catalina and enabled ZSH now my home/end key do not work in terminal I switched to ZSH from BASH as per the upgrade in Catalina and all is well except my home/end keys no longer work.  This can be really annoying trying to move my cursor over super far to the left instead of a single home  click.

Any idea if they just changed the key you use to "go to start of command" instead of home? Or is there a bug?

The other answers didn't work for me when connecting over SSH to the Mac. I had to add the following lines to my ~/.zshrc to get Home and End to work:
bindkey "^[[H" beginning-of-line
bindkey "^[[F" end-of-line


How to stop Finder window from disappearing during drag and drop from Chrome? While downloading files, I want to drag them from the bottom download bar in Chrome, the Finder disappears behind the Chrome window when I try to drag and drop the file. Is there a way to lock the Finder window so that it stays in front of the Chrome window when I drag and drop. I was able to do this before I updated Google Chrome to the latest version so it might be a software bug on their end.

Your Chrome Downloads history is here

chrome://downloads/

the actual download is already on your mac in the specified folder.

To specify where to download from Chrome, go to settings > Downloads.

The bar at the bottom of the Chrome window is FYI only, not the place where the downloads reside.

The downloads are already on you Mac and you do not have to drag them to the Finder.


Stop finder using cover flow in icon view I am using Mac OSX 10.8 Mountain Lion and one of the finder features that really annoys me is that when i try to sort files by 'Date Created' in icon view it separates them into sections such as 'Yesterday', 'Previous 7 Days' etc. and uses a cover flow like effect to browse through them. These sections mean that to browse i have to scroll along each section then  move down to the next and scroll along that one.

Is there any way to stop finder from using this feature?

Thanks in advance, Ben.

Right click in the folder you have the problem.
Select Arrange by > None.
Right click again and select Clean up by > Date Created.


What is the fastest device to use to restore a timemachine date based backup on a mid 2015 mbp? The fastest port on this machine seems to be the Thunderbolt 2 interface at 20Gbp/s.  Are there any drives that would get anywhere near that?

It seems like the SSD in a 2015 MBP would be limited to about 2.2Gbps write speed so does it make sense to try to get anything faster than that?

Is a 3.1 USB thumb drive good enough or would a standard SATA III SSD drive work faster?

I just did a 150 GB Time Machine restore which took 9 hours.  Is there a way to make it faster than that?

The fastest port on this machine seems to be the Thunderbolt 2 interface at 20Gbps. Are there any drives that would get anywhere near that?

Chances are very unlikely.  Why?  Several reasons:

Thunderbolt 2 has been deprecated in favor of Thunderbolt 3 since late 2015.  The market for these devices were small to begin with and is shrinking more quickly with each passing day.
You didn't say specifically what you're restoring from but suffice to say the commonly accepted media is an external hard drive. Assuming it is a SATA III drive, the throughput will be at most 6Gb/s
Even if you were to connect two Macs with a Thunderbolt 2/3 port and get a full 20Gb/s , you're still limited by the speed of the drive on which you did the backup
There are no USB 3.1 (or what is now known as 3.2 Gen 2) adapters or devices in the market; they were never manufactured.  Why?  USB 3.1 was introduced alongside Thunderbolt 3.  The most you'll get is USB 3.0 (or 3.2 Gen 1); 5Gb/s throughput.

The fastest devices in order would be the following:

Thunderbolt to SATA enclosure like the Lacie Thunderbolt Drive or G-Drive.  The Thunderbolt 1/2 versions of these drives are discontinued so you'll have to find them on eBay or similar sites.
USB 3.0 to SATA adapter or similar enclosure.  This will give you the 5Gb/s throughput; closest to the 6Gb/s SATA III throughput.

  Is a 3.1 USB thumb drive good enough or would a standard SATA3 SSD drive work faster?

Get it for the "future proofing" and get it for the fact it's solid state and less components to fail, but as for throughput, you'll never see it.


iPhone SE (iOS 10.3.3) - Music stuck on repeat The Music app in my iPhone is stuck on looping one song every time, bit like the old repeat setting that has disappeared.

If I play any song as part of shuffle from a Playlist, Artist, All Songs, then that song, when it ends, restarts from the beginning.

I can ask for the next song and that will work fine.  But this looping behavior essentially breaks the app for me as it requires me to fiddle with Music at the end of each song.

I've checked the Settings, but nothing really stands out. It's almost as if the repeat option which used to exist had been activated.

Restarted iPhone, but no luck.

I would much rather not update to iOS 11.x, since that also seems to have its share of problems.

It is likely that the repeat mode is set in the Music app. The repeat mode is still available in the Music app, albeit little hard to locate.

To check for repeat status, in the current playing view, scroll down (as depicted in the image) and check for repeat setting.

Image Source: How To Shuffle Songs in the Music App in iOS 10


iPad Air - deleted photo appears over and over again and copies itself The picture I've  received via Viber deleted already 40 times appears over and over again in camera roll and photo stream !

How do i delete?

i solve this problem :

1 open viber and find who send you this photo
2 delete the photo from the chat or the all conversation ( slide left + delete)
3 delete all copy of this photo in the gallery and from the deleted folder


How to change the default folder viewed when finder is opened i just downloaded OS 10.9.2 after having 10.6.8 for the last few years. In 10.6.8, whenever I clicked on finder in the dock, I would get a finder window with the "user" folder opened immediately. in 10.9, this opens the "all my files" folder. Is there a way to change it back so that whenever I click on finder it, by default, opens to the user folder?

Go to Finder → Preferences and change the default folder:


Bash script to run command with prompt for input How can I create a script using the following command?

mmap -sn -n x.x.x.x/8, /16, /24 and so on. I would like the script to run the command when I type in "sweep" and then prompt me for the subnet that I would like it to look on.

In your script you can put :

echo "Input subnet"
read subnet

to get user input and store it in a variable called subnet.

Obviously there is no check to see if you entered a valid subnet.


Caldigit TS3 Plus, Ethernet slot always showing cable unplugged, my OS Catalina I purchased Caldigit TS3 Plus today and try to use it's network function on my 2018 mbp. Ethernet slot always showing cable unplugged.

I confirm my network is normal (I connected this cable to other computer and it works).

Tried below procedures but not working.
A. Restart
B. Download official drive from Caldigit (though not necessary),installed and restarted
C. In network setting, hardware, set it to be manually according to some googled articles

I am supposing is it possible that not compatible with new OS Catalina?
What can I do now?

I had a similar problem. I'm not sure the cause for the issue, but I agree that it seems to be related to the Catalina update. I can provide what worked for me, but I can't really explain why it worked -- I honestly can't even be sure that this was the cause for things to start working again. Given this, if I should move what I wrote to be a comment under the OP's question, then please let me know, or feel free to go ahead and do so.
I managed to get things working again by removing the Thunderbolt bridge and Thunderbolt ethernet slot(s) from the Network settings. I then installed the support driver (found here: https://archive.caldigit.com/KB/index.asp?KBID=179&viewlocale=1 ) It says that it's the Ethernet driver, but the part that I needed was the Support driver; in fact, the Ethernet driver install failed several times for reasons that are unclear to me. Once I got the USB Hub Support file installed, and I rebooted, the network preferences gave the option of a Thunderbolt Ethernet Slot, which I installed and it seems to work.
I recall that there was a Thunderbolt bridge before, but it doesn't seem to be needed now, so I wonder if something that was added/changed with the last OS update is the culprit. I will have to leave this those with more expertise than I have.
Good luck


How to check Guest user's log on os x? I leave my Mac at my job and when I come back, someone used it using Guest user.

Is there a way for me to check what this person did when he logged in my mac using Guest user?

All data such as logs that would be stored within the user account's logs directory (~/Library/Logs) is deleted when the user logs out. Other than standard file recovery tools to recover the deleted logs, it's not possible to find out what the Guest user did—this is by design as the Guest user should leave no impact on the machine, and also attempts to stay disassociated from interaction from others.


System Keychain Certs Import fail with UNIX[Operation not permitted] I'm trying to add certs to my System keychain, which failed in the Keychain Access utility with a ERROR 10001 -- an unhelpful error message -- so I tried to run it in the terminal:

$sudo security import RootCert.cer  -k /Library/Keychains/System.keychain

security: SecKeychainItemImport: UNIX[Operation not permitted]

Does anyone know what is going on here?

I don't believe that this keychain is subject to  System Integrity Protection (SIP) as indicated in this answer since I'm not modifying /System. I can definitely add the certs to my Login keychain, but I need it to be in the System keychain for my application to function.

EDIT: I'm running High Sierra (10.13.5)

The issue is that, somehow (not sure how), the extra restricted flag was add to System.keychain which meant it could not be modified while the system is running. Thus, it was SIP protected. I followed this guide to correct the issue.

(From the guide) You can check if your keychain is restricted using the following ls flags in the Terminal

cd /Library/Keychain
ls -@Oaen

My original output had the following info --- note the restricted flag on System.keychain.

total 536
drwxr-xr-x  11 0  0  -             352 Jun 21 08:54 .
drwxr-xr-x+ 66 0  0  sunlnk       2112 Jun  4 17:28 ..
 0: ABCDEFAB-CDEF-ABCD-EFAB-CDEF0000000C deny delete
-r--r--r--@  1 0  0  -               0 Jun 15  2016 .fl043D1EDD
    com.apple.quarantine        29
-r--r--r--   1 0  0  -               0 Jun 15  2016 .fl947E1BDB
-r--r--r--   1 0  0  -               0 Jun 21 07:59 .flD2C1AB74
drwxr-xr-x   2 0  0  -              64 Jun  4 17:32 SupplementalsAssets
-rw-r--r--@  1 0  0  restricted 124792 Jun 19  2016 System.keychain
    com.apple.metadata:_kTimeMachineNewestSnapshot      50
    com.apple.metadata:_kTimeMachineOldestSnapshot      50
-rw-r--r--   1 0  0  -           33208 Jul  1  2016 System.keychain-orig
-rw-r--r--@  1 0  0  -           53488 Jul  1  2016 apsd.keychain
    com.apple.quarantine        29
drwxr-xr-x   3 0  0  -              96 Jun 21 07:50 crls
-rw-r--r--   1 0  0  -           53248 Jun  4 17:32 pinningrules.sqlite3

To correct this, you have to boot into recovery mode. Hold down CMD-R during reboot when hear the chime. When there:

Open DiskUtility and check to make sure your main disk is mounted. It will not be if use FileVault to encrypt it. If not, mount it by entering your password. Quit DiskUtility.
Under Utilities menu, you can open a Terminal, change directory to keychain folder and edit the restrictions. (Note your volume name may be different if you have a non-standard installation.)

cd "/Volumes/Macintosh HD/Library/Keychains/"
chflags norestricted *

Check the ls -@Oaen and you should not see the restricted tag.
Exit Terminal and reboot.


Does the 2020 Apple M1 MacBook Pro support 2x daisy chained Thunderbolt Displays? The Apple Silicon based 2020 Apple M1 MacBook Pro supports Thunderbolt version 3 and I'm wondering if anyone has tried connection one to an Apple Thunderbolt Display?
Of course you'd need to use one of Apple's Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 converters.
I also understand that this version is limited to supporting only a single 4K or 6K display, but since the original Apple Thunderbolt Display is only 2K I’d want to try and daisy chain these.
Can I run more than one external display from the Apple Silicon M1 CPU/GPU based MacBook Pro (or Air)?

No, you get only one external display - for two supported displays total and they do not chain (in the case of the mini and two external displays).
One is the MacBook Pro / Air screen and the second can be as large as the 6K Pro Display XDR. The Mac mini has the same limitation - two displays only, no chaining of displays. Initial reports from the Thunderbolt 2 to 3 adapter are very encouraging that those displays work well. As do the latest displays with newer connections.

https://www.apple.com/pro-display-xdr/specs/

Now, just because Apple doesn’t support it, you can add all sort of Thunderbolt docks and USB to HDMI adapters.
Five displays works with third party software + hardware.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kq_FyjcAULA

This team has tested 5 displays from an Air and 6 from the Mini. It looks like you can push things far more using DisplayLink software instead of the supported direct connection with reasonably priced adapters if you really need more pixels.


MacBook Air doesn't start - no power on MacBook Air not starting after SMC reset.

Earlier, my Mac was not starting after SMC reset or NVRAM reset. The charger light was green. Nothing was happening on SMC reset. Battery Status was Service Required. But due to covid-19 lock down in India, I can't take it to an Apple Store for another 10 days.

I left the Mac as it is. Today, after 6 days, randomly, I plugged it in and the charger light was Amber. So I tried SMC reset again and the light color changed to green for a moment and again changed to amber. But it still didn't turn on.

My query is:

Does it mean SMC reset is working?
Are there any troubleshooting steps I can do?
What do you think the problem could be?

So I tried SMC reset again and the light color changed to green for a moment and again changed to amber. But it still didn't turn on.

The amber light simply means it's charging.  Green means that it has detected the "one wire circuit" and is passing current to the MacBook.  It doesn't necessarily mean the battery is charged (I have a white 2007 MacBook on my desk with no battery and a green light on the charger)

  MacBook Air not starting after SMC reset. Earlier, my Mac was not starting after SMC reset or NVRAM reset.

You're doing a lot of resets.  Resetting the SMC and NVRAM should be rare:

SMC - power, battery and fan issues.  For example, you're having issues charging your Mac or the fans are running at full speed or it doesn't wake from sleep when opening the lid.
NVRAM - preboot environment variables.  You reset this when you're having trouble booting, or the initial resolution is incorrect, or you're having issues with the startup volume (boot).

  Nothing was happening on SMC reset. Battery Status was Service Required.

So, there was an icon that said "Service Battery."  An SMC reset isn't going to fix a bad battery, but it won't hurt.

From Apple; Check the condition of your Mac computer’s battery

  Service Battery: The battery isn’t functioning normally, and you may or may not notice a change in its behavior or the amount of charge it holds. Take your computer in for service. You can continue to use your battery before it’s checked without harming your computer.

There are any number of things that can cause a Mac to not turn on from the power button being faulty to an issue with the logic board.  Unfortunately, you'll have to take it in for service when you can.


Is it possible to take a video screenshot (screenshow?) of what's occurring on a Macbook Pro's screen? I've got an unusual situation which I cannot explain. I thought to take a video of what I'm seeing on the screen, but realized I didn't know how to do that.

Is there a way to take a video of the screen's activities? From terminal, shortcut keys, or another method?

You can use QuickTime Player.app for this. Open it and in File menu there's New Screen Recording or press ⌃+⌘+N.


Using recovery key on erased FileVault encrypted SSD My understanding is that with FileVault enabled one can restart a Mac into its Recovery System and erase the hard drive/SSD using Disk Utility.
This procedure supposedly deletes the FileVault key, which means any data on the drive is useless as it can no longer be decrypted.

If a system is in the state described above but previously had a institutional (or personal) recovery key enabled does it mean that key could still be used to recover the data?

My intention is to be able to securely dispose of the FileVault key as well as other recovery keys that might have been set but I was not able to find official documentation from Apple confirming a secure procedure.

Your data is unrecoverable in the hands of an average data recovery attempt. First step Data Recovery. Low class data recovery doesn’t recovery everything and can scramble some files making decrypting the files very difficult. Nearly impossible without the recovery key. If the recovery key is known it’s, possible. This is very time and resource consuming and very difficult to target specific data. However If an organization wants to spend an astronomical amount of money to extract and decrypt data they pretty much can unless you destroy the disk. Zeroing out a drive makes it harder for the data to be recovered but takes a very long time and puts a lot of ware and tear on the disk.