Restore Time Machine Backup on an older OS I have currently made a backup of my MacBook running with Catalina. I then reinstalled Mojave and am now trying to find out if there is a way to restore the data, which I have backed up without automatically updating back to Catalina.

Does anyone know a way to "exclude" the restoring of the OS or alternatively  pre-select which parts of the Time Machine backup should be included?

Sidenote: Unfortunatelly, I lost my old backup, so I do not have a backup made shortly before I upgraded, which I could otherwise easily use.

I did the same thing by using a USB installer and migrated data from the Time Machine backup during the install (it's one of the choices during the install). In my experience the data (minus the OS) should come back to Mojave but it may not be visible in the list of backups to choose from when choosing a backup source during the install. To explain further:

When I installed Catalina I chose to migrate data from the Time Machine backup of Mojave which was successful. In the brief period of time I had Catalina it made maybe 1 or 2 Time Machine backups. When I chose to erase the SSD, and install Mojave again, Catalina appeared to have changed the file extension of the backup from .sparsebundle to .backupbundle . This stopped Time Machine on Mojave from being able to show me the backup to select (imagine my heart rate). So, erased again, installed Catalina, and after browsing the Time Machine backup in Finder, I could see the old backup there, changed the file extension from .backupbundle to .sparsebundle , erased the SSD again, installed Mojave and presto, the previous Mojave backup was visble again. The data migrated successfully for the most part (except my Contacts which is a whole other story).


How to change thumbnail size without Command + J On my mac (macOS 10.12.6) I can't find a quick way to resize image thumbnails in icon view mode.

I remember many years ago, with Leopard, by using Ctrl + Scroll Up/Down it was possible to resize thumbnails.

Is there any way to use that functionality or third-party software that enables this functionality in Sierra?

I am using a normal keyboard and a normal optical mouse. Not a Magic Keyboard or a Magic Mouse.

I’m assuming you also don’t have a trackpad,  so the easiest option would probably be to make sure you enable the Status Bar in Finder and then you can just use the slider at the bottom right of any Finder window.

To enable the Status Bar, go to View > Show Status Bar.


USB ethernet adapter not working with 2012 Retina MBP I've got a 2012 Retina MBP running 10.11.3. In the past I've used a Linksys USB3GIGv1 ethernet adapter to connect to a wired network, however for the past week or so it hasn't worked.

When I plug the adapter into the USB port with System Preferences > Network open, nothing gets updated; the interface doesn't show up in the list on the left side of the window, and if I turn Wi-Fi off, I lose my connection to the internet. The light on the adapter does flash at random, though, as it used to.

I tried disabling and re-enabling all the interfaces through ifconfig <iface name> off/on, but no luck there. I've also tried using an unbranded ethernet adapter which had previously worked, as well as switching out the cables for one with a known working connection, and even hooking the dongle up to a Thunderbolt display, but all to no avail.

The dongle does show up in System Information > USB and the brand and model are correctly identified on the USB 3.0 bus.

Finally, I've tried manually installing the drivers from Linksys's website, but they only support OS X up to 10.9 (I had used this dongle post-10.11, and it stopped working almost randomly).

How can I get my MacBook to connect to the internet using an ethernet adapter considering all of that?

The old driver probably doesn't work with El Capitan. As indicated on the Linksys website Belkin is working on creating a Linksys driver package for the OS X 10.11.

Meanwhile you may try the RealTek beta driver here.


Mac Pro 2008 Refuses to Boot My Mac Pro 3, 1 began rebooting randomly one day and the next it wouldn't come back on. Pushing the power button results in a fan clicking in to life for half a second and then all power is lost. The RAM board LEDs and Diagnostic LEDs OT A and OT B both flash momentarily. When the diagnostic button is pressed on the logic board the Trickle Power LED lights orange.

All my troubleshooting led me to believe the PSU was borked. But when on the phone to Apple support, around a week later, I tried one last time to turn it on and it roared in to life. It stayed on for a few days and I backed everything up. It hadn't been off at all, I updated from 10.10.1 to 10.10.2 and rebooted. No issue. I shut it down.

At 8am the next day I woke up to the computer trying to start, and I remembered that before the initial problems I had set it to wake at that time. But then it clicked off and it's been refusing to start ever since.

Apple support (over the phone) say they don't think it's the PSU as it wouldn't have started working again. What could it be? Could it be the automatic wake?

I have tried removing the memory boards and every other component one by one without any luck.

Notes:

I'm not getting to any screen, grey screen, unhappy mac face etc.

Also, this, from the service manual was why I decided it was a PSU issue in the first place...

"If both overtemp (OT) LEDs come on immediately when the computer is turned on, a faulty
power supply could be one cause of this behavior. Replace power supply."

I ended up solving this. I had installed a SSD, and connected it to the hidden sata port. It worked for a couple of months. Then one day I had this issue. I took the ssd out and installed OSX on the first drive bay and it booted! I'm guessing the fan chassis must have been snug against the connector or otherwise some dust was causing grief. In any case. I'm glad I didn't pay an exorbitant fee for the rare aftermarket PSUs.


iPhone Camera app doesn't work but some other apps can still use it I have the iPhone X with latest iOS installed.
Original Camera App: Front Camera and Back Camera: Non of them work. Black screen.
Third Party Camera Apps: Same issue.
SnapChat and Instagram: Front Facing camera works!! but not back camera.
I check the "Voice Over" feature some websites were suggesting but I don't have it enabled anyways.
I have also done a “full restore factory settings” and backup/restore too.
So is it still a software issue or is it time to give up on this iPhone's camera?

I’ve seen this be a temporary situation.

Power off your phone - normal controlled shut down
Power it on - test camera app before you run any other app

If that fails, back up and restore the phone. I’ve not seen erase all content and settings fix this, but I always try that before I restore since it’s a lot faster and I’m about to reload a backup either way at that point.
Once you’re sure it’s not a software issue, then it’s time for a hardware repair or swap. Apple has replaced my camera module on that model phone and I was extremely satisfied with the results. Much cheaper than a new phone as well even if you pay for the repair instead of AppleCare or warranty.


How do I check whether a file is available to download? The following code generates a link to download the HD file from a site every day, but it doesn't know how to determine whether the link is valid or not. How do I check the validity of the link?

set z to ""
set d to tid(tid(short date string of (current date), "/"), "")
set w to weekday of (current date)
set r to 10

if d > 20000000 then
    set Prefix to d as text
else
    set Prefix to (d + 20000000) as text
end if

on tid(input, delim)
    set {oldTID, my text item delimiters} to {my text item delimiters, delim}
    if class of input is list then
        set output to input as text
    else
        set output to text items of input
    end if
    set my text item delimiters to oldTID
    return output
end tid

set x to 1
set y to ((characters 1 thru 4 of Prefix) as string)

repeat with i from 1 to r

    if i < 10 then
        set x to "0" & i
    else
        set x to i
    end if

    set c to "http://streaming.hkjc.edgesuite.net/hdflash/racingfocus/" & y & "/" & Prefix & "/" & x & "/" & "chi/racingfocus_" & Prefix & "_" & x & "" & "_chi_2500kbps.mp4"

    set z to z & c & "" & return & return
    set i to i + 1

end repeat

display dialog z

I usually check the HTTP Code and then run from there. Since this is tagged AppleScript here is an example handler I wrote:

use AppleScript version "2.4" -- Yosemite (10.10) or later
use scripting additions

set foundMP4 to my checkStream(c)

on checkStream(passedStream)
    try
        set serverCommand to "curl -o /dev/null -Iw '%{http_code}' " & passedStream
        set serverResult to do shell script serverCommand
        if serverResult does not start with "2" then
            return false
        else
            return true
        end if
    on error serverResult
        display dialog "Ran into issue checking server status, with error: " & serverResult with title "Server Check"
    end try
end checkStream

After you check the HTTP code you could write for the script to download the file.


Fixing "a sealed resource is missing or invalid" warning I've changed the application icon of my Eclipse editor, and this causes a confirm dialog to pop up asking me if I allow the program to accept incoming network connections. I faced this before, but then, I somehow got rid of it. Now I can't anymore.

Here's the output of the codesign utility:

$ codesign -vv /Applications/Indigo/Eclipse.app/
/Applications/Indigo/Eclipse.app/: a sealed resource is missing or invalid
/Applications/Indigo/Eclipse.app/Contents/Resources/Eclipse.icns.bak: resource missing

Does anyone know how can I totally uninstall Eclipse so that the OS forgets about that "Eclipse.icns.bak" file?

Thanks!

Ok, I managed to do this. It's dirty but pretty safe so far.

The database holding that info is located under /var/db/DetachedSignatures. This is an SQLite database, so it can be easily modified using the built-in sqlite3 tool. Here's an example session that deletes entries matching the "eclipse" keyword:

# we're using sudo, so be careful
$ sudo sqlite /var/db/DetachedSignatures

# what tables does it contain?
sqlite> .tables
code global

# what are the column definitions in code?
sqlite> .schema code
CREATE TABLE code (
        id integer primary key on conflict replace autoincrement not null,
        global integer null references global (id),
        identifier text not null,
        architecture integer,
        identification blob not null unique on conflict replace,
        signature blob not null,
        created text default current_timestamp
    );
CREATE INDEX architecture_index on code (architecture);
CREATE INDEX id_index on code (identification);
CREATE INDEX identifier_index on code (identifier);

# what are the column definitions in global?
sqlite> .schema global
CREATE TABLE global (
        id integer primary key on conflict replace autoincrement not null,
        sign_location text not null,
        signature blob null
    );
CREATE INDEX location_index on global (sign_location);

What we're interested in are code.identifier and global.sign_location.

sqlite> SELECT * FROM code WHERE identifier LIKE "%eclipse%";
sqlite> SELECT * FROM global WHERE sign_location LIKE "%eclipse%";

Take a look and make a backup before deleting all matching entries from both queries.

sqlite> DELETE FROM code WHERE identifier LIKE "%eclipse%";
sqlite> DELETE FROM global WHERE sign_location LIKE "%eclipse%";

I've also restarted my laptop, although I don't know if it's really necessary.

That's all!


How to run a shell script upon user authentication (e.g. screen unlock)? I would like to specify a shell script (say one to send me an email) whenever a given user is authenticated, for example if prompted after sleep, fresh login or fast user switching.

PS: I found answers for running a script when the computer wakes from sleep and another for when a user logs into a fresh session, but that is not exactly what I'm looking for.

From https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/159510/76470 :

I found SleepWatcher, a free tool that allows to run a script when the screen goes to sleep or wakes up.

After installing it, you can link a shell script that is run on one of the available events (which include dim screen, wake up screen, computer sleep, wake up computer and some more). From the shell script, I can run a command, or call an AppleScript that I want to run on these events.

Since my screen goes to sleep when I lock my computer, this is exactly what I was looking for.


What screwdriver size is needed for MacBook Pro mid 2012 back cover? What screwdriver size is needed for MacBook Pro mid 2012 back cover?

According to iFixit's teardown the Philips #00 should be used for the "lower case". Is the lower case a synonym for the "back cover"?

Yes.
The back cover is secured with Philips #00 screws.
Note that is says:

The lower case is secured by ten Phillips #00 screws.

You can see the ten screws on the back cover:

four each at the top/bottom
one each on the left/right


iPhone 4 GSM 3,1 upgrade I'm using iOS 5.1.1 (9B206). I want to upgrade my iPhone to iOS 6.1.3, but I don't know how to do this. I have tried downloading the IPSW of iOS 6.1.3 to upgrade, but it doesn't make any changes. The second time, I try building file SHSH with IPSW, but that didn't work either. Any ideas for this problem to upgrade from 5.1.1 (9B206) to ios 6.1.3 ?

Unfortunately you can't upgrade to another version other than the latest iOS version, as your iPhone requires to have the software verified with the apple servers to sign it.

There use to be a fix to this by blocking the connection of iTunes with Apple server or diverting it to a custom server but this can't be done anymore.

So your best bet is to continue using iOS 5.1.1 or upgrade to 7.1.1


How do you get Function keys to work on Mac Book Pro running Windows 7 under bootcamp? The Fn keys don't seem to work on my Macbook Pro when it's runnign windows 7 Under bootcamp. I can't turn the volume up or down or mute the sound etc.

I've found articles leading to me to believe that I can do this using the bootcamp entry in control panels but I've had no luck doing this. all it seems to change is whether I have to press the Fn button to get the normal behaviour of the F keys. E.G. whether I have to press Fn and F5 to refresh the page of just F5.

I think there is a driver issue with Windows 7 as people seem to have gotten them to work under XP.

bootcamp.exe should launch upon Login. Sometimes it doesn't or at least it doesn't stay running. You can log out and log back in or try the following, it worked for me:

Open Task Manager and see if bootcamp.exe is running. If not, open C:\Program Files\Boot Camp with Windows Explorer and launch bootcamp.exe.

Function keys will work again.


Can i use the cd/dvd from an older mac mini as a cd/dvd for a newer one via a thunderbolt cable? I am not a power user of macs but i have an early mac mini with a dvd drive and a 2011 mini without a dvd drive, and wondered if i can connect the 2 to use the older mini as an external dvd drive and possibly storage for time machine?
Also i have put in an ssd into my 2011 mini and want to put on a fresh copy of the snowleopard o/s [which i have] onto the ssd using - if i can - the older mini's dvd to do so.
Any help would be appricated

The 2011 Mac mini can run OS X 10.7 through OS X 10.13.6, therefore you should not be able to install Snow Leopard. You should want to install 10.13.6 in a APFS container since APFS was designed for SSDs.


iPad 2 after iOS 8.1 I just updated my iPad 2 to iOS 8.1 and some bugs were fixed by this upgrade, but a new one has started.  I have Xfinity Home as an App which allows me to monitor my home security cameras through my WiFi.  It worked fine until I put in iOS 8.1.  Now it tries to boot but just briefly flashes the home page and the goes black.  I've tried deleting and reloading the App several times with same results.  Any ideas out there?

It is probably a bug that needs to be fixed by the developer of the app.

Try using the knowledge base:
http://customer.comcast.com/help-and-support/?CMP=ILCFooter_HelpFAQ

OR

Try contacting Comcast about the issue:

1-800-XFINITY


Why do I have to keep inputting my email password on my macbook air? A few times each day, the email logo bounces up and down and asks me to (again) input my aol password. Why is this? And what can I do to stop this happening?

I'm not understanding why this is happening with you. Well basically, you can say your mac is "forgetting" your Apple ID / email or whatever. If this situation is related to an Apple ID, using The Mac App Store, logout and login and tick the "Don't Forget"

You can use Keychain Access! You can modify which applications will automatically log you into your email while starting the application.


Numbers: How to make a sum product of 2 columns numbers of which only those with checkboxes checked in a 3rd column respectively? Say, sumproduct(A, B)=a1*b1 + a2*b2 + a3*b3, now I have many columns C, D,..., e.g. c1 checked, c2 unchecked, c3 checked; d1 unchecked, d2 checked, d3 checked;

Now I need a formulae which I want to put in a cell of each of column C, D... to compute a conditional sum product to get a1*b1 + a3*b3 and a2*b2 + a3*b3 respectively.

This can be used in my nutrition calculation table of daily intake.

Thanks a lot.

You can add an additional column D, where D1 to D3 would contain:

IF(C1,1,0)
IF(C2,1,0)
IF(C3,1,0)

This would print a 1 if checked or a 0 if not checked, and you simply would need to add column D into your sumproduct:

a1*b1*c1 + a2*b2*c2 + a3*b3*c3


iPad battery drain after update to iOS 7 After update to iOS 7.0.4 from version 5.x, my iPad's battery has only fraction of full charge as fast as in 24 hours. I also noticed that iPad is staying warm even after several hours of idle time with a closed Smart Cover. I still failed to accept iCloud Terms&Conditions, as it always reports 'Unable to connect to server'.

What I already tried with no result:

disable bluetooth
turn Off Location Services
under Location Services, made sure no apps used GPS within last 24 hours
turn off Automatic Updates
enabled Accessibility>Reduce Motion
disable Background App Refresh
in Spotlight Search, keep only Applications; disable everything else
clear any launched earlier, to make sure there's no apps remaining idle in the background

yurkennis! I haven't seen that problem with iOS 7.

Have you tried restarting or resetting your iPad?

Restart: Press On/Off button until the Slide to Power Off slider appears, select Slide to Power Off and, after the iPad shuts down, then press the On/Off button until the Apple logo appears.

Reset: Press the Home and On/Off buttons at the same time and hold them until the Apple logo appears (about 10 seconds).

If these don't correct the problem connect to iTunes and do a restore.

If all else fails to do so:

In Settings, turn on Airplane mode, then reset your device by holding Power + Home button 15 seconds until you see the Apple logo. Power back on, then turn off Airplane mode.


iPhone won't let me pick up calls I have an iPhone 5S which I recently upgraded to iOS 10.0.2.

Since 10.x, when I receive a call I cannot always answer it. The calls appears on the display with the swipe-to-answer widget, but the widget is non-responsive. Swipe all you want, nothing happens, and the caller eventually gives up.

The same is now occurring on my wife's iPhone 6. It is very frustrating! Anyone else seeing this and/or have any suggestions?

Apparently the problem is not the phone call per-se, but the new notifications screen. It seems there is a notification on top of the slide-to-answer, even though you can't see it. Yesterday's iOS upgrade fixed it, everything is working now.


How do I turn off driving warnings? Since I updated to iOS 11 it's been warning me about using the phone while driving. I'm not driving. I'm on public transportation. How do I turn off the warning?

This is how it's designed - you need to override it each time the device detects a potential driving situation.

You need to turn the feature off manually one by one or once systematically to disable the checks and warnings.

How to disable automatic Do Not Disturb While Driving

By default in iOS 11, the feature is set to switch on automatically in the background. If you're almost always the driver, and rarely a passenger, you can leave it like this.

When it activates you get a permanent notification show up on your lock screen indicating that it is doing its thing. If you're driving, leave it alone. If you're a passenger, you can long-press on the lock screen notification and choose to deactivate it.

If you're almost always the passenger and rarely the driver, you can stop it coming on automatically by heading to Settings > Do Not Disturb then scroll to the bottom of the screen and tap on the "Activate" option. Here you can choose the "Manually" option so that it never comes on by itself.

Once you have chosen the manual activation, you can add a control to Control Centre by going to Settings > Control Centre > Customise Control Centre and adding the Do Not Disturb While Driving control. Now you just need to swipe up to reveal Control Centre and tap the little car icon to activate it.

From: http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/142217-how-to-disable-or-customise-do-not-disturb-while-driving-in-ios-11


Applications (Google Drive, Dropbox, Eclipse, etc) only start when I launch them from within their package I am running Mountain Lion and I have an issue when trying to start certain applications: Dropbox, Google Drive and Eclipse.

If I click their icon inside the Applications Folder or I try to launch them from Spotlight, they will not start.  As simple as that, they just will not start, no sign of anything, nothing.

However, I found out that I can still launch them if I do the following:

Suppose I would like to launch Google Drive, then I will go to the Applications folder in Finder.
Right click the icon of Google Drive and select the option 'Show Package Contents'
Go inside the Contents folder (only folder that appears when I perform step 2).
Go inside the MacOS folder.
Double - click the unix executable file that has the name of the application I want to run, i.e. Google Drive

After this, a Terminal window is launch and the application starts and keeps running as long as this windows is open.

My questions are: how could I start my application in the easy usual way (click on its icon)? Has anybody experience the same issue? Did you find a solution?

Thank you very much!

It is possible that this could be a hardware problem? Specifically the logic board.  I discovered mine needs replacing. I am having the same errors. I also discovered that launching the Unix Executable works for many of the apps that otherwise won't load.  This makes no sense to me, but after hearing two Apple Support Technicians confirm, who am I to question.


Can I store my RGE file (Entourage 2008) to an network drive? Can I store my RGE file (Entourage 2008) to an network drive instead of a local folder ?

A .rge file is an Entourage archive file, and is used to store old emails.  This file can be stored anywhere: your hard drive, a network drive, a thumb drive, burnt to CD, whatever.  If you need to access that archive again, you can import it into Entourage from wherever you've stored it by using the Import command.


Can I view Shared Albums in the iCloud Photos web interface? I just switched to using the iCloud Photo Library and I enjoy the possibility to view my photos on any computer via the icloud.com web interface.

However, my Shared Albums do not appear in the iCloud Photos web interface.

Is that a limitation of icloud.com, or are there any steps to enable shared albums on icloud.com?


iPhone seems to be caching passwords or credentials, how to remove them? My IT department is suspecting that my iPhone is caching some passwords or some other credentials to our work network that causes account lock downs for my work PC (the IT system receives invalid passwords and locks down).

I have deleted all work related apps.
I have deleted my work related email account from the phone.
I have deleted the Wi-Fi profiles (for login into our work Wi-Fi).
I have deleted the work PC reference under my Apple ID section (next to the Apple Watch).
I have deleted all stored passwords.

Are there other places where a password or credential can be stored?

Would a full reset of my iPhone be the only solution to fix that kind of problem ? and "rebuild" everything from scratch (everything is and will be backed up before I do this)

Your IT department is right. Your iPhone applications are caching account and password informations, even when the last typed value is plain wrong.

Your IT department wasn't helpful enough.
They should have also told you that your company PC, and most notably applications on it could also be caching account and password information.

All applications requiring an authentication are caching accounts and passwords.

In both cases (iPhone applications, and PC applications) your IT department should know which one is causing your account locking (they have the originating IP address and the server rejecting your account).
They should provide you this key information to avoid you to destroy your own configuration work.

I am sorry, all the attempts you described in your question look like the use of a baseball bat to hunt a mosquito in a porcelain store.

1st thing to do:
ask your IT department where are coming your account connection attempts with an incorrect password.
If they are able to provide you a clear answer to this easy question,
then ask them the 2nd one:
ask them with which protocol was this account connection attempted.

This information will enable you to focus on the equipment (either iPhone or PC) and application to fix (either E-mail client of web browser or Wi-Fi access).

Then what you will have to do is:

Erase just the registered password within the culprit application. On the iPhone you might have to erase the account in the case of Mail or Thunderbird application.
Connect with this culprit equipment and make an explicit connection with the culprit application, and make sure you enter your correct password. This will store this one in the application cache,
and will stop the use of the wrong one which was previously stored.

If anything in this draft answer is unclear or isn't directly adressing the original problem,
please feel free to improve the question or my answer.


Possible to do iTunes Home Sharing over ad-hoc network? I plan on purchasing 3 iPod Touches and I have an iPhone 4s and an iPad 1.  Can these devices all participate in Home Sharing from iTunes (on Windows) in an ad-hoc wifi network?

I have a test here with my iPhone 4s connected to an ad-hoc wifi network from my Windows machine (only several feet away from computer, certainly within the ad-hoc 30 ft. radius recommendation).  iTunes appears to recognize the iPhone on the network as it does sync the phone, but sharing is enables on the very same itunes account.  Problems:

The "Shared" option appears at most 25% of any given time,
When it does work, I am only able to see playlists (is this expected?),
In any given playlist for music (all songs purchased via itunes) only about 10% of them play, the remainder are skipped by iphone.
Those items that will list to be played (e.g. some video podcasts) will return with a dialog box of "Cannot Open".

Shall I assume these sporadic (though apparently consistent) problems are the result of an ad-hoc wifi network vs. a "real" wifi router network?

Yes - you need to be connected to the internet when you first enable Home Sharing, but once each device has a SSL cert or whatever is stored internally, the devices will find each other and share as long as the local network is allowing the mDNS / Bonjour traffic so the devices can discover each other and match keys stored internally to identify which account is enabled for sharing.


How to resolve freezes when pressing caps lock on external keyboard I've been trying to diagnose a problem with my Logitech K120 keyboard paired with a Macbook Pro 15" (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013) where occasionally, pressing the caps lock would cause that keyboard to completely stop responding for a few seconds. I'd previously used this keyboard with a Windows PC, and found no issues.

I've tried the following:

Setting the modifier key to do nothing and then setting it back (per this Superuser answer)
Installing Karabiner Elements (from the same Superuser thread. This actually makes it worse, in that when the keyboard freezes the computer, it never unfreezes until I kill Karabiner

Has anyone encountered this before? I might just try replacing the keyboard soon, but I was hoping there'd be a software or configuration fix that would work.

This has happened to me on two different Macs with 3 different bluetooth keyboards. Two Apple keyboards and one Logitech. The symptom is always the same, intermittently the keyboard will freeze for about 5 seconds after hitting the caps lock key.
Restarting the computer will often resolve the issue for a short time but an SMC reset normally resolves the issue more long term.
I have had this experience over the last 5 years and have found documentation of others having the exact same issue for over a decade. It's obviously a larger underlying issue and I'm not sure why it persists.


.profile is not loaded on non-login /bin/sh The problem is in the title, but let me add few details here.

I am running on OS X 10.10.5 (14F27). Using default Terminal.app.

Content of config files

Content of /etc/profile

echo " # reading /etc/profile"
# System-wide .profile for sh(1)

if [ -x /usr/libexec/path_helper ]; then
    eval `/usr/libexec/path_helper -s`
fi

if [ "${BASH-no}" != "no" ]; then
    [ -r /etc/bashrc ] && . /etc/bashrc
fi

Content of /etc/bashrc

echo " # reading /etc/bashrc"
# System-wide .bashrc file for interactive bash(1) shells.
if [ -z "$PS1" ]; then
   return
fi

PS1='\h:\W \u\$ '
# Make bash check its window size after a process completes
shopt -s checkwinsize
# Tell the terminal about the working directory at each prompt.
if [ "$TERM_PROGRAM" == "Apple_Terminal" ] && [ -z "$INSIDE_EMACS" ]; then
    update_terminal_cwd() {
        # Identify the directory using a "file:" scheme URL,
        # including the host name to disambiguate local vs.
        # remote connections. Percent-escape spaces.
    local SEARCH=' '
    local REPLACE='%20'
    local PWD_URL="file://$HOSTNAME${PWD//$SEARCH/$REPLACE}"
    printf '\e]7;%s\a' "$PWD_URL"
    }
    PROMPT_COMMAND="update_terminal_cwd; $PROMPT_COMMAND"
fi

Content of ~/.profile

echo " # reading ~/.profile"
...

Content of ~/.bashrc

echo " # reading ~/.bashr"
...
source /etc/profile
...

Content of ~/.bash_profile

echo " # reading ~/.bash_profile"
source ~/.profile
source ~/.bashrc

Output of calling sh and bash

So here is output of invoking sh.

$ sh
sh-3.2$

sh --login
 # reading /etc/profile
 # reading /etc/bashrc
 # reading ~/.profile
d12frosted:~ d12frosted$

$ bash
 # reading ~/.bashr
 # reading /etc/profile
 # reading /etc/bashrc
d12frosted:~ d12frosted$

$ bash --login
 # reading /etc/profile
 # reading /etc/bashrc
 # reading ~/.bash_profile
 # reading ~/.profile
 # reading ~/.bashr
 # reading /etc/profile
 # reading /etc/bashrc
d12frosted:~ d12frosted$

As you can see, when calling sh - it doesn't load any configurations. Is something broken in my environment or it's expected?

This is expected sh only loads ~/.profile when it is a login shell.

From Bash reference manual

  If Bash is invoked with the name sh, it tries to mimic the startup behavior of historical versions of sh as closely as possible, while conforming to the POSIX standard as well.

  When invoked as an interactive login shell, or as a non-interactive shell with the --login option, it first attempts to read and execute commands from /etc/profile and ~/.profile, in that order. The --noprofile option may be used to inhibit this behavior. When invoked as an interactive shell with the name sh, Bash looks for the variable ENV, expands its value if it is defined, and uses the expanded value as the name of a file to read and execute. Since a shell invoked as sh does not attempt to read and execute commands from any other startup files, the --rcfile option has no effect. A non-interactive shell invoked with the name sh does not attempt to read any other startup files.

Of you want bash running as sh to use ~/.profile when not a login shell (e.g. keep current environment) use

env ENV=$HOME/.profile /bin/sh


I synced my iPhone to my laptop. Can I safely wipe it clean now? I'm planning to buy a new iPhone. I'm going to exchange my current one for the new one. Before I give the old phone to Sprint, I'd like to wipe it clean (by going to Settings > General > Reset, etc).

I synced the phone to my laptop using iTunes. Before doing so, under "Info" I selected "Sync address book contacts" and all the rest.

Will I be able to restore that backup to the new phone?

Overall, am I going about this the right way? Is there an easier way?

Yes, you can.

As long as you backup everything to iTunes, you are safe to wipe it clean.

When you connect your new iPhone to iTunes it will ask, "Do you want to load data from the currently saved backup?" or, "Do you want to set up as a new iPhone".

You can also synchronize your iPhone with iCloud, directly from your iPhone. On your new iPhone, during first setup, you can choose to restore from iCloud.

Make sure you have the latest iTunes installed nonetheless.


Macbook Pro Retina 13" Touchpad not responsive I've got a Macbook Pro Retina 13" with Mavericks installed and the Touchpad is not responsive and sometimes I have to click up to ten times before it will recognize my click.
I removed the tap-to-click and I really have to press the touchpad.

I've used the exact same setup on my previous Macbook Pro (non retina) without issues.

Is there something I can reset myself before contacting Apple? I've bought this Macbook
 just a bit over 3 months ago - so the Apple Care you get by default is no longer valid.

As my search online I've found a fix, but this fix is not written for my software it claims on installation: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1704?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

I'm never really into answering my own posts but after calling AppleCare (even though I had no longer valid AppleCare I still tried it) it turns out to be a hardware issue.
My macbook is going away for repair on next monday and it will take up to 5 working-days before I get my Macbook back with functioning trackpad!

The steps we've taken during the phone call:

Shut down the Macbook, connect the charger and perform a SMC-reset. (The led indicator on the magsafe will turn from orange to green and back to orange if successful)
Boot with Command + R - this step was taken to check if the touchpad works in Recovery Mode, ruling out Mavericks being the issue.


Software update on iPod touch 4th generation I have an iPod touch 4th generation that won't download software update or reset to factory settings.

What can I do?

The last iOS release available for iPod touch 4th generation is iOS 6.1.6. If you have a Mac or PC handy, you can install iTunes and restore the iOS firmware using it.

To download iOS 6.1.6 firmware for your iPod touch 4th generation, visit IPSW.me, select your device and click download. Make sure the firmware you select is signed. (Alternatively, you can use this link to download directly).

The firmware is downloaded from Apple's server and safe to use. They are digitally signed and are verified by Apple while installing.


need a database software for Mac 10 Is there q simple data base out there that is similar to the database the was included in the old Apple Works software

Apple recently discontinued Bento. It was an easy to use simplified version of their pro product Filemaker pro.

there are still copies of it around the internet for sale (Amazon, Ebay, etc.) That would be a reasonable choice.

But if you will be needing a current and currently supported product you may have to look elsewhere.

You could try OpenOffice, which has a DB module and is free. Also if you have MS Access you could use a VM (VirtualBox, Parallels, VMWare) with Windows or Codeweavers Crossover Office to just run Access without Windows.

A quick search of the App Store might give you something that works for you as well.


Spawning multiple instances of applications via shortcuts So I'm using BetterTouchTool to set up shortcuts, and I have a bunch that are dedicated to opening various apps. The problem is, if one of those apps are already open, then hitting the shortcut pulls that instance into focus, rather than spawning a new one.

This is especially annoying since I use multiple desktops heavily-- If I'm on desktop 6 and want to spawn a terminal window, but one is already open on desktop 1, then it moves me back to desktop 1 rather than creating a new terminal instance. I'm used to working on Ubuntu, where I have many terminals open across my virtual desktop.

I do realize that questions to this effect have been asked before, but I'm looking for a general solution that could apply to, say, Chrome, just as well as Terminal. On second thought, I don't need a truly general solution; I only need this to work for Terminal and Chrome.

I'll stress that this question is asking how to achieve this with keyboard shortcuts, rather than solutions that involve any mouse actions on the Dock.

you can open a file from the terminal by using the open command. For example to open the Atom editor you could type open -a /Applications/Atom.app/Contents/MacOS/atom. To open another instance of the app, use the -n option with open. For example, to open another instance of Atom type: open -n -a /Applications/Atom.app/Contents/MacOS/atom.

I suppose a script could be written to execute this and then a keyboard shortcut for the script could be set.


Finder error -36 when copying from data Blu-ray to HD I've been having a re-occurring problem reading data from self-burnt data Blu-ray discs. I'll try to copy the contents of a disc to an external HD and nearly every time, at some point during the copy, I'll get a -36 Error code from the Finder (data can't be read or written).

Just before this error the drive spins down and I can hear the head jumping around, like it's having trouble finding data. The drive will do that for between 2-10+ minutes before giving up finally and showing me the error code.

This tends to happen on similar types of file – usually files that are packages (Logic files, Photos library), Logic project backups and EXS24 sample files (AIFs). Sometimes copying that file again works, sometimes not.

These discs were originally burnt through the Finder and they all passed post-burn verification. So the question is: where might the problem be? Is it the OS? Is it the drive? Is it the discs? Really I have no answer.

(I'm running fully updated Mac OS 10.10.5, Blu-ray drive is a Samsung SE-506, discs are TDK-branded light blue face.)

So I came up with a sort-of answer here. In short, a full copy of the Blu-ray was possible using the ditto command line tool:

ditto [source path] [destination path]

During the operation ditto does show errors (in my case Unknown error: 10000), but it does continue with copying the remaining files.

More detail

In figuring this out I started by inspecting the Console for errors during a Finder drag and drop copy. Sure enough an error was logged:

30/10/2015 19:54:57.000 kernel[0]: udf error: errno_t UDFFileNode::ReadPathComponent(uint8_t *, off_t *, bool *): Incomplete path component

On searching for 'mac udf error readpathcomponent error' I found this post on Adobe's forum which pointed to symbolic links being the problem.

Two types of file causing me an error were iPhoto and Photos Library files, and sure enough, within their packages there are symbolic links to certain .db and .apdb files. It appears the Finder attempts to resolve those links when drag and drop copying, but when it can't find that data (which isn't on the Blu-ray) it stops the copy and throws a -36 error.

To confirm this I looked for another way to copy the files, finding the ditto tool. Supporting my theory, the errors ditto threw up during the copy all related to symbolic links. So this might be a Finder bug rather than a hardware problem.


iMac connected to Wi-Fi but not to the Internet I have a 2009 iMac (24 inch) running El Capitan (10.11.6). For a few days I have not been able to connect to the internet. The Wi-Fi network is connected to the internet because I can access it with my other devices.

I have turned Wi-Fi on and off in System Preferences but that did not help. I can also see a good IP address in System Preferences.

I would appreciate any help.

Try to diagnose your internet connection:

System Preferences -> Network -> Assist me… -> Diagnostics…


Cannot sync apps between iMac and iPad On my iMac, in iTunes, I have one app (called "myApp", say) listed on Library > Apps. I want to transfer that app into my iPad. Under Devices > my iPad > Apps, I press "Install" next to myApp and the button label becomes "Will Install", so I expect it will be transferred to my iPad on the next sync process.

When I press the Sync button below, it starts to sync both devices, and right after it show on the status bar (next to the playback buttons) "Determining which apps to install" , I get the following message:

  The iPad could not be synced because this computer is no longer authorized for purchased items that are on this iPad.

  To authorize this computer for items purchased from the iTunes Store, choose Store >  Authorize This Computer.

So I go to  Store > Authorize This Computer, I type my Apple account password, next to my Apple ID, and iTunes gives me the following message:

  This computer is already authorised.

  Including this one, you have authorised 3 computers out of your available 5.

If at this point I try to sync again, I get the same message above saying the computer is no longer authorized.

By the way, on my iPad, under Settings > iTunes & App Store, the active Apple account it the same as on my iMac's iTunes.

Rather than try to fix a broken Apple software setup, I shall suggest a third-party solution. I think iMazing (not free) can load apps onto iDevices without the need for iTunes now.

“Need to install IPA files on your phone? Done!” — https://imazing.com/features/ios-app-management


Applescript exits with error when run via launchd I have an applescript running beautifully in Script Editor as well as from an osascript command at the Terminal. The script talks to the Reminders.app in order to pass iCloud reminder entries to a few parsing scripts on my mac.

But when I try to launchd it, a few errors pop up in the system log:

Aug 11 16:43:07 machinename osascript[19678]: Performance: Please update this scripting addition to supply a value for ThreadSafe for each event handler: "/Library/ScriptingAdditions/FITS.osax"
Aug 11 16:43:07 machinename osascript[19678]: Performance: Please update this scripting addition to supply a value for ThreadSafe for each event handler: "/Library/ScriptingAdditions/SIMBL.osax"
Aug 11 16:43:07 machinename tccd[3421]: Unable to prompt for client without display name (osascript)
Aug 11 16:43:07 machinename Reminders[18838]: Error: Event Not Permitted for command Intrinsics.get
    Direct Parameter: <NSPropertySpecifier: scriptingReminders of scriptingLists named "Today" of scriptingAccounts named "iCloud">
    Receivers: <NSPropertySpecifier: scriptingReminders of scriptingLists named "Today" of scriptingAccounts named "iCloud">
    Arguments:     {
    }
Aug 11 16:43:07 machinename com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (local.reminders.taskpaper.sync[19678]): Service exited with abnormal code: 1

The SIMBL Performance error I believe to be harmless -- this is a known issue.

I am assuming likewise for the FITS error.

But I need some help resolving the tccd and Reminders errors.... It sounds to me like I simply need to somehow provide extra permissions if the script is going to be run via launchd.

Here's the plist file, too, if it helps:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
    <dict>
        <key>Label</key>
            <string>local.reminders.taskpaper.sync</string>
        <key>ProgramArguments</key>
            <array>
                <string>osascript</string>
                <string>/Users/eck/Library/Scripts/reminders_to_taskpaper.scpt</string>
            </array>
        <key>StartInterval</key>
            <integer>600</integer>
    </dict>
</plist>

As bjbk commented, the problem was that osascript did not have Assistive Access. While it is easy to add .app programs to this list (System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Accessibility), OS X doesn't allow binaries to be added through the GUI. See Jacob Palmela's blog for how to add a program via the command line, or just copy and paste the following command, substituting in the path of the program to be added where indicated before executing:

sudo sqlite3 /Library/Application\ Support/com.apple.TCC/TCC.db "INSERT or REPLACE INTO access VALUES('kTCCServiceAccessibility','PROGRAM-TO-BE-ADDED',1,1,1,NULL)"

sudo is necessary because the sqlite3 db file is owned by root.


What is Safari's "local storage"? I see that Safari stores three things: Cache, Cookies, and "local storage."

I know what cache and cookies are, but what is "local storage"?

Semantically, cache and cookies are local storage, but presumably this is a third type.

Local storage appears to be the holding area for HTML 5 Client Side storage which can be used by modern web apps to store data locally for various purposes.


Triple boot Catalina 10.15.7, windows 10 (not bootcamp but NTFS), Ubuntu 20.10 I am using a 1 TB SSD with a macbook pro 2012 initially split into 2 x 500g: Catalina and Windows 10 NTFS (NON bootcamp partition). To install Ubuntu, I had to use the Catalina partition because the Windows partition would not allow me to partition it. So I end up having a 250G Catalina partition, a 250g Ubuntu partition along with a 500G Windows 10 partition.
Both, Catalina and Windows 10 (non bootcamp) partitions were running perfectly before the Ubuntu install. The Linux installs went very well. I have used David Anderson install process. Here is the link:
How can I triple boot MacOS Catalina , Ubuntu 18.04, and Windows 10
I did follow the step very carefully. The result was a fully working and fast Ubuntu partition. This thing shot down in less than 3 seconds and boot in less then 10. Anyway, I manage to install Refind which made all 3 partitions appear on startups. After booting Catalina and Ubuntu with success, the Windows partition fails to do so, showing instead this message:
** No bootable device, insert boot disk and press enter. **
This is usually called for a bootcamp partition problem but it seems the Ubuntu install, particularly the step where we use grub, and the step where we need to prevent hybrid disk use, may have or probably did broke something into Windows NTFS partition.
I am new to all this stuff so bear with me.
What I did next? I install the third party software gdisk and ran the thing into recovery mode. Here is a link of the procedure :
Bootcamp: no bootable device – insert boot disk and press any key
I followed the steps carefully hoping the hybrid state would fix the window partition and keep Catalina and Ubuntu running. It was a long shot I guess. The result was as expected: bad. Ubuntu is not showing up into the boot menu ; refind does not work anymore, and when I use the Mac option startup menu, Catalina and Windows hard disk do show up but Windows won’t boot. I get this message:
** Error loading operating system_**
No doubt the hybrid part seems to have broken both Windows and Ubuntu along with Refind. Nothing can be done from that message window except restarting the mac from the power button.
Once I boot into Catalina, the Windows 10 partition still shows up on the desktop. All files are there. The Ubuntu partition is still visible in disk utility partition view. It is located right between Catalina and Windows partition as you can see on the screenshot. By the way Windows partitin is the "OS" one.

Even when Ubuntu was booting perfectly, it did not show up anywhere except in disk utility partition view or on startup when Refind was still working before the gdisk process.
So, I guess the problem may come from the fact that Ubuntu was installed in second position because the NTFS Windows partition is non-partition-able.
Any idea to fix this?

Installing Ubuntu 20.10 when macOS 10.15.7 Catalina and Windows 10 (version 20H2) have already been installed.
This answer assumes Windows is installed to BIOS boot. This can be verified by viewing the contents of the Windows Disk Management application window. Below is an example when Windows BIOS boots. Volume (Disk 0 partition 1) has a status of Healthy (GPT Protective Partition).

Note: To get a better look at an image, either click on the image or open the image in a new window.

Below is what would appear when Windows EFI boots. Volume (Disk 0 partition 1) has a status of Healthy (EFI System Partition).

Below are the basic steps.

Use the macOS Disk Utility application or diskutil command to create a ExFAT partition which will be to contain the Ubuntu installation. Below is an example for the use of the diskutil command.
The output from diskutil list disk0 is shown below. This shows the partitioning before adding the new ExFAT partition.
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.2 TB     disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         578.6 GB   disk0s2
   3:       Microsoft Basic Data OS                      578.6 GB   disk0s3

The command given below gives approximately have the space used by the APFS container to the new ExFAT partition. You may want to replace 289G with your desired new size for disk0s2 container partition occupied by macOS Catalina.
diskutil apfs resizecontainer disk0s2 289G exfat DUMMY 0

The output from diskutil list disk0 is shown below. This shows the partitioning after adding the new ExFAT partition.
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.2 TB     disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         289.0 GB   disk0s2
   3:       Microsoft Basic Data DUMMY                   289.6 GB   disk0s5
   4:       Microsoft Basic Data OS                      578.6 GB   disk0s3

Install Ubuntu. Below are some pointers.
When you reach the window shown below, use the following settings.

When you reach the window shown below, use the following settings.

When you reach the window shown below, highlight the /dev/sda3 device as shown below and then click on the Change... button.

In the Edit partition popup, use the following setting. When finished, click on the OK button.

Click on the Install Now button shown in the image below.

In the Write the changes to disks? popup shown below, click on the Continue button.

Continue and finish installing Ubuntu.

The installation of Ubuntu has changed the partition tables resulting in an unbootable Windows. This step will provide the commands needed to fix this problem. While booted to Ubuntu, press the control+option+T key combination to open a Terminal application window. Enter the following command.
sudo gdisk /dev/sda

The gdisk command is interactive. Below are the commands to enter.
t
3
8300
r
h
2 3 4
y
ff
n
83
n
07
y
w
y

When finished enter the command given below to close the Terminal application window.
exit


How to share a (non-iCloud) library in the new Yosemite Photos App? In iPhoto, I put a shared iPhoto library on a network external hard drive accessed by multiple computers in the family.
Even though two computer cannot access the library at the same time, the whole family can add to and edit the same (huge) library.

In Photos, I can't seem to select the "Photo Library.photoslibrary" from a second computer (via network shared drive).

If it's no longer possible to share a library from multiple computers, that would be a huge functionality loss for us - to not be able to keep one library for the whole family.

Our library is too large/expensive for iCloud Photo Library, which also would require all computers to sign in with the same iCloud account (no good for everything else).

UPDATE: since my shared Photo Library resides on an external hard drive, I tried attaching it directly to the second computer and then was allowed to select it (Option-launch Photos App) as well as setting it as the system library.

So it appears that the difference with iPhoto is that I can no longer share the library via network File Sharing (tried both smb and afp with no luck).

I really hope Apple allows this again as it's a hassle to detach/attach hard drives when we have high speed home network.

UPDATE 2: following Kevin's suggestion below, I tried creating a new Photos Library with only one photo added, and was able to access this library from another computer via network share. When trying to open the much larger library (converted from iPhoto library) from network share, Photos app showed a spinning wheel for a while and then returned an error message saying it could not open the library. The spinning wheel can persist for a long time, so I suspected it might be the sheer size of the library choking up the app. Indeed when I brought the computer into the same room as the wireless router, it did successfully open the library.

So bottomline is it still "works" provided the network speed is able to handle the size of the library.

Hold the alt (option) key while starting Photos App. You will be prompted to choose a Library.


Clear Clipboard on OS X after 'n' seconds I tab a lot between tasks and would like to make sure that I do not accidentally paste something where it does not belong. Thus, is there a feature or an app that allows me to auto-clear my clipboard after n seconds or after having pasted n times?

The script below clears the clipboard every S seconds:

#!/bin/sh
# pbclear [seconds]

S=${1:-10}

while true
do
    pbcopy < /dev/null
    sleep $S
done

Save it to a file named pbclear, set executable permissions with chmod +x pbclear, and put it somewhere in your path, for instance, /usr/local/bin. Then run it in the background with  pbclear 60 & to clear the clipboard every 60 seconds.


Can I recover pictures from waterlogged phone? So, my iPhone 6 fell in a pool and will not turn on. I tried plugging it in but somehow the charger port (like where you plug the charger in) is deformed or something because the charger will only go in about halfway. I'm sure this makes the usual methods of data recovery a bit more complicated. Is it possible to still recover my photos?

First consider ofcourse if you have any backups on your computer, in iCloud or other cloud services.

If not, and you're not able to fix the defective port by yourself, you can use a data recovery service. They might be able to retrieve the photos.

In the past I have successfully used IBAS / Kroll Ontrack data recovery services to recover data from an iPhone with a similar problem. However, note that it is guaranteed that it will work - and there might be complications if your data is encrypted, etc. However, they are able to provide an analysis for a limited fee, so that you know before paying the full fee, how likely it is for you to get all your data back.

Their homepage is here:

http://www.krollontrack.co.uk

I cannot see from your profile where you are located, but they operate in many different countries.


iPad 3G A-GPS without contract Is A-GPS also working without an active 3G contract?
Say I buy an iPad 3G with an operator SIM card in place but don't pay for 3G service, will A-GPS still work or not?

The GPS will still function, but it will take a bit longer to lock onto your location. Also, note that the built-in maps app doesn't have maps stored on the device. It downloads them real-time. This will work fine if you have WiFi, but not if you're offline.

To use the GPS for offline navigation, you'll need an app that stores the maps locally.

Here are some options:

NAVIGON Mobile Navigator has pretty good reviews. It's $59.99 in the US Store, and it also works with the iPhone.

CoPilot Live HD is half the price, but the reviews for it are pretty bad.

More info from Apple: (Click for source)

  Verify that you have a cellular or Wi-Fi network connection. This allows the Assisted GPS (A-GPS) on the device to locate visible GPS satellites faster, in addition to providing initial location information using the Wi-Fi or cellular networks.

So, in essence, it works with our without a cellular connection or WiFi. It's just faster with it.

One more source: A thread on this very question in Apple's support forums.


Connector for the various part of the MacBook What type of connector used to connect the various parts Apple MacBook? The connector of which I speak is like this:

This type of connector is used only by Apple or other companies are using? It is their patent?

These connectors are not given a particular generic name by Apple beyond just "cable connector". In their service manuals, the cable connectors are differentiated by referring to what they're connecting. For example, here is a quote from one of their service manuals:

  Disconnect the battery cable connector from the logic board, taking
  care to keep the cable connector flat when pulling it out of its mate.
  Use your thumb on top and a black stick beneath to prevent too much
  bend in the cable. An alternative is to use your index fingers (and
  nails) to grab the sides of the connector and pull straight out, level
  with the board.

NOTE: Bold emphasis added by me.

So, these cable connectors are referred to as various names, such as:

Battery cable connector
Audio cable connector
Microphone cable connector

Often these cables are known as Halogen-free cables and connectors. These cables/connectors are delicate and you must handle them with care to avoid damage.

Also, since the image in your question isn't labelled, I should point out that there are also various other cables/connectors in a MacBook, such as:

LVDS cable
Port hatch flex connector
Hard drive flex cable

And the list goes on.

Hope this helps and answers your question. If not, feel free to comment and clarify what you were after.


Mouse right click intermittently stops working on macOS I am using macOS 10.15.4 "Catalina", and intermittently my mouse right click starts behaving like a mouse left click; i.e. no matter how I configure my mouse, I cannot get the right click (secondary button) behaviour. It is an Apple USB non-cordless mouse; the Mac came with a cordless mouse but that died.
It usually comes good after unplugging and replugging the mouse from the USB port, a few times.
It is possibly a hardware issue, but if it is, why does right-clicking do anything at all?
Probably the only "uncommon" way I use my Mac is I leave the emacs editor constantly running; emacs is a huge program and I guess there is a chance it is doing something strange.
Is this a known issue? Or does it sound like a hardware issue?

In fact it was a hardware issue. I confirmed this by waiting for the behaviour to reappear, then plugging the mouse into a different computer. (See comments below the question).


Should I change my MBP 13" early 2014 battery I recently checked my battery cycles count: 942, this is very close to the limit 1000 as indicated by Apple https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201585

If it becomes 1000 do I have to replace it by myself?
I checked https://www.ifixit.com/ and I find that the process is a bit complicated. I live in france and the official Apple replacement service would cost me 229€.

Also can I still use the battery after the 1000 limit? Would this have any negative effects on other system components?

I have a MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2010) and the battery cycles counts more that 1100. Maybe I'm lucky, but I never change the battery and I think is working very well. (The System Information report a Condition that is Normal!)

After the 1000 cycles the battery probably start and continue to decrease a bit the Full Charge Capacity but you can still use it. The decreasing of the total capacity result in a small duration time of the battery, but anyway you'll not have any negative effects in any system components.


What and how does macOS Mojave implement to restrict applications access to personal data? As well as many of the other features talked about during macOS Mojave's release like dark mode and the addition of new apps like Home, another key feature of macOS Mojave seems to be it's heightened focus on both privacy and security.

As quoted under the "Camera and Microphone Now Require Your Permission" section of this article:

  Apple also announced that other categories of data, such as your Messages history and Mail database, will be protected in a similar manner to macOS Mojave's new camera and microphone permissions.

I understand that after the update, when an app requests to use your camera or microphone, you will receive an alert like the one below:

However, I am more intrigued by the following:

  ...other categories of data, such as your Messages history and Mail database, will be protected in a similar manner...

I have been unable to find much information about this online and I do not currently have the pre-release version of macOS Mojave installed and am therefore unable to test this new feature but I am curious to know what exactly this feature will mean.

Has Apple publicly documented how this will work?

How Mojave responds when an application tries to access this sensitive information; will it alert the user, block unsigned apps or what?

When an application attempts to access restricted directory the user will be prompted with a dialog box explaining the following information:

What Application
What the application is trying to access
Option to Allow or to Not Allow access

Many applications will prompt for a folder or file selection. If you attempt to drag a folder from a restricted directory (from a normal finder window) into the choose a file dialog box, the folder will open as a blank folder with the prohibited folder icon. This will not produce a request permission dialog box.

Terminal

The exception to asking for access is Terminal. If certain Terminal commands attempts to access these directories they will be blocked automatically without a dialog box.

$ sudo  cp  -r  ~/Library/Messages/ ~/Desktop/test
cp: /Users/[User]/Library/Messages/: unable to copy extended attributes to /Users/[User]/Desktop/test: Operation not permitted
cp: /Users/[User]/Library/Messages/: Operation not permitted

When attempting to use the zip command the directory is ziped up, recursively, until the blocked directory at which it will appear to be empty.

 $ zip -r  ~/Desktop/imessage.zip ~/Library/Messages/

Screenshot taken of finder after unzipping (~/Desktop/imessage.zip) and opening. As you can see it is empty.

Exceptions

If you would like to add exceptions to give certain apps unrestricted permissions this can be done in System Preferences.

System Preferences>Security & Privacy>Privacy
Unlock if needed
Select type of permission

Location Services
Contacts
Calendars
Reminders
Photos
Camera
Microphone
Accessibility
Application Data (Includes Message data, Mail data, etc.)
Automation
Analytics

Click the + icon
Select your app
Press Add

Note: The application will have to be restarted for changes to take effect.

Warning: Adding terminal will give all terminal commands access.


Can my daughter charge my credit card from her Apple ID? If I set up an individual account for my daughter can she charge my credit card with an app purchase?

If your credit card is associated with her Apple ID, yes.


Copy an app's localized title and text of menu items I'm learning Chinese, and I'd like to switch my system interface to Chinese to increase my familiarity with the language. However, since Chinese characters are not phonetic or alphabetic, it can be hard to even type or draw characters I read into a dictionary to look them up. I'd therefore like to find a way to copy text from the interface, such as app names, menu item names, etc. I know that strings files are found in the Foo.app/Contents/Resources/zh_CN.lproj/*.strings files. However, I can't figure out how to translate these files into a table mapping English strings to their localized equivalents for Chinese, and when I open the files in XCode, I don't see Chinese characters that I can readily copy. Is there a way to accomplish what I want?

String resource files are just plist files. In the terminal, use plutil -p to dump the contents of the file, which consists of maps of English keys to localized translations:

$ plutil -p /Applications/TextEdit.app/Contents/Resources/zh_CN.lproj/InfoPlist.strings

gives the output

{
  "Microsoft Word 2003 XML document" => "Word 2003 (.xml) 文稿"
  "Apple HTML document" => "网页 (.html)"
  "Unknown document" => "文稿"
  "Microsoft Word 97 document" => "Word 97 (.doc) 文稿"
  "CFBundleDisplayName" => "文本编辑"
  "NSRTFPboardType" => "多信息文本文稿"
  "Apple Web archive" => "网页归档文稿"
  "Microsoft Word 2007 document" => "Word 2007 (.docx) 文稿"
  "Apple SimpleText document" => "SimpleText 文稿"
  "NSRTFDPboardType" => "带附件的多信息文本文稿"
  "NSStringPboardType" => "纯文本文稿"
  "OpenDocument Text document" => "OpenDocument 文本 (.odt) 文稿"
  "NSHumanReadableCopyright" => "Copyright © 1995-2016 Apple Inc.
保留一切权利。"
  "CFBundleName" => "文本编辑"
}

(BTW, the title of the app is contained in CFBundleDisplayName and CFBundleName).


What does it mean for an iPod to be "Over capacity"? Sometimes when I plug my iPod Nano Shuffle into iTunes, I get this strange message:

What could this possibly mean?

It means that you've set up iTunes to sync certain files onto your iPod, but it can't do so because the total space used by the files that are supposed to be on your iPod is greater than the storage capacity of the iPod. In order to complete the sync you need to take some songs off the iPod.


Preview print dialog defaults to Scale to Fit or Print Entire Image When printing a PDF file from Preview, the print dialog defaults to "Scale to Fit / Print Entire Image", and the default scale is some arbitrary number.  To get 100% scale requires clicking "Scale" and typing "100".

I want the default to be "Scale / 100%", without clicking or typing.  How can I do this in Yosemite?

This question was answered before under "Keep Preview from autoresizing print output" but the solution there does not seem to work under Yosemite.  Saving as a preset does not work either.

As a run around, you can print it from terminal. Assuming your default printer is the one you want

lp -o fit-to-page /path/to/file.pdf

or by dragging and dropping the pdf onto the printer, which should print it at 100% and auto-rotated "fit to page". It depends on the pdf's size and rotation settings, but you'll find it works most of the time.

If you don't have you printer as a dock icon, you can find it in

~/Library/Printers/yourprintername


Change color of active terminal window I often have a bunch of terminal windows with some various tasks. My problem, however, is that I have a hard time seeing which one is on top. This leads to me often typing [arrow up] + [enter] in the wrong window, one time leading to the execution of "git reset --hard HEAD", trashing a full days work.

So, is there a way to make the inactive terminal window look more... inactive, like changing its background color or something like that?

You can add transparency and a blur effect to windows, and you can also set these values seperately for active windows vs inactive windows, making the inactive windows much more transparent for example.

You'll find these settings in Terminal.app Preferences - Settings - Window. Click the colour picker to define them.


I have iCloud but I don't know how to use Find My iPhone So last night I was at home watching movies and I went to get on my phone and I noticed it missing. My phone IS on and I THOUGHT the ringer was on until I called it. Many websites say you can download Find My iPhone from iCloud but I'm not sure how to do it.

Go to icloud.com/#find and log in. No download is necessary and your device should be located on a map and allow you to lock/erase/etc.


How to rebuild iTunes Library with altered file locations without losing playcounts|ratings etc My iTunes was set to make copies of all the music that it imported and keep it's own library within the iTunes folder. I wanted to delete my original files but deleted my iTunes copies instead. Now I have an exclamation mark beside all my music and since iTunes renames the files in it's own copy according to the ID3 tags, I can't simply replace my iTunes folder with my original files as the filenames and folders don't match.

The brute force alternative is to manually point each missing file to the new file location but this does not seem like a very clever solution given I have over 5000 tracks.

I don't want to reconstruct my library from scratch because I will lose precious listening and rating history from the past six years! Is there anyway I can fix this without losing my play counts and ratings?

I can a poor idea of rebuilding the file/folder structure on a new iTunes instance on another machine/account and copying the files back to the folder but this doesn't sound fool-proof. Any suggestions!

There are a few AppleScripts from Doug Adams that might help you:

Fix Broken Tracks will merge the data of "dead tracks" (iTunes tracks designated with "!") with the real track that you have re-added to your iTunes Library.
iTunes Track CPR will check your library for "dead tracks" and re-add them while keeping all the previous metadata intact. In order for this script to work, the files need to be moved back to the iTunes Music Folder.
Music Folder Files Not Added displays files in iTunes Media folder which are not in the iTunes library.

It's important to read the manuals for these scripts before running them. Test a script only on a few tracks at first before running it on your entire library.


How to delete undeletable songs from an iOS device I have songs on my iPhone 4S that I never intentionally downloaded and can't seem to delete. I have tried to delete them through iTunes but I just cannot seem to get rid of them.

Swiping left on the undeletable song will not show any option to delete the song (oddly enough, swiping left on other songs allows me to delete them).

Going into Settings > Usage > Manage Storage allows me to delete all of the songs on my iPhone except the undeletable song.

(I'm reposting https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6554655 here for greater visibility. I have long searched for an answer for this issue and only now have found an answer that works.)

This is not a duplicate question, because in this scenario, iTunes Match has never been activated.

Go into Settings > Music > and enable "Show All Music".
The undeletable song have the cloud symbol next to them.
Redownload the songs.
Once finished downloading, go back to settings>music> and disable "show all music" then the swipe-to-delete will work again for the rogue songs. If you don't disable "show all music" it will delete then pop up again.

My theory is that initially when playing songs from the cloud, it caches the song somehow, and when you switch off "Show all music", the cached song remains, but iTunes doesn't see it as an actual song and won't allow deletion.


Why do I have a calendar called weather? And has nothing to do with anything I have a calendar called "Weather: Auckland, NZ"
The Weather calendar on the sidebar is checked and it's called "Weather: Springfield, MO" And the "calendar" shows three days for my zip code. Of course I can share, add, use, save, import, export, make into orgami, but can't delete. WHy does it exist? Where did it come from? I haven't been to any of the places associated with the calendar. I live in the zip code. OH, and it's it's own calendar. Not associated with any other emails or calendars. A color all it's own. Which, of course, I can also change. Any idea?

It is a app from MetService (MetService NZ Weather) on App Store, that you must have downloaded.


Graphical bug viewing PDF in Safari So, I'm looking at a PDF in Safari 12.0 off JSTOR. And it appears like this:

Which definitely isn't how it should be rendered. But more concerningly, this persists with a number of PDFs from ScienceDirect, Elsevier, and other academic journal aggregators.

This problem doesn't persist in Chrome for the same documents.

Has this problem been encountered before, and are there any fixes?

The behaviour you are seeing is a bug and the comments confirm others can reproduce it. Given this, please tell Apple. Only Apple can fix the underlying bug.

Report to Apple

Use the feedback form to report this bug to Apple. Alternatively, if you have access, you can use Bug Reporter to tell Apple's engineering teams directly.


Why does RAID 1 "Mirroring not provide performance improvements"? I have always used Software RAIDs, either Apple-provided, or via SoftRAID, etc.  I am about to re-zhuzh my arrays and decided to do a little research beforehand… and On Apple's site, there is a statement, clear as day…
RAID 1 (mirroring) for disk redundancy

Mirroring improves reliability by writing the same data to two or more disks. If one hard drive mechanism should fail, the second disk still contains all the data. At least two hard drives are required for mirroring. Mirroring does not provide performance improvements. If the hard disks are not the same capacity, the smaller size will be the amount of disk space used on both drives. Disk Utility determines this automatically.

I was always under the impression that, as there are TWO platters for READ operations, that READ performance with a 2-Drive RAID1 mirror would be somewhat improved.  This contrasts with write speed, which remains the SAME, as the drives have to both write the same data at commit-time, so as to sustain  a mirrored copy of the data.  However, when reading I had thought that the array acted similarly to a RAID0, striping the reads accross both drives.
How is RAID1 is supposed to work?  If so, is Apple..

just saying there is no improvemnet to cover their asses, or
are they actually not implementing RAID 1 to its full extenent? (Does SoftRaid 4.3 claim to do this?)

According to Wikipedia…

In RAID 1 (mirroring without parity or striping), data is written identically to two drives, thereby producing a "mirrored set"; … The array continues to operate as long as at least one drive is functioning. With appropriate operating system support, there can be increased read performance, and only a minimal write performance reduction;…

So it is Possible, but Apple says there's does not see any speed benefit…  But in practice, is there any measurable increase in speed for reads with Software Raid 1 (via Disk Utility)?

My guess would be that Apple prefers to have one drive handle only write processes as a backup and read/write from whichever one it considers the main drive. As to why this is, I have absolutely no clue. Seems kind of like a big oversight on their part. I've always kind of gotten the feeling that software RAID is pretty low on Apple's priority list.


OS X base system is locked, unable to install Sierra on Mac I made a boneheaded mistake while erasing my hard drive (can’t tell you what that mistake was) and now I can’t reinstall macOS! Can someone tell me what I need to do so I can free up the hard drive and correctly reinstall the new copy of macOS?

I’d appreciate any advice and guidance. I’ve posted the pictures to provide details.

Boot to Internet Recovery Mode (shiftaltcmdR)
Open Disk Utility and erase your internal disk
Install macOS (the macOS that came with your Mac, or the version closest to it that is still available will be installed).
After rebooting and configuring your system download and install macOS Sierra.


How can I find iPhone apps uploading a lot of data? Why do the iPhones in my home periodically use up all the upload bandwidth? Happens at least once a week, likely once a day or something.

I only notice when I get annoyed by slow internet.

How do I analyse which app is causing this this?

It is unclear whether Bandwidth is from Cellular data or Wi-Fi setup separately. So I will do both.

In Settings → Cellular/ Mobile Data, after waiting for sometime, all the apps that consume data appear in descending order of used data. If Low-Power mode is off and sufficient battery power is available, then Photos and videos and iCloud Drive files will upload to iCloud if the feature Use Data for iCloud is turned on. To avoid extra usage this should be turned off.

For Wi-Fi, such usage chart is not available in iPhone natively. Two indirect approaches are:

See the biggest files or app-usage of iCloud. Go to Settings → Apple ID → iCloud → Manage Storage.
It is less accurate but go to Settings → Battery → Usage pattern. This can be a mix of a lot of activities but most apps that are at the top use a lot of bandwidth in my iPhone.


How to export WebM and h264 from a Mac I exported two videos from Photoshop using the standard export movie tool. The dialog is the standard Quicktime Export that we're used to seeing from the beginning of times.

For each movie I chose the WebM (QT Extension) and h.264 as a codec. Both file names come out with a .mov extension, but are encoded with their appropriate codec.

Their final destination is a website, where they will be embedded with the html5 video tag. If I manually change their extension to .webm and .mp4, will they work when I upload them to the server?

There's a free app in the Mac App store, Miro Video Converter. It might do what you need.


Will upgrading Mac Mini hard drive void AppleCare Warranty? After purchasing a Mac Mini, I wanted to replace the hard drive from a 5,400 rpm hard drive to a 7,200 hard drive.

Will this replacement void my AppleCare warranty?

Apple's warranty (AppleCare) is specific about what components are user replaceable/serviceable. The hard drive on an older MacBook for instance is user replaceable, AppleCare used to have the option to send you a replacement hard drive along with a disposable ESD wriststrap for you to install it yourself.

The difference though is the hard drive in the MacBook was almost as easy to access as the RAM in the Mac mini. The Mac mini's hard drive is a different story. In order to access it you have to expose the logic board which increases the chance of damage from ESD if proper precautions aren't taken. Because of this the only user replaceable part in the new minis is the RAM, since the logic board is still pretty well protected when only removing the RAM.

The Magnusson Moss act essentially says they can't deny warranty unless they can prove damage. It wouldn't be hard for Apple to say "The upgrade situation you described to us implies that there was a high risk for ESD damage, which has likely caused such and such issue".

The flip side though is that if an Apple Authorized Service Provider (AASP) installs a third party hard drive your AppleCare will remain intact because the AASP has proved to Apple that its technicians follow all safety rules and procedures when working on Macs, essentially the same reason Apple allows them to perform warranty work. Apple would then not be involved in the hard drive's warranty (though most HDDs have 3-5 year warranties of their own) but the remaining components would still be recognized as "in warranty" by Apple. The most you would need to do is provide a receipt for the service you had done at an AASP.

source: I was "that guy" at the Genius Bar for several years who had to turn people away from warranty coverage for unauthorized upgrades & repairs.  As soon as your Mac goes out of warranty I definitely encourage a DIY attitude, however I would try to heed the above advice while it's under AppleCare.


Is it useful to upgrade MacBook Pro to 16GB RAM? How does an additional 8GB of RAM impact performance for the latest 13-inch MacBook Pro?

It is used for graphic-heavy apps — Sketch, Design, Photo and image editing and to power a LG 21" display.

Does the additional RAM help improve display performance or does more RAM mean apps will not run out of memory?

With the GPU - the extra RAM won't make any graphics faster in my opinion. Running "out" of memory isn't something that virtual memory allows - and when you start to get under memory pressure the apps can release memory to the system and the system starts to slow down as memory swaps. At some point, performance suffers - but I'm having a hard time justifying cases where 16 GB of RAM is the "straw that breaks the performance camel's back".

I'm in the process of evaluating this for our company. Traditionally we have predominantly maxed out memory in our MacBook Pro fleet, but I'm probably going to split our orders 50 / 50 to see if we really need 16 GB RAM for our pro users.

Even our photo department processing 50 to 100 megapixel images in Capture One or Lightroom - we're struggling to justify more than 8 GB of RAM.

Once we have about 10 of each model, we will re-measure the RAM needs. My suspicion is we're being overly cautious and could go 90% smaller RAM and 10% larger RAM.

The reasons for this are:

The apps we need just aren't RAM hungry with the better frameworks and memory management on macOS.
The penalty of swapping to the NVMe based SSD is no longer a deal breaker for people that only occasionally push their Macs into memory pressure makes this a slight slowdown as opposed to a crawl when swapping used to hit HDD storage.
Statistically - our fleet of Macs just doesn't enter memory pressure.

Basically, when our developers and designers are waiting - it's for file transfer, for network and the machines aren't the bottleneck to productive work. Yes - I can benchmark situations where I can exhaust memory, but in practice - people in that situation know they have too many other chrome tabs open, or outlook has hung on them or there is a memory leak and they can log out and clear that issue for days to come.

Unless you 100% know you have to run multiple OS at the same time, are a heavy windows user (we have some that allocate 4 to 6 GB of RAM to a PC and still work fine with 8 GB of RAM! on the Mac) the chance that you need 16 GB of RAM is slim. I would advise most people to spend that extra $$ on AppleCare or on new software or on books and training to make you more efficient rather than being "safe" with the maxed out RAM.


iPhone with repeating loading spinner My iPhone 8 (iOS 11.1.2) has been stable for a month and it was working without any problem so far. But today (December 2) as I was doing my usual stuff it started behaving very strange.

Every 10 seconds or so a black screen with loading spinner appears, after spinning a few seconds it asks me for my passcode. As I type it everything seems to be ok, but then again loading spinner appears.

I tried restarting but it doesn't help.
I reset the settings but still the problem persists.

Did anyone encountered this?

Update to iOS 11.2 if you have a backup or can connect to iTunes and update over USB.

Try to turn off app notifications if you can get to settings and disable them one by one in between "resprings"

Once local notifications are off, you should have a stable phone to then make a backup or plan for an update / patch or remove the offending apps.

Apparently this is happening for many people in Japan since midnight. Reports from Australia as well seem to indicate this started December 2. Turning off all notifications on apps (one by one, as fast as possible in 30-40 seconds until the next restart) seems to have helped many. Others report moving the time back helps this but breaks other functions so this might be a time based bug on iOS 11.1.2 and earlier

http://did2memo.net/2017/12/02/iphone-ios-11-auto-restart-bug-en/

The initial analysis is that a local notification where the app sets a daily meditation or daily writing reminder is causing the home screen to “respring” when the time to present the notification arrives or when the processing starts on 2 December.

  If you have an App Store app installed that sends local notifications, once you hit December 2, 2017 local time, your iPhone could begin to crash.

https://www.imore.com/iphone-crashing-dec-2-heres-fix

It seems prudent to connect to a computer to back up if you can or initiate an iCloud backup now. There is an iOS 11.2 release that may fix this as well if you don’t want to mess with the date (which may break more than just a respring) or toggle notifications on an app by app basis.


Time Machine initial backup way too large I have a Time Capsule 802.11n 1 TB at work with some free space on it, and I decided to make a second backup on it, using Time Machine. I have about 358 GB used on the hard drive, and 25 GB of that are in a folder that I excluded from the Time Machine Backup, so the actual amount of data to be backed up is about 333 GB. Yet my initial backup (before any incrementals) took up 477 GB of space on the Time Capsule. Even after running hdiutil compact on the sparse bundle, I was only able to reduce its size to 455 GB. Isn't that still excessive? I understand there may be some overhead, but really, isn't ~40% overhead excessive?

A piece of information that may be relevant to the question: Unfortunately my rMBP has no Ethernet and I haven't purchased the USB-to-Ethernet adapter either, so the backup proceeded very slowly under 802.11n. Unable to finish the backup in a single day, I took the rMBP home each night, and on the following day, I would let Time Machine resume the backup (it did seem to be resuming since the amount to be backed up decreased every day). Eventually, a week after starting the backup, I finished it for the first time, but with a size of 477 GB as mentioned above.

Edit: here's the output of sudo tmutil listbackups | tr '\n' '\0' | xargs -0 sudo tmutil uniquesize, showing backup dates and their uniquesizes:

16.6G    /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb/MacBook Pro/2014-01-15-182027
3.4G     /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb/MacBook Pro/2014-01-22-161530
623.1M   /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb/MacBook Pro/2014-01-23-160536
1.0G     /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb/MacBook Pro/2014-01-23-171738
1.1G     /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb/MacBook Pro/2014-01-23-182535
4.7G     /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb/MacBook Pro/2014-01-24-144806

This is, of course, a few days after the question was asked, so there are new backups. But notice that there is only one backup made before the question was asked.

See if there are files marked inprogress on the machine's backup folder

TimeMachineDisk -> Backup.db -> MachineName.

You can try to remove them with tmutil.  Do not remove them with finder.

You can get enormous files if the source disk has has certain classes of file system errors.  Boot off of your recovery partition or off a DVD and run diskutil repair disk.  Then us tmutil to remove the monster backup and try again.
Check out Pondini's page about Time Machine.  http://pondini.org/TM/Home.html  This is an excellent information and troubleshooting guide.

Thanks, BTW for the headsup that an rMBP has no ethernet jack. This makes it a non-starter for me.


MacBook Air's battery doesn't charge, Service Battery state, but only 400 cycles Yesterday everything was fine with the battery in my MacBook Air 13'' 2012 (2 years old). It was lasting for 4-5 hours like new. Today, all of a sudden, the battery has stopped charging at all (I have only 40% left). While the power cable is plugged in, its LED doesn't indicate any colour. I rebooted the system, no difference. In System Info I have:

Cycle Count: 409
Condition: Service Battery

I heard that the lifetime of the battery should be 1000 cycles. I didn't update any software recently.

Does it all mean that the battery is dead? Or maybe there is a way to conquer it? Thank you!

It happens to me on my MBA, no charging light on.

By moving the mag connector (like let it snap in few times) it then comes up.

Just a bad connection. You can try cleaning it with alcohol.

And I also have the "Service battery" but that is only a recommendation.

Next level would be displaying "Replace soon, or Replace Now.

While the light on the connector is not on, I can see in the battery indicator it is still charging, telling me the wall plug adapter/converter is still working.

To check the health status of your battery, look in the about this Mac - Power,

Charge Information:

Charge Remaining (mAh):   2712

Fully Charged:    No

Charging: No

Full Charge Capacity (mAh):   5014

Health Information:

Cycle Count:  528

The Full Charge Capacity will tell you the health status  >5000 or higher is good.


Email photos in full resolution from iPhone 6 running iOS 8 iPhone 6 running iOS 8.1.3. How do I email photos with full resolution. I go to Photos, select some photos, pick Mail, then compose the email. No where in "New Message" does it give me an option to pick the resolution. Once I press send the email is sent with the photos at 1280x960.

Follow-up - For some reason the photo was less than 500KB thus the email app didn't offer an option to resize it.

IOS 8.x does not prompt for resolution options when using the front facing camera, only the rear facing camera.  The front facing camera will usually max out resolution with a file size in KB.


Severe Wifi dropping on Macbook Pro - Have to restart to turn back on I have a 17" Early 2008 Macbook Pro running lion 10.7.2. And about 3 weeks ago, this problem started occurring where my interent would stop working randomly. I go to toggle the Wi-Fi on and off, but when I try to turn Wi-fi on, it does nothing and the wifi icon remains an empty wedge.

Trying to turn Wi-Fi on from System preferences also does nothing - same empty signal.

But if I restart my Mac I can get on Wi-Ffi normally and it will last from a couple hours to a couple minutes till it drops again and I need to restart to get back on.

I searched all over the web for a solution and tried to

reordering wifi above the other service in System Preferences
deleting 'SystemConfiguration' folder in under library>preferences
reinstalling Lion from recovery disk
Reset PRAM
Reset SMC

Nothing works. And I haven't found anyone on the web with the same problem.

Has anyone seen this problem before? Is it a Lion issue? Or is it hardware, like a messed up airport card?

Any help would be so greatly appreciated.

UPDATE

For anyone else who may stumble upon this issue, I've been dealing with this issue for a couple weeks and took it to the genius bar. After having me completely wipe my harddrive and do a fresh install of the OS and manual install of all my programs, It is conclusively a hardware problem. And the fix is to have your airport card replaced. Which is about $120.

I would strongly agree that in most cases, when WiFi signal starts strong after a reboot (when the hardware is up to normal operating temperatures) and then degrades over minutes, it is most likely a symptom that the amplifier is failing and the WiFi card (or router) needs to be replaced.

You can hold the option key down when selecting WiFi in the menu bar and watch the Transmit Rate and RSSI change over time. A repeatable, measurable drop in transmit rate would back up the hardware fault as a cause for this.


"Could not sign in x-apple-md-action_message" when signing in to App Store I was trying to download a game from the App Store on my iPhone 5c (iOS 8.4) and I put in my password to download it but I got a pop-up message on my screen saying this: "Could not sign in x-apple-md-action_message". What does this mean?

This error occurs when a connection cannot be established.  To fix it, try the following:

Sign out of the App Store

Go to Settings > App and iTunes Stores
Tap your Apple ID and tap Sign out

Shut down your iPhone
Restart your iPhone
Sign back into the App Store with your Apple ID.


Is my password vulnerable to recovery using my Apple ID? For some time, in Mavericks, I had an option, which I had disabled, in Users & Groups > Password to reset the password using Apple ID

This option vanished after a migration, under Mavericks, to a new machine

and remains absent after an update to Yosemite

So I can't tell: Can a I reset my password using my Apple ID or not?

I had explicitly disabled this earlier for security reasons, but now I can't tell whether it has been enabled or not (or how I'd change it if I wanted to).

Here is what is going on with missing reset password with Apple ID.

  FileVault 2-enabled Macs will not show a "Allow user to reset password
  using Apple ID"

How to in FileVault is described here.

Since you are NOT using the Apple ID password recovery feature (it is not enabled) your FileVault password is NOT vulnerable to it. It can not be used on your system to recover your password.


Is Windows 8.1 compatible with Apple MacBook Air MD711HN/A? I'm planning to buy Apple MacBook Air MD711HN/A. I would like to know whether its compatible with Windows 8.1. Is it possible to have a single OS (Win 8)? I use Windows very frequently and travel a lot.

Yes. Boot Camp works with Windows 7 and above, including Windows 8.1. You can remove OS X and have a single partition for Windows, although you will not be able to do firmware updates.


Why is it that every time I put my mac to sleep it resets the dark menu bar? As the title says, If I enable the dark status bar and then put my mac to sleep, when I wake it up, the menu bar reverts to the 'normal' color.

Does anyone have any explanation for this behavior?

I am on El Capitain

I have an application called flux and after reading your post i thought id try something: I set the option "OSX dark theme at sunset" to enabled, then enabled dark mode in my system preferences, put my computer to sleep and woke it up. As you described, this disabled the dark menubar.

So perhaps you have the same app, or a similar app that also offers an option to manipulate the menubar's state.


Which iPad devices support 3 apps on screen at once in iOS 11? In iOS 11, three active apps can be on screen at once. Running the public beta on my iPad Air only shows one active app on screen at a time. I assume the new 2017 iPad Pro devices can show 3 active apps but can any other iPad do that?

iPads with 2GB or more memory support split view and slide over (that is, running multiple apps up to 3 and a PIP video in iOS 11 at once). These device includes iPad Air 2, iPad Mini 4, and iPad Pro (all models). Older devices (in your case an iPad Air) doesn’t have that feature.


Find/Unrar/Delete Script I'm a PC convert, and quite novice when it comes to shell/bash scripting, but I really want to learn/understand more.

My need: I need to be able to scan a folder, find any .rar files, extract the files in place, and delete the associated .rar afterwards.  Each may also have the .r00, .r01, ... files associated, so those need to be deleted afterwards as well.

Can someone help me figure out (and understand) how to write a script for this?  The more comments, the better.

you could do something like this:

find . -iname '*.rar' | xargs unrar x

find . -iname '*.r*' | xargs rm -f

the script works as follows: it searches recursively for rar files in the directory you are in (the dot)
it pipes all results to an argument list (xargs) that is passed through to the command 'unrar'

Same in the second line, but now it is passed to remove (rm). The -f flag makes sure that the files are deleted instantly, you won't be asked for your permission.
The rm -f  is a powerful command that you should use carefully, so think about what it would remove if you would execute it before you delete it, or just test this by doing:

find . -iname '*.r*'

One thing about the unrar command: unrar is not a standard command in Mac OSX (not sure if this is the case in other Linux/Unix distributions), so make sure you have it installed on your machine.

Note: There is a fine but important difference between find . -iname *.r* and find . -iname '*.r*' relating to the way Unix shells handle wildcards:

In the first form, wildcards are expanded by the shell (so the shell will look for all files/folders matching *.r* in the current directory and pass these as parameters to find. This will work ok if there is one file to match anyway but will fail if there are several (because then the call is find . -iname foo.rar bar.rar but -iname only takes one argument).
In the second form the pattern (without the '') is passed to find and the wildcard expansion is done by find (which then tries to match every file it finds).

So in general patterns passed to find should be enclosed in '' to produce the desired result.