How to Mount a Sparsebundle Disk Image from Time Machine Backup? I have several sparse bundle disk images on my system, used for various purposes (mostly to prevent Time Machine from backing up the entirety of very large files).

However, I'm planning to restructure my storage in the near future, and will likely be eliminating the use of these disk images.

What I'd like to be able to do is mount a sparse bundle that's located on my Time Machine backup drive, so that I can copy data from inside it into its new location, without having to copy the disk image first (requiring double the storage).

The problem is, none of my backed up sparse bundle images can be mounted from a Time Machine volume, all I get is a "no mountable filesystems" error. Assuming the issue is that Time Machine volumes are effectively read-only, I tried the following command instead:

hdiutil attach /Volumes/Backup/Backups.backupdb/MachineName/Latest/Path/To/Image.sparsebundle -readonly

However this doesn't work either, producing the same error.

Now, I'm fairly certain this is an issue specific to mounting sparse bundles from a Time Machine backup, as I'm sure the images themselves are fully intact (I've shasumed all the contents and compared to the source).

Is there a way that I can mount a sparse bundle from a Time Machine backup, without having to copy it in its entirety to somewhere else first?

To be clear, and to disambiguate from similar questions; the disk images I'm referring to are inside my Time Machine backup, they are not the Time Machine backup itself, i.e- I'm backing up to a directly attached drive, not a network disk.

UPDATE: So I had an idea of my own, which was to create a hard-linked copy of the image outside of the Backups.backupdb folder, thinking perhaps that that may be mountable without issues, but this doesn't appear to be possible either. Running gcp -lr to do this results in stat giving a "permission denied" error, so presumably Time Machine backups also resist stating of files for some reason.

If you are ok with creating a temporary shadow file, you can mount it this way:

hdiutil attach -shadow /path/to/store/the/temporary/file.shadow /Volumes/Backup/Backups.backupdb/MachineName/Latest/Path/To/Image.sparsebundle

For succinctness, that is: hdiutil attach -shadow <shadowfile> <imagefile>

Edit: in a previous version of my answer I included the -readonly flag in the command, but I've found that it will sometimes fail with "no mountable file systems" when -readonly is passed. Omitting the flag in these cases allowed the image to be mounted successfully.

As such, I've updated the answer to exclude the -readonly flag. Just note that any changes you make in rw mode will only be written to the shadow file.


Are files saved to iCloud via 3rd party applications accessible from icloud.com web interface through browser? I've recently seen third-party apps like Smultron and iA Writer mentioning in their Mac App Store descriptions that they support iCloud syncing.

Are the files saved to iCloud via these apps accessible from icloud.com? How do they appear? Are they downloadable to e.g. a PC for which the app that saved the file is unavailable?

I'm asking whether or not I am able to access the files with my credentials from (any) web-terminal, all foil hats aside.

You cannot access individual files on iCloud other than the ones made with the iWork suite and that are available on the iWork section of the icloud.com website.

When introducing iCloud, Steve Jobs mentioned that Apple did not think of this service as a big folder in the cloud--a direct contrast with Dropbox. I wrote about this before the launch of iCloud on this Ask Different answer. In short, iCloud is meant to be app-centric.

I would not be surprised if the iWork section of the icloud.com website went away once native iCloud support is added to Keynote, Numbers and Pages. Like it or not, this makes business sense, as it encourages app purchasing.

Hope this helps.


Brew - Node@8 with npm v5 Using Brew I have installed Node 8.x due to a version restriction on something i am working on.

I used brew install node@8 in the command line

However i need npm 5.x for a similar reason, which I gather should be possible. However whatever or however Brew installed node/npm I can not override the npm version which is 6.x

Any ideas how I can get this to work?

I have also tried post install to do npm install -g npm@5 which installs a version of npm somewhere, but it is not overriding the npm installed through node@8

Easier than messing up with Homebrew is to use asdf package manager. With that you can have multiple version of Node.js (as well as many other development tools) installed and configured running different versions in different directories. It looks like you can have it installed using Homebrew:

$ brew install asdf

Then you can install Node.js plugin using

$ asdf plugin-add nodejs

You can list versions of available Node.js versions by

$ asdf list-all nodejs

and choose the desirable versions to install, e.g.

$ asdf install nodejs 8.17.0
$ asdf install nodejs 14.4.0

You need to have asdf in your $PATH before anything else; I am not sure where these are if using Homebrew installed asdf, but Homebrew should tell you how to configure your shell profiles during installation.

You can activate a version of Node.js (and associated NPM) as a global default by

$ asdf global nodejs 14.4.0

or locally in the given directory (and subdirectories) with

$ asdf local nodejs 8.17.0

(which will just write .tools file in the directory specifying the desired version).

Each of the Node.js environment have their own global packets.


Is it possible to echo what your mic records to the speakers? When I talk on my Blackberry with a headset, it echos what I'm recording back into the headphones. This helps me hear my own voice when I'm talking, so I can regulate my volume.

I'm wondering if it's possible in Mac OS to echo what the mic records back into the speakers and even adjust that volume.

If not, should this be handled at the application layer instead of the OS level?

I would take a look at Rogue Amobea's application LineIn. LineIn is a free app and can be found at http://www.rogueamoeba.com/freebies/.

From Rogue Amobea's site:

  LineIn is a simple application for OS X to enable the soft playthru of audio from input devices. In simpler terms, you can use LineIn to play sound coming in through a microphone or any other device plugged in to your Sound In port, just as was once available with OS 9's "Play input through output device" option.


Encrypting issue, laptop restarting all the time I started an Encryption process on my 12TB RAID 1 LaCie 2Big (APFS) a few days ago. The drive contained 2.5TB data.

The laptop was crashing and restarting several times. Then I plugged the drive into my iMac 2011.
The iMac is not restarting, but the process is extremely slow. It seems I would need weeks or months to finish.
Since that I have deleted 2TB data, only 500GB left (the most important ones), but the process didn’t speed up.
I’m trying to copy the data to another drive, but it shows that many files are corrupted; therefore I can’t even copy the files to another drive.

Can anybody give advice what to do? I would like to copy the data to another drive and to try to format the LaCie 2 Big, though I don’t know is it possible while this never-ending encryption is ongoing.

I’m on a late 2016 MBP, running High Sierra. Many thanks!

The encryption process speed varies, and it can take a day per TB.

Just let it run all the time (overnight included)

There is not much you can do to sped it up.


How did my Apple Watch answer a phone call after my iPhone's battery died? I have an original 1st generation Apple Watch Sport paired to an iPhone 6.

While at home, I had a scenario where my iPhone's battery died while I was typing out a text message. Without thinking, I held down the Digital Crown to send my message using Siri.

To my surprise, a few moments later I felt my Apple Watch ringing with a phone call from my friend.

Somehow, I was able to send texts and answer phone calls on my Apple Watch, despite my paired iPhone having a dead battery.

How is this possible?

This is WiFi calling and iMessage in action.

iMessage is a messaging service that is brokered through Apple's iCloud servers and delivers point to point messages to multiple devices instead of needing SMS to deliver a message to a mobile phone. This allows messages on macOS, iPad, iPod touch and Apple Watch to send and receive messages "from" and "to" mobile numbers.

WiFi calling is even better - it links the carrier directly to your Apple devices that are not your iPhone. It is basically a VOIP bridge from the iCloud authenticated devices to a gateway server that bridges the call to the telephone network.

  Make and receive Wi-Fi calls from another device

  If your carrier supports Wi-Fi Calling on iCloud-connected devices,
  you can also make and receive Wi-Fi calls on other devices. You can
  use Wi-Fi Calling on these devices, even if your iPhone isn't on the
  same Wi-Fi Network or turned on:

  iPad or iPod touch with iOS 9 or later
  Apple Watch with watchOS 2 or later
  Mac (2012 or later model) with OS X El Capitan

  Wi-Fi Calling isn't available on Mac Pro (Mid 2012).

  Make sure that you're signed in to iCloud and FaceTime with the same
  Apple ID that you use on your iPhone. Also make sure that your devices
  have the latest software.

  Apple Support - Make a call with Wi-Fi Calling

Pretty amazing time to be alive — our phone calls, video conferences and messages are now bits to be sent and received as digital data streams.


Changing yahoo messanger's status using mac terminal Does anybody know how I can change my yahoo messenger's status using a command in mac terminal !? Or anything except the regular way to change it !?
thanx

You could try to see if "Automator" would allow you to automate it, but I don't see any cmd line parameters to messenger on the mac.


Can not access certain websites from my MacBook or iPhone [WiFi] I can't access certain websites from either my MacBook nor from my iPhone when connected to my WiFi network, but the same websites can be reached from a Windows computer connected on the same network. Three days ago everything worked, but then it stopped working.

This is what happens when I try to ping it:

PING ilpost.it (151.1.175.113): 56 data bytes
Request timeout for icmp_seq 0
Request timeout for icmp_seq 1
Request timeout for icmp_seq 2
...

And when I try to traceroute it:

host-001:~ j$ traceroute www.ilpost.it
traceroute to ilpost.it (151.1.175.113), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
 1  vodafonedslrouter (192.168.1.1)  2.965 ms  0.743 ms  0.745 ms
 2  * 2.96.54.77.rev.vodafone.pt (77.54.96.2)  12.076 ms  10.871 ms
 3  77.41.30.213.rev.vodafone.pt (213.30.41.77)  14.145 ms  10.693 ms  11.960 ms
 4  85.205.11.49 (85.205.11.49)  9.658 ms  8.946 ms  9.085 ms
 5  85.205.13.105 (85.205.13.105)  57.497 ms  57.621 ms  48.080 ms
 6  188.111.129.17 (188.111.129.17)  49.483 ms  51.338 ms  48.852 ms
 7  85.205.25.174 (85.205.25.174)  47.891 ms  49.219 ms  47.821 ms
 8  * * *
 9  * * *
10  * * *
11  * * *

I've flushed my DNS cache but nothing changed.

This is quite dramatic as it seems to depend on 85.205.25.174 hop and I don't know how to avoid it.

Ping (ICMP) packets can be blocked though you are still able to access the website.

Telnet to port 80 is actually a better test to verify whether you are able to connect or not.

Over here connecting to http://ilpost.it results in no problem:

$ telnet ilpost.it 80                                                                   (28-09-12 13:58)
Trying 151.1.175.113...
Connected to ilpost.it.

Although ilpost.it redirects to http://www.ilpost.it/


Why can't I easily open web browsers from the terminal application? In order to run Chrome from the Terminal application, I have to do

open -a "Google Chrome" index.html

rather than just something like "chrome index.html".

The same also seems to be true for Firefox.

It's not because I can't open any GUI applications from the command line. For example, I can do mate . to open TextMate.

What's the rationale for web browsers not having a command like "chrome index.html"?

It's probably safe to say that most Mac users do not open GUI apps via the CLI, which is why most GUI apps do not include the CLI support like TextMate does.  In other words, TextMate actually includes a binary executable named mate which is installed in $PATH, which is why one does not need to preface it with the open command like opening a GUI app which does not include that type of CLI support.

If you want to emulate that behavior then create a script named chrome placed in the $PATH, typically /usr/local/bin/ for something such as this.

Example:

#!/bin/bash

if [ -n "$1" ]; then
    open -a "Google Chrome" "$1"
else
    open -a "Google Chrome"
fi

Save the above code in a plain text file named chrome and make it executable by:

chmod +x chrome

Then you can start Google Chrome via CLI by chrome or chrome URL where URL is properly formatted if not just a filename in the $PWD.


Cloudd quit unexpectedly Ever since I upgraded to Yosemite, I have been experiencing cloudd quit unexpectedly bug reports popping up at front very very often.

The issue is :

Crashed Thread:        0  Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread

Exception Type:        EXC_CRASH (SIGABRT)
Exception Codes:       0x0000000000000000, 0x0000000000000000

Application Specific Information:
*** Terminating app due to uncaught exception 'NSGenericException', reason: 'Error opening db at /Users/peter/Library/Caches/CloudKit/CloudKitMetadata: <CKError 0x7f8bc1419590: "Internal Error" (1)> (14/0x000e/unable to open database file)'
terminating with uncaught exception of type NSException
abort() called

Application Specific Backtrace 1:
0   CoreFoundation                      0x00007fff88a6464c __exceptionPreprocess + 172
1   libobjc.A.dylib                     0x00007fff89b036de objc_exception_throw + 43
2   CoreFoundation                      0x00007fff88a644fd +[NSException raise:format:] + 205
3   CloudKit                            0x00007fff83448a47 -[CKSQLite raise:] + 516
4   CloudKit                            0x00007fff834483b6 -[CKSQLite open] + 122
5   CloudKitDaemon                      0x000000010b523481 -[CKDMetadataCache init] + 199
6   CloudKitDaemon                      0x000000010b5233a0 __31+[CKDMetadataCache sharedCache]_block_invoke + 41
7   libdispatch.dylib                   0x00007fff88e1fc13 _dispatch_client_callout + 8
8   libdispatch.dylib                   0x00007fff88e1fb26 dispatch_once_f + 117
9   CloudKitDaemon                      0x000000010b523375 +[CKDMetadataCache sharedCache] + 46
10  cloudd                              0x000000010b37e541 cloudd + 5441
11  cloudd                              0x000000010b37e0e0 cloudd + 4320
12  cloudd                              0x000000010b37eace cloudd + 6862
13  libdyld.dylib                       0x00007fff85ebf5c9 start + 1

I do not know if this is relevant, but during 10.9 to 10.10 (yosemite) upgrade, I was asked to log in with my apple ID. I was connected to a WIFI provider (but not logged in) so I wasn't able to log in. The update did continue. On the first session I opened, iCloud kept crashing. I had a really hard time disabling iCloud drive.

The exception message says:

Error opening db at /Users/peter/Library/Caches/CloudKit/CloudKitMetadata

Make sure that cloudd has permissions to write in that directory.
If the directories permissions are fine, maybe the db was corrupted during the update. Try to move the file somewhere else, it's possible cloudd will recreate it if it doesn't see it.


How to recover files from command "git clean -df" I accidentally run the command "git clean -df", so I lost many directories and files, I want to recover them, I don't have backup in time machine. I tried some software to recover, but they don't work.

If you are working with an online repository and you keep it up-to-date you can download all the file from the online repository using the following commands:

git pull                            # in the case the remote is set
git clone <address_of_repository>   # in the case the remote is not set

Using these commands you'll be able to restore your deleted files, obviously only if the online repository is up to date.


Deleting (intrusive?) Facebook files ok? Platform(s): MacOS Catalina (10.15.2) and an iPad (13.3).

Disclaimer: I'm in no way experienced or knowledgeable in anything relating to computers.

Background: I'm keen to cut ties with Facebook completely and thought I'd investigate if there are any Facebook files lurking around on my Mac to do whatever Facebook files likes to do; spying, stealing info etc.

Found: I found the following files using Double Commander, scouring the entire drive.

/System/iOSSupport/System/Library/AccessibilityBundles/FacebookSettings.axbundle
/System/iOSSupport/System/Library/AccessibilityBundles/FacebookSettings.axbundle/Contents/MacOS/FacebookSettings
/System/Library/Accounts/Access/FacebookAccessPlugin.bundle
/System/Library/Accounts/Access/FacebookAccessPlugin.bundle/Contents/MacOS/FacebookAccessPlugin
/System/Library/Accounts/Authentication/FacebookAuthenticationPlugin.bundle
/System/Library/Accounts/Authentication/FacebookAuthenticationPlugin.bundle/Contents/MacOS/FacebookAuthenticationPlugin
/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/CalendarDraw.framework/Versions/A/Resources/FacebookIcon.tiff
/System/Library/Frameworks/Quartz.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/ImageKit.framework/Versions/A/Resources/profile-photo-facebook@2x.png
/System/Library/Frameworks/Quartz.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/ImageKit.framework/Versions/A/Resources/badge-facebook@2x.png
/System/Library/Frameworks/Quartz.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/ImageKit.framework/Versions/A/Resources/badge-facebook.png
/System/Library/Frameworks/Quartz.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/ImageKit.framework/Versions/A/Resources/profile-photo-facebook.png
/System/Library/Frameworks/Social.framework/XPCServices/com.apple.facebook.xpc
/System/Library/Frameworks/Social.framework/XPCServices/com.apple.facebook.xpc/Contents/MacOS/com.apple.facebook
/System/Library/Frameworks/Social.framework/XPCServices/com.apple.facebook.xpc/Contents/Resources/FacebookContactUpdater
/System/Library/Frameworks/Social.framework/XPCServices/com.apple.facebook.xpc/Contents/Resources/FacebookIcon.icns
/System/Applications/News.app/Contents/Resources/facebook.js
/System/Volumes/Data/Users/idontthinkso/Library/Caches/Firefox/Profiles/8joe3ovp.default-release/safebrowsing/social-tracking-protection-facebook-digest256.vlpset
/System/Volumes/Data/Users/idontthinkso/Library/Caches/Firefox/Profiles/8joe3ovp.default-release/safebrowsing/social-tracking-protection-facebook-digest256.sbstore

Question: Are these all safe to delete?

Bonus question!: Is there a Terminal command to delete files in this manner? As there is for xCode etc.

While I am not aware of the insides in detail, but I can comment(answer) on some.
/System/iOSSupport/System/Library/AccessibilityBundles/FacebookSettings.axbundle
/System/iOSSupport/System/Library/AccessibilityBundles/FacebookSettings.axbundle/Contents/MacOS/FacebookSettings

https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=zh-CN&u=http://www.duozy.com/article/44379.html&prev=search

http://yesanotheriphoneblog.blogspot.com/p/apple-apps-removal-list-60.html
indicate that these should be deleted from an iPhone after jailbreaking or otherwise to delete Facebook app from the iPhone. No comment on macOS there. However, I don't even have this(FacebookSettings.axbundle) on my Mac and never had FB on iPhone either.

/System/Library/Accounts/Access/FacebookAccessPlugin.bundle
/System/Library/Accounts/Access/FacebookAccessPlugin.bundle/Contents/MacOS/FacebookAccessPlugin

https://opensource.apple.com/source/kext_tools/kext_tools-326.1.12/systempaths.plist.auto.html
lists them for some reason.

All the tiff, png, icns files are just images and icons and I wouldn't mind them sitting where they are.
For the news one, it's a JavaScript file and it can be worth reading, if it's readable, to see what it has.
For the last two of Firefox, I routinely delete the Profiles folder every time YouTube's suggestions become obsolete or one sided. So you can delete that folder using Finder (yay!) and see if it comes up again. It could be a good thing to save to protect you from tracking!


Include files from secondary hard drive in spotlight searches I have an SSD as my boot partition and a HDD for all my documents on my Mac (OS X Mavericks).
I have noticed that I am unable to search for files on Spotlight that are located on my HDD.

I suspect they are not being indexed as they are not on the OS drive. How can I include them?

All hard drives (both internal and external) can be searched though Spotlight. It's possible that it may need to be re-indexed.

To do this, go to System Preferences > Spotlight, then click on "Privacy". Click on the "+" button and select the hard drive that you wish to re-index. After that, select the hard drive within the Privacy list, and select the "-" button.

It should start to re-index the hard drive in question (you should see a progress bar in Spotlight when you click on it).


Is it possible to install Ubuntu on my iPod Touch 2G? I just wander whether it is possible to install Ubuntu in my iPod Touch 2G just for fun.

It's possible, but very impractical for several reasons.

Ubuntu is built for Intel x86/x64 officially, and unofficially for the PowerPC (old Macs and the PS3). iPod/iPhone/iPad is built off the ARM architecture, meaning you'd need to do a full rebuild of every single package.
You'd have to exploit the phone to load Ubuntu on to it, and use an exploited bootloader to load anything but a signed iOS.
You'd have to write custom drivers for everything you expected to work, such as the webcam, virtual keyboard, etc.

I'd look into the progress of Android on iPhone. Last I know, Froyo was running alright on an iPhone 3G. Since the full chain of trust has been compromised on all devices except the Verizon iPhone and the iPad 2, it's possible, but the Android port is suffering all the issues I listed above.

Edit: Ubuntu will also expect much more RAM and a much faster processor than the older iDevices have, but the newer devices are more up to par.


Making a bootable USB OS X Installer from iso on Linux I followed the procedure for using dd to put an OS X iso on a USB stick from Linux that is described here. The problem I'm having is that my Late 2006 Intel MacBook does not recognize the USB stick at all. I cannot use a Mac to install this because the Mac boots into a kernel panic(which is why I am reinstalling the OS).

command used that failed: sudo dd bs=4M if="./macosx" of=/dev/sdb && sync

I think that you also need to bless that partition in order to make it bootable.

This is what I'd use on a Mac, but not sure if it still works on Linux box.

sudo bless -folder /Volumes/TARGET/System/Library/CoreServices


In Bootcamp, I can't get past the "Create Partition for Windows" stage I've been trying to install a copy of Windows 7 on my MacBook Air, but I have not been able to get past the "Crate a Partition for Windows" stage. I tried clicking on the "Install" button, but nothing happened. I wonder what is going on. Just for your info, if it matters, I have a 2011 MBA (1.7 GHz Intel Core i5, 128 GB SSD, 4 GB ram, and I have OSX 10.8.4 installed). Thanks!

I remember having this problem with my 2009 MacBook Air. I never did manage to actually fix it, but I ended up making the partition using Disk Utility. This seemed to work fine.


MacBook Pro takes longer time to open some apps while connected to wifi I am using a 2017 None Touch Bar MacBook Pro. It's running on MacOs Catalina 10.15.5 (19F101). I have noticed many times that when I try to open some apps like Chrome, IINA player etc, while connected to WiFi, it takes a lots of time. But as soon as I turn off WiFi, they start immediately. Also when I try to open those without connecting to wifi, they also start immediately. Anyone have experiencing this scenario.
My WiFi connectivity is 3Ghz IPV4 and It does not have any issue with my other connected devices like iPhone.

Starting with macOS Catalina, macOS now automatically sends the signature of every executable you open to Apple. Obviously, if you don't have an internet connection, it won't check with Apple's servers. When you do have an internet connection, it must send the signature to Apple's servers, then wait for the response. This is made worse by slower internet.


iPad restarting every 5 minutes after updating to iOS 9 After the update on iOS 9, iPad 3 with Cellular Model A1430 itself is restarting after 5 minutes. I made hard reset but it didn't help me. I didn't drop my iPad. How can I fix it?

I'd use iTunes to update it to iOS 9.0.1, which just came out today and fixes a lot of problems with the original release.


How to check if MacBook screen is genuine? I bought used MacBook Pro and have suspicion that screen was replaced and the replacement is not genuine. Is there a way to check that?

In terminal.app you can paste this command to find out which display you're using:

system_profiler SPDisplaysDataType

which should return all of your Graphics/Display information.

Now the question is what is genuine? Apple and just about every other company uses parts from many different manufacturers at any given time. The only way to know is by identifying the exact model and serial number of your MacBook Pro and then determining which part was used in that particular batch.


How to resolve dropping wifi issue since Yosemite upgrade? As of today I experience random wifi connection drops on my MacBook Air 2012 that force me to reselect the network every ten minutes. The only recent change to the system was an upgrade to Yosemite. A google search indicated that others have the problem as well, yet as of yet I could not find a solution.

How to fix this issue?

Apple released the 10.10.1 update today, which is supposed to fix many wifi issues.


Inheriting Time Machine Backup: Invalid Target So I got myself a shiny new Mac Mini, finally got everything transferred over from my old machine, and want to resume backing up using my existing Time Machine disk and backup history (as I've basically transplanted the dead old machine to the new one).

However I just can't get Time Machine to inherit the backup.

Every time I've done this in the past, I would simply choose the volume as a backup disk, and Time Machine would automatically ask me if I wanted to inherit the backup, but it's not doing this this time.

So I tried running the following command instead:

sudo tmutil inheritbackup /Volumes/Backup/Backups.backupdb/Haravikks\ Mac

But I get the following error:

sudo tmutil inheritbackup /Volumes/Backup/Backups.backupdb/Haravikks\ Mac
Usage: tmutil inheritbackup machine_directory
       tmutil inheritbackup sparse_bundle
/Volumes/Backup/Backups.backupdb/Haravikks Mac: Invalid target

The older system was running Mojave, while the new one is Catalina.

I've tried associating all of my disks instead (using tmutil associatedisk /path/to/volume /path/to/snapshot_volume, but if I begin a backup, Time Machine is still determined to start fresh (which I don't have space for) and creates a new machine directory (Haravikks Mac 2), even though the machine name of my new computer is identical.

I've also already given Terminal full disk access (because it's basically useless otherwise, thanks Apple) as that's usually the culprit for other mysterious invalid operations, but tmutil inheritbackup still won't take.

Is there any way that I can find out why Time Machine/tmutil consider my old machine directory invalid? There's nothing in the logs, and tmutil doesn't appear to have a flag for giving more verbose output (unless I've missed it?).

Failing that, is there some way can I force Time Machine to inherit a machine directory?

Update: In case it helps any, I've been noticing a lot of Spotlight related (mdworker) activity on the disk, strange since nothing is being added to it. Could this be related? Again, this didn't happen under Mojave (the disk would sleep between backups).

Update 2: Thanks so much to klanomath for an explanation of where else Time Machine stores data, here's the xattr -l listing for my machine directory:

xattr -l /Volumes/Backup/Backups.backupdb/Haravikks\ Mac
LastModTime: 1574418303756056852
com.apple.backupd.BackupMachineAddress:
00000000  63 38 3A 62 63 3A 63 38 3A 61 33 3A 33 33 3A 31  |c8:bc:c8:a3:33:1|
00000010  31 00                                            |1.|
00000012
com.apple.backupd.HasRecoverySet: YES
com.apple.backupd.HostUUID:
00000000  39 31 31 42 33 43 37 46 2D 35 42 36 36 2D 35 39  |911B3C7F-5B66-59|
00000010  45 30 2D 39 36 41 43 2D 39 31 42 37 35 38 38 43  |E0-96AC-91B7588C|
00000020  44 43 38 46 00                                   |DC8F.|
00000025
com.apple.backupd.ModelID: Macmini4,1
com.apple.backupd.RecoverySetName: 0

All relevant UUIDs and other Time Machine metadata are stored in /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist on the host side (the Mac to be backed up)! The file contains (probably the old) hostUUID (hardware), destination volume UUID (backup volume) and all IncludedVolumeUUIDs (source volumes). To get your current volume IDs use diskutil info diskXsY and the volumeID of the vanished Mojave volume is in the plist. The new hostUUID (hardware) and MAC are available in System Infomation.app > Hardware and Hardware > Ethernet-cards.

The com.apple.TimeMachine.plist may be populated with new UUIDs partly, you also have to grab the old com.apple.TimeMachine.plist from the backup.

All relevant Time Machine metadata on the side of the destination disk (the backup volume) are stored as extended attributes attached to the machine folder and subsequent snapshots and the included volumes:

machine folder

Example:

xattr -l /Volumes/Backup/Backups.backupdb/Haravikks\ Mac

and the volume folder(s) (in the latest backup of the old Mac).

Example:

xattr -l /Volumes/Backup/Backups.backupdb/Haravikks\ Mac/2019-10-19-125832/Macintosh\ HD

(This is a lot of back & forth. Best is to collect all data in some data sheet. Then it's easier to compare all plist entries/extended attributes and extract the proper ones)

After associating and inheriting a machine directory I expect various UUIDs and other data to be equal in the plist and the extended attributes on the one hand and the hardware/disk info of the new Mac on the other hand.

This is: BackupMachineAddress, HostUUID, ModelID and RecoveryPartitionVolumeUUID (
if available) on the host folder and various UUIDs in the plist.

If tmutil initiated inheritance fails, one has to use enforced adoption (or marry rich and get a larger backup drive):

To modify the extended attributs you have to read out (to reapply them later) and remove the ACLs of Backups.backupdb and Backups.backupdb/Haravikks\ Mac because both folders are heavily protected. Then apply new extended attributes (partly extracted from the plist and the new hardware info) and reinstate the ACLs you removed previously.

To get the ACLs use ls -le [folder1|2]. To remove the ACLs use sudo chmod -N [folder1] [folder2]. To apply new extended attributes use sudo xattr -w [ext_attr] [value] [/path/to/folder].

Examples:

If you found a ModelID Macmini4,1 in the extended attributes of /Volumes/Backup/Backups.backupdb/Haravikks\ Mac but the ModelID of the new Mac is Macmini8,1 you would have to update it like this:

sudo xattr -w com.apple.backupd.ModelID Macmini8,1 /Volumes/Backup/Backups.backupdb/Haravikks\ Mac

To update BackupMachineAddress (a MAC address of the new Mac) and HostUUID (the Hardware-UUID of the new Mac) use:

sudo xattr -w com.apple.backupd.BackupMachineAddress ac:87:b5:ca:c4:7a /Volumes/Backup/Backups.backupdb/Haravikks\ Mac
sudo xattr -w com.apple.backupd.HostUUID A7D80431-E567-389A-CC33-8321E461D431 /Volumes/Backup/Backups.backupdb/Haravikks\ Mac

To restore the ACLs use sudo chmod +a 'group:everyone deny ... writeextattr,chown' [folder1] [folder2]

Afterwards unmount the backup volume. Mount the backup volume again, open the Time Machine PrefPane and wait until the window is populated with the proper dest volume(s).

If you post all relevant data (which is a lot and somehow private) I could work out all commands properly.

This is untested and some "joy of experimentation" is required but it should work finally - somehow (|⚒)! At least it sheds some light on the files and attributes Time Machine uses to determine the validity of backup machine directories and what to change to re-establish assignments.


Completely turn off OS X Websites I'd like to run OS X Server, but not the website portion of it, as I'm using something else for that.

I'm trying to run SiriProxy, which must run on port 443, but that is currently in use even though web services are turned off. When I visit 127.0.0.1:443, I get the "web service is currently turned off" message.

How do I completely turn off web services and allow another process to listen on 443?

Check your httpd.conf file in /private/etc/apache2/ and see if you have the line:

listen 443

If it's there, comment out by prepending the line with '#'

# listen 443

The restart your server service.


Automator service for encrypting or decrypting with openssl Can I create two Automator services that allow me to encrypt or decrypt files? So I would right click a file and click 'Encrypt', the .txt file would be encrypted to a .enc using openssl:

pass=$(osascript -e 'tell app (path to frontmost application as text)
text returned of (display dialog "Enter password:" default answer "")
end')
for f in "$@"; do
    printf %s "$pass" | openssl enc -aes-256-cbc -salt -in "$f" -out "${f%.*}.enc" -pass stdin
done

Can I create a decrypt version that will give me the original .txt file back? Or can I write one service that knows if I want to encrypt or decrypt and run in the way necessary?

Select the service template, change the input type to files, add a Run Shell Script action, select pass input as arguments, and paste this script:

pass() {
    osascript - "$1" <<END
    on run args
    tell app (path to frontmost application as text)
    text returned of (display dialog ("Enter password for " & item 1 of args) default answer "")
    end
    end
END
    [ $? != 0 ] && exit 0
}

for f in "$@"; do
    if [[ "$f" == *.enc ]]; then
        pass "$f" | openssl enc -d -aes-256-cbc -pass stdin -in "$f" -out "${f%.enc}"
    else
        pass "$f.enc" | openssl enc -aes-256-cbc -salt -pass stdin -in "$f" -out "$f.enc"
    fi
done
exit 0

It doesn't show specific error messages, you have to run the service again if you enter a wrong password, and there is no way to use the same password for multiple files. It would be easier to just do it from a shell.


Time Machine backing up slowly I hadn't backed up to Time Machine in 20 days, and now that I am trying to do so I have yet to succeed.

It got stuck a few times with a few KB; other times it took forever do everything, from preparing the backup to actually transferring files. It's supposedly trying to backup 40GB and after 8 hours not even 1 GB is done. I have to stop it because I have to take my 2009 Macbook running Lion out.

I ran Volume Repair on the external HD and everything came back fine. I also tried manually copy pasting a large video file to that volume and it copied quite fast. So must be something with Time Machine itself.

Can anyone help?

Speaking of 40GB I feel like that's way too much data that has changed over 20 days. I don't think that is correct. How can I check what is being backed up anyway?

Edit:

I ran tmutil. Final tally:

Added:         18.4G
Removed:       13.3G
Changed:       19.1G

Is this what TM means when it tells me it's backing up 40GB? Including stuff that will be removed?

I believe this is a staleness prevention.  That whenever there is too long between backups Time Machine uses a more thorough way to ensure that the backup is complete.

It is my understanding that the 40 GB is a "this is how much we consider for backing up" and that the actual data transferred may prove to be a lot less if the files turned out to still be identical.

Based on your description I believe that you have reached a point where you need to let your Time Machine backup catch up - work on its own until it is done, if at all possible.  If you cannot wait for that, perhaps now is a good time to buy a new drive and use that instead and have the old drive as a backup backup.


Copy an application over to another phone? I have a very old demo application on my iPhone. It was on the app store a long time ago (1 year) the guy who developed it works with me. He's since taken the app off iTunes, however our boss wants to demo it tomorrow. Anyone know how I can go about getting the application onto his phone bearing in mind the following:

We can't deploy from the developer's computer
It's not on iTunes

You can't just copy it, because it won't match the profiles.

Your only hope is use a provisioning profile and set your boss' phone as a development device

Here's how.


Removing trusted Phone number My phone number inadvertently got added as a trusted phone number for someone else's iPad.
The issue is that there isnt another number to use in its place.
So a couple of question in here, is it possible to just remove the trusted number and if not, is there a way to ensure the 2FA uses trusted devices rather than the trusted number for verification purposes?

From Apple KB - Two-factor authentication for Apple ID

You can update your trusted phone numbers by following these steps:
Go to your Apple ID account page.
Sign in with your Apple ID.
Go
to the Security section and click Edit.
If you want to add a phone number, click Add a Trusted Phone Number
and enter the phone number. Choose to verify the number with a text
message or an automated phone call, and click Continue. To remove a
trusted phone number, click x icon next to the phone number you want
to remove.

Presumably, if this is someone else's iPad, they will have to do the removal.
Alternatively, you may be able to see & remove their device from the Devices list on your Apple ID page. I'm not sure how this would affect future trust, as it wouldn't necessarily clear the number from their account.


How can you manage permissions about which users can Add/Modify other users? I know in the unix world, if you wanted to be granular about whether a user could modify user accounts, you can specify whether they can sudo the useradd usermod commands.

I am not just looking for the answer "just make them an Admin user", because basically I want the following :

User Andy   , has all admin privileges

User Betty , has all admin privileges, except for removing Andy as an Admin user.

References

[1] Best practice for installing applications for multiple users?

This isn't possible on OS X.

An admin user is root. All admin users are root, if they know how to do something or get into terminal, they can do anything.

You might need to set up Server or pick a tool to do this. My favorite tool for situations where you need to give users the ability to do admin things and have them be non-admin users is to deploy JAMF's Casper suite.

If your time isn't valued high and you don't mind re-inventing the wheel, you could use a tool like munki to re-implement a set of tools that allow limited sudo items and wrap it in your own authentication layer to reduce the chance of allowing true Admin access, but I've never seen a case where it's cheaper to really set this up than to purchase a tool designed for exactly this use case.

You can still avail yourself of the sudo commands, but if you let a user be an admin privilege - they can and will have full run of the GUI versions of the tools that can create, destroy users (as well as modify the sudo files).


AppleScript: Open URL in specific tab (Google Chrome) I can no longer open a URL in a specific tab using AppleScript.
I tried the following code without success:

set URL of tab 1 to "https://"

and

set myLink to "https://"
tell application "Google Chrome"
    activate
    tell front window to make new tab 1 with properties {URL:myLink}
end tell

neither of which perform the desired action.

Question
What do I need to change in the code in order to be able to accomplish this task?

This works for me on the latest version of macOS Sierra

set myLink to "https://google.com/"

tell application "Google Chrome"
    tell its window 1
        set theTabs to count of tabs -- how mmany open tabs
        set URL of tab 1 to myLink -- insert desired tab
        --set URL of (make new tab) to myLink
    end tell
end tell


Force installing untrusted Safari extensions Before Safari 9, I was able to install any extension on Safari without any problems, but after Apple updated its Developer Program, it seems that I can't install extensions not already signed by Apple and in Safari Extension Gallery. I had two untrusted extensions installed and working, but had to remove those and I can't install them again.

I'm still having hope, because when I double click the extension file, Safari shows me a dialog like this:

But nothing happens when I click on Trust. It just dismisses the dialog and won't install the extension. Is there any way I can install this extension?

Copied from: Safari 9 - I cannot install extensions

To install a .safariextz file, go to:

System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Keyboard
  (for OS X 10.11.4+)

or

System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Full Keyboard Access
  (for OS X 10.11.1 to 10.11.3)

Then at the bottom of that dialog box, change the Full Keyboard Access:... option from Text boxes and lists only to All controls. You can then dismiss that System Preferences window.

Then, return to installing the extension. Double click your Safari Extension file and when the "Are you sure you want to install..." dialog box appears, do not click on the Trust button. Instead, use tab to select the Trust button and then confirm by hitting space. That should install the extension as required.


Will an external USB 3.0 hard drive connected to an Elgato Thunderbolt 2 Dock run at USB 3.0 speeds even though the Macbook Pro is USB 2.0 only? I have an older Macbook Pro (8,2 - Late 2011).  It doesn't have a usb 3.0 port, only USB 2.0 ports. I have an Elgato Thunderbolt 2 Dock with a WD External HD, USB 3.0.

I was expecting to see USB 3.0 type speeds, but only get transfer rates around 35MB/s, which looks like USB 2.0.

Can a MacBook Pro that only has USB 2.0 ports realize USB 3.0 transfer rates when connected to a Thunderbolt Dock that has USB 3.0 ports and an external usb 3.0 hard drive?

The device you're mentioning, the Elgato Thunderbolt 2 Dock, provides USB 3.0 ports. As commented by someone else, Thunderbolt is a PCIe extension and thus is not limited by the USB 2.0 bus of your laptop. As such, it is possible for USB 3.0 to be something that is offered by a dock like what you mention.

USB is a feature offered (typically) by the Intel chipset and tends to be driven these days off of one of the PCIe lines from the CPU. Your computer tends to have a controller that translates the PCIe line to a USB interface (in the CPU's supporting Intel chipset) and would support only the specification that it came with. For example, a MacPro3,1 (2008) uses an Intel chipset that supports USB 2.0 devices.

An easy upgrade for those machines is to install a PCI Express card to gain support for USB 3.0 similar to what you'd do with the Thunderbolt dock, i.e. a USB 3.0 controller that sits on the PCIe bus. Of course, any devices on the PCIe bus needs to be recognized by the operating system and thus requires drivers. However, drivers for some USB controllers (e.g. the FL1100) are supported by macOS / OSX 10.8+ and will just work.

Of course, the USB connector does slightly differ between 3.0 and previous specs; the 3.0 connector has a few extra pins that are key to the higher speeds.


Connecting a Dell XPS running Windows 8.1 to a Thunderbolt Display Can I connect a Dell XPS running Windows 8.1 to a Thunderbolt Display?  Based on reading other questions and answers on your site it seems that this is possible.  When I plug in the Thunderbolt to the Dell XPS via the Dells thunderbolt sized female input i get no response and am not able to "find" the Thunderbolt in the Display controls area.

I don't believe your "Thunderbolt" port on your Dell XPS is a Thunderbolt port, it's more likely to be a DisplayPort connector. I'm not aware of Dell making any equipment that has a Thunderbolt port. Thunderbolt and DisplayPort do use an identical form factor, so it's easy to get them confused.

You cannot use a Thunderbolt display in a DisplayPort connector.

Since this answer was originally written, Dell has indeed added Thunderbolt 2 or 3 ports to their XPS line of laptops. Double check it is a thunderbolt port in the specs of your exact model and year, but a Dell XPS works well with my Thunderbolt display since the addition of a Thunderbolt port.


Quick Look a URL via a script (Applescript, Automator, Shell…)? Lion added the ability to Quick Look a URL in an application (like Mail.app). I would like to use that functionality from a script.

Is that possible?

There is also an Automator action for displaying a website in a Quick Look like window:

automator -i http://apple.com Desktop/Website\ Popup.workflow


MackBook Pro Clean Install Issue? Recently, my HDD went bad in my laptop, so I bought a new HDD and a copy of Snow Leopard.

I put the HDD into the computer, then inserted the installation disk into the DVD drive. I went into Disk utility, then created a partition for Mac OSX extended (journal) then, started the install. It said 29 mins, then I got a install failure saying that it had an error copying over the support files.

What did I do wrong?

Also NOTE: the screen looked glitch-y. Some parts looked wierd on the screen, like a Graphics driver was not installed.

Sorry I don't have the reputation to comment yet.

Is this a standalone copy of SL or is it from someone else's Mac? The included disk with another system is not guaranteed to work with a different model of Mac.

Have your tried erasing the HDD again from Disk Utility, be sure to select the drive(not the indented logic drive) and let it rebuild the GUID again.

You can also try an NVRAM reset before running the Installation(Instructions Here) in hopes that will solve the video issues you run into.


Why is it that my 2014 MacBook pro faster than my 2017 iMac My MacBook is old and overheats a lot, and my iMac is new, has 4k resolution, a quad core CPU, but it's slow.
The main difference is that my new iMac has a 1TB HDD, and my old MacBook has a 128GB SSD.
Why is the older computer faster than the new one?
What can I do to speed it up?

Pretty much any SSD is going to be much faster than an HDD.
You're looking at much faster read speeds on an SSD.
A typical 7200 RPM HDD will deliver a read/write speed of 80-160MB/s. On the other hand, a typical SSD will deliver read/write speed of between 200 MB/s to 550 MB/s.
Source
But, fret not! You can add an SSD to your iMac.
Here's a link from the Apple's website. Here. I'm sure you can find a DIY guide there somewhere. Or check with your local Apple Authorized Service Provider.
But answering your question, if your 2014 has an SSD and your 2017 has a HDD, the one with the SSD is going to be faster, regardless of the year.


Triple boot on MBP 2019 (T2) My goal was to install onto a 2019 Macbook Pro (with a T2 chip) :

OS X Catalina
Windows 10 Pro (1)
Windows 10 Pro (2)

I managed to do so by using Bootcamp for the first Win10, and a bootable USB to install the second Win10.

But when i hold the option key i'm only presented with two choices :

If i select Windows i'll be presented with the Bitlocker Password step and only after that i'll be able to choose between my two Windows 10 installations.

What i would like is to have the two separate Win10 presented after i held the option key like this :

EDIT :
Is there any way this can be done on a single internal SSD witouth using rEFInd but ONLY the Startup Manager from Apple ? and how ?

I can post more informations about my setup if needed.

Here is the output of diskutil list :

   /dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     314.6 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk2         740.0 GB   disk0s2
   3:       Microsoft Basic Data                         129.7 GB   disk0s3
   4:           Windows Recovery                         569.4 MB   disk0s4
   5:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         25.0 GB    disk0s5
   6:           Windows Recovery                         554.7 MB   disk0s6
   7:                        EFI NO NAME                 314.6 MB   disk0s7
   8:         Microsoft Reserved                         16.8 MB    disk0s8
   9:           Windows Recovery                         554.7 MB   disk0s9
  10:                        EFI NO NAME                 314.6 MB   disk0s10
  11:       Microsoft Basic Data Loisir                  62.0 GB    disk0s11
  12:           Windows Recovery                         554.7 MB   disk0s12
  13:                        EFI NO NAME                 314.6 MB   disk0s13

    /dev/disk2 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +740.0 GB   disk2
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume Macintosh HD            10.7 GB    disk2s1
   2:                APFS Volume Macintosh HD - Data     25.6 GB    disk2s2
   3:                APFS Volume Preboot                 81.3 MB    disk2s3
   4:                APFS Volume Recovery                528.5 MB   disk2s4
   5:                APFS Volume VM                      1.1 GB     disk2s5

Thanks in advance.

You need to use the bcdboot command to create the boot files for each Windows installation in separate EFI partitions.

  Note: This answer assume Bitlocker has be disabled. In other words, the answer assumes the Windows NTFS partitions are not encrypted.

Below is an example which closely (but not exactly) matches your situation.

Here, I have already setup two Windows 10 installations where the boot manager, shown below, is used to choose which Windows to boot.

The drive, used in this example, contains your 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 7th, 8th and 11th partitions, albeit the sizes might be different. Also, note the following:

My equivalent to your 3rd partition has the label BOOTCAMP.
My equivalent to your 7th partition is a unformatted and of type Microsoft Basic Data.

For simplicity, I did not include separate recovery partitions. However, creating these partitions for both Windows installations is possible. If using the Boot Camp Assistant to create the first Windows installation, then you probably will need to create and initialize the recovery partition after Windows finishes installing.

  Note: A good new question would be how to create the second Windows installation without making such a mess of the partitioning.

Here I will assume you correctly built the Windows USB installer.

  Below is the procedure I used to separate the booting of the two Windows installations.

Boot from the Windows 10 USB installer. Proceed until you reach the screen shown below.

  At this point, any drivers that may be required to access disk0 have been loaded.

Next, enter the shift+F10 key combination to open a Command Prompt window, as shown below.

Next, use the diskpart, ren and bcdboot commands to separate the booting of the two Windows installations. Below is an example of how I accomplished this. Most of the work involves creating the second EFI partition.

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.18362.418]
(c) 2019 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

X:\Sources>diskpart

Microsoft DiskPart version 10.0.18362.1

Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation.
On computer: MINWINPC

DISKPART> select disk 0

Disk 0 is now the selected disk.

DISKPART> list partition

  Partition ###  Type              Size     Offset
  -------------  ----------------  -------  -------
  Partition 1    System             315 MB  1024 KB
  Partition 2    Unknown            722 GB   316 MB
  Partition 3    Primary            208 GB   722 GB
  Partition 4    Primary            315 MB   931 GB
  Partition 5    Reserved            16 MB   931 GB
  Partition 6    Primary             68 GB   931 GB

DISKPART> list volume

  Volume ###  Ltr  Label        Fs     Type        Size     Status     Info
  ----------  ---  -----------  -----  ----------  -------  ---------  --------
  Volume 0     E   WinInstall   exFAT  Removable     14 GB  Healthy
  Volume 1     C   BOOTCAMP     NTFS   Partition    208 GB  Healthy
  Volume 2                      RAW    Partition    315 MB  Healthy
  Volume 3     D   Loisir       NTFS   Partition     68 GB  Healthy
  Volume 4         EFI          FAT32  Partition    315 MB  Healthy    Hidden

DISKPART> select volume 4

Volume 4 is the selected volume.

DISKPART> assign letter=s

DiskPart successfully assigned the drive letter or mount point.

DISKPART> select volume 2

Volume 2 is the selected volume.

DISKPART> format fs=fat32 label=EFI2 quick

  100 percent completed

DiskPart successfully formatted the volume.

DISKPART> set id=c12a7328-f81f-11d2-ba4b-00a0c93ec93b

DiskPart successfully set the partition ID.

DISKPART> gpt attributes=0x0000000000000000

DiskPart successfully assigned the attributes to the selected GPT partition.

DISKPART> assign letter=t

DiskPart successfully assigned the drive letter or mount point.

DISKPART> detail partition

Partition 4
Type    : c12a7328-f81f-11d2-ba4b-00a0c93ec93b
Hidden  : Yes
Required: No
Attrib  : 0000000000000000
Offset in Bytes: 1000340455424

  Volume ###  Ltr  Label        Fs     Type        Size     Status     Info
  ----------  ---  -----------  -----  ----------  -------  ---------  --------
* Volume 2     T   EFI2         FAT32  Partition    315 MB  Healthy    Hidden

DISKPART> list partition

  Partition ###  Type              Size     Offset
  -------------  ----------------  -------  -------
  Partition 1    System             315 MB  1024 KB
  Partition 2    Unknown            722 GB   316 MB
  Partition 3    Primary            208 GB   722 GB
* Partition 4    System             315 MB   931 GB
  Partition 5    Reserved            16 MB   931 GB
  Partition 6    Primary             68 GB   931 GB

DISKPART> list volume

  Volume ###  Ltr  Label        Fs     Type        Size     Status     Info
  ----------  ---  -----------  -----  ----------  -------  ---------  --------
  Volume 0     E   WinInstall   exFAT  Removable     14 GB  Healthy
  Volume 1     C   BOOTCAMP     NTFS   Partition    208 GB  Healthy
* Volume 2     T   EFI2         FAT32  Partition    315 MB  Healthy    Hidden
  Volume 3     D   Loisir       NTFS   Partition     68 GB  Healthy
  Volume 4     S   EFI          FAT32  Partition    315 MB  Healthy    Hidden

DISKPART> exit

Leaving DiskPart...

X:\Sources>ren s:\efi\microsoft\boot\bcd BCD.original

X:\Sources>bcdboot c:\windows /s s:
Boot files successfully created.

X:\Sources>bcdboot d:\windows /s t:
Boot files successfully created.

X:\Sources>exit

After the Command Prompt window closes, you can abort the Windows installation.

References

UEFI/GPT-based hard drive partitions
DiskPart commands
ren
BCDBoot Command-Line Options


Add an extra line to addresses in Contacts in iOS? I need to add an address with more than 2 lines. Can I do it?

As you need to do a shift+enter (also called 'soft return') to do it (because 'enter' acts like 'tab'), you can't on iOS. According to this recent post Zoagli points it in his answer you can't do it on iOS.

Alternatively you can try to add the soft return on a computer via Contact.app (on a mac), or via the web interface of your contact manager (Google contacts…)

PS iCloud on the web doesn't support soft return.


iPhone 4s asking for old Apple ID but nowhere to type code My phone was disabled so I connected it with iTunes. We unlocked it and now it is requesting the old Apple ID. I don't know the old one but my brother made a password reset, and now it gave us a code but there is nowhere to type it in on the phone. The screen didn't reset for us to type in the code. What do I do? Of iPhone 4s

You can type in that code immediately after your password in the password field.

  What if I use two-factor authentication on a device running older software?

  If you use two-factor authentication with devices running
  older OS versions, you might be asked to add your six-digit
  verification code to the end of your password when signing in. Get
  your verification code from a trusted device running iOS 9 and later
  or OS X El Capitan and later, or have it sent to your trusted phone
  number. Then type your password followed by the six-digit verification
  code directly into the password field.

Source: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204915


How to completely disable auto-save and versions in Mac OS X Lion? I hate the automatic saving and versioning in Mac OS X Lion.

Is there a way to completely turn it off?

(This has been asked before here, but the answer and the linked article are completely wrong, so I thought I'd try again.)

I intentionally was searcing for hidden defaults1 and fortuitously stumbled across a defaults setting that disables Auto Save, Versions and Resume, all at once.

If you have a tolerance for potentially breaking things (joke), try the following Terminal command (for Preview in this example):

defaults write -app 'preview' ApplePersistence -bool no

Replace preview with the name of whatever app you wish to perform this on.

Alternatively, you can configure this globally with this command (but beware that this causes slow logins, so not recommended):

defaults write -g ApplePersistence -bool no

I can confirm that this works for TextEdit, Preview, Automator and Safari (for disabling Resume), but it should also work for other Apple applications like iWork, Xcode, iPhoto etc. It also works for some, but not all, third party applications. My machine hasn't gone up in flames (joking again) but as long as you have a good backup system, these settings seem stable to change and test.

For TextEdit, you must additionally run the following command, in order to avoid sandbox errors:

defaults write -app textedit AutosavingDelay -int 0

[This effectively disables the old-style, pre-Lion autosaving completely, so the sandbox won't complain anymore about TextEdit trying to automatically save stuff without your "consent".]

Another option, is a TextEdit fork called "TextEdit+", that thankfully isn't sandboxed (surprisingly, TextEdit is actually open source). It can be downloaded here.

Disabling ApplePersistence also restores Save As in most apps, except in Preview, iWork and maybe some others. In those cases you can use the Export… menu item instead. This is almost identical to Save As, except that you have to manually open the document after saving it. Just assign Command-Shift-S to Export… in these applications, and you'll get something very similar to Save As there too.

To restore normal behaviour, run:

defaults delete -app 'preview' ApplePersistence

defaults delete -g ApplePersistence

defaults delete -app textedit AutosavingDelay

1 Thanks to Lri for his excellent one-liner for finding hidden defaults settings.


Use Time Machine via AirPort Disk without using sparse bundle? Is it possible to use Time Machine via AirPort Disk without storing the backup in a sparse bundle? I've had bad experience with sparse bundles and would like to avoid them.

It's not been shown (yet) how to hack apart the Time Machine process on Lion sufficient to do what you ask (skip the sparse storage format).

I too was bitten by early network based sparse bundles. Since mid 10.6 (maybe 10.6.5) - I've been unable to break Time Capsule based despite repeated tests to be really mean. This includes pulling the power of the capsule in the middle of backups repeatedly to regain confidence. This isn't something I'd do on my main backup, but the Snow Leopard implementation is now rock solid in my eyes.

Realize that by having a less reliable network, this sparse format is actually more reliable overall and has checks and balances to make sure you get a good backup even when bad things happen.


Automated transcripts of conference calls What's the best way to get an automated transcript of a FaceTime/Skype or simple audio conference call?

A simple answer is NO.

There are lots of Dictation software but they really only work for Dictation (one person talking in a quiet room.

Even than you have to train the software to your specific voice and how you pronounce stuff to get accurate text output

You can try to use them for transcription a conference call, but you will end up editing a lot.


How can I make a folder and its contents automatically owned by two people? Ok, in the /Users/Shared/ folder I have my DropBox folder.

I have read/write permissions set for me and my wife (shared computer).  However, if she creates a folder/file in the DropBox folder, I can see it but I have to type in my password to delete or edit it.  And she has to do the same if I create something.

How can I make it so that if she creates a file/folder in the DropBox folder, we both automatically are the owners?  It doesn't seem to me that the Shared folder does a very good job of, well, SHARING.  Even though I have set both of our accounts as read/write on Shared and all contents.

This is driving me insane.

Thanks.

You can solve this problem using group permissions. What you want is to have a file mode creation mask set such that group read, write, and execute permissions are automatically set for each file when a file is created. This can be accomplished using the umask command inside your startup script such as ~/.bash_profile. To set rw permissions on all files, rwx on all directories, that you both create, use

# Set the umask such that user and group can read, write, and execute.
umask u=rwx,g=rwx,o=

Furthermore, you may want to set everything in the Dropbox to have at a minimum rw group permissions for files and rwx permissions for folders. You can accomplish this using

chmod -R g+r,g+w /Users/Shared

for files and use

chmod -R g+x /Users/Shared/FOLDER

for folders. You can view the existing permissions in the terminal using

ls -l /Users/Shared

where the rwx permissions are arranged in order of owner, group, and other.


How to promote an iPhone app (productivity / goal-setting) I've made an iPhone application that is a goal-setting workshop (that is - it doesn't just track goals - it helps users to decide upon them). That is quite a novel approach I think.

There is a New Year approaching so there will be many articles on New Year's resolutions (and in some cases - goal setting applications). I would like to let journalists know about my app.

I have already prepared a press release package and sent it to the app review sites. What more can I do?

Press packages are a start but the press gets tons of those. There's no way of knowing, but you could be one of several developers that sent a press kit for a similar application.

You should definitely have a website for the product to promote it in the way you feel is appropriate.

Also, going to developer, mobile, and computer conferences and meeting with Apple, relevant press folks, and interested users is a good way to get attention, just be sure to have business cards and promo codes handy for when you meet people and want to show them your app.

There are many articles and books that cover this aspect of iPhone development including strategies on working with the App Store as well, most going beyond the scope of the Q&A format of this site.


Will Apple Music work with iPod Classic and iPod Nano? Will I be able to sync offline Apple Music to non-internet Apple devices e.g. iPod Nano and iPod Classic?

Apple Music is not available on iPod nano and iPod shuffle.

See footnote 3: http://www.apple.com/uk/music/


Run a launchd job after Time Machine backup Quite simply, I have a process that's triggered by launchd but currently runs once an hour, however really what I would like it to do is run once a Time Machine backup has completed.

Initially I thought I could just set my Time Machine backup (/Volumes/Foo/Backups.backupdb/Haravikk's Mac) as a watch path for launchd, however this seems to trigger much too early. It does seem to trigger again near the end, so I'm currently using a delay and then checking for the existence of a .inprogress backup, but it's not really an ideal solution, and sometimes Time Machine's cleanup stage will trigger the process multiple times.

Is there a more specific path that I could watch that will trigger my process only when Time Machine has finished a backup?

I realise I should perform my checks anyway to be sure, but currently my process is triggering several times per backup, which isn't what I want.

A simple solution is to use the tmutil command to manually trigger the backup and follow it up with your process (as part of a shell script that does both these steps).

First, turn off automatic backups from System Preferences > Time Machine or using the command tmutil disable
Use tmutil startbackup --auto --block to trigger a backup once every hour (the --block option is required to make the execution wait until the backup is finished)
Follow this with launching your process

See man tmutil for more information on using Time Machine from the command line.


Ipad Mini is locked! I just recently received my iPad Mini as a reward from my principal, and it was working just fine. I bought it home with me because it is now my property. Then, this morning, I turn it on and see that I need to put in a password! I never input a password, so can anyone tell me why this just happened?

It's possible that your school, or school district, has the device under control of an MDM which can set a lock code remotely. This action may have been accidental, or deliberate, but your only recourse is to ask the IT department to fix it for you.

This functionality, and many other options, is available in Meraki, and I have used it myself.


How can I automate port forwarding? Is there a way in which I can automate port forwarding on the mac?

I want to forward a computer to port 22, and my purpose of doing is so I can ssh from a remote location, making ssh easier.

If so, can someone give me the code? Let's say the computer that I want to forward to port 22 (and control via my remote computer) has the ip of 192.168.0.0. What would I write as a command?

How can this happen?

Eric

I'm pretty sure I understand what you are trying to accomplish, but saying "I want to forward a computer to port 22" does not make any sense. You are trying to forward incoming packets addressed for port 22 from your router to your Mac, is what you mean to say (I am assuming). In any event, port forwarding is done in your router's settings, not your Mac's.

You can look up port forwarding steps for your router at http://setuprouter.com/.


MBP 2017 left fan not working I have MBP 2017 (MPXT2) bought about 3 months ago.

I noticed that when it heats enough, only right fan starts blowing away hot air.
On the other hand the left side is not that hot and it is probably ok that I have never seen left fan working.
I wonder is it expected behaviour for new MPB 2017 or the left fan is probably broken?
I do not even know what can heat the left side because the GPU is built-in.

Update: Used Macs Fan control as suggested. It shows only one fan.

Found some photos of disassembled MBP 2016 (13") on the internet.
Looks like there is only one fan so I should not worry.


How do I use Soundflower with El Capitan on my MacBook Air and hear my computer audio while recording with QuickTime? Okay, so I've tried so hard to set up Soundflower on my computer, and it doesn't seem to work no matter how many tutorials I watch. I'm running OSX El Capitan 10.11.4 on a MacBook Air 13-inch from early 2015. What I'd like to do is be able to record my computer audio, my microphone audio, and my screen at once, and hear my computer audio through my headphones.

Here's everything I've done so far.

I have the El Capitan Soundflower version. I can't post the link, because I don't have enough reputation points.

I went into Audio MIDI setup and made a Multi-Output Device, selecting Built-in Output and then Soundflower 2ch.

I also set up an Aggregate device, merging my Built-In Device (this is what my headphones show up as; they're Urbanear Plattan) with Soundflower 2ch.

I set my output to the Multi-Output Device, and my input to the Aggregate Device (system settings>sound>output/input).
Then, I went into QuickTime>file>new screen recording and set the input to Soundflower 2ch. I can't hear anything when I play my video back. Can anyone walk me through the correct process, or tell me what to change? It would be much appreciated.

This solves the problem: open Audio Midi Set Up (via search, or in Apps>Utilities) and on soundflower 2ch slide the master down to zero and back up to max for both input and output.  Works fine now.


Running Time Machine only 1 time a day at 02:00am? I must say that Time Machine is pretty useful, and it saved me a couple of times. The problem is it seems running all the times, and slowing the system down pretty often.

Is there a way/tool to run Time Machine only once a day, say 02:00am. And, it would be better if the Time Machine wakes the Mac up and after it's done with the backup, go to sleep again.

ADDED

I installed and ran the 'Timemachine Editor' as advised, but it doesn't work. I mean, even though I set the timemachine to run 02:00am, it just runs every hour.

I use Snow Leopard 10.6.4. Is there anything that I missed?

As you said that Time MAchine Editor didn't work fine for you then I search in web and find :  TimeMachineScheduler it disables the automatic backup function of Time Machine and installs its own launchd daemon.

Time Machine Editor (free software) allows you to specify a schedule for Time Machine to run. it changes the one-hour interval of Time Machine backups. You can change the interval or decide to make daily, weekly and monthly backups.


Leaving group chat in Telegram Messenger on iOS Telegram Messenger on my iPhone has no chat group's exit button, like the existing "Leave chat" on Android version.

Could anyone please tell me where is it?

On my iPhone iOS v9.3.5 the method requires sliding left the desired chat:

Then you will have the delete option ("Eliminar", my device is in spanish, sorry) :


Slow install (hours-days) of El Capitan on 2009 macbook pro SSD Ok, the details:
Mid-2009 Macbook Pro, previously running Lion on native HDD just fine. Installed TRION 100 OCZ SSD, booted with external USB El Capitan installer. Used the installer to format and partition SSD. Fixed the date issue in Terminal before install and connected to the internet.

So, every time I get through install (which takes 2-3x longer than the 13 minutes it promises), it reboots, goes to the grey install screen and promises 'Installing: About 19 minutes remaining',yet barely budges. I stopped trying to reboot and install again and let it run this time, and it budged a bit overnight, still less than 20% of the progress bar. At this rate, it will take 3-5 days to install? Can't be normal.

I know third-party SSDs and older macbook installs can take longer (plus I think it's installing over wifi for some reason?), but this is unworkable. Any suggestions?

Solved this a while ago, but will post the answer here: the SSD was incompatible with the hard drive. Since it was an older Mac, the TRION 100 OCZ was not compatible. I took it back to the store and got a Samsung SSD for $20 more, and the install went smoothly.


Need to replace a hard drive in a macbook I have been asked to "replace a hard drive in a macbook".

I'm able to physically swap out the drive, but I have no idea how mac software works. I have some questions:

If I put in a new hard drive, will I have to reinstall an operating system?
When you buy a mac, do they give you a copy of the OS on disc like buying a windows PC?
If the procedure much different between different flavours of macbook?
Are there any special tools required extra to a small philips-head screwdriver?

Yes, the new hard drive is empty.  In fact, if it purports to have OS X on it, I would be suspicious.  I'm not sure Apple have ever supplied OS X on a separate drive.
"Old" laptop Macs (before OS X Lion) were sold with an optical disc. After a certain time most have shipped without an optical drive or a disc to put in it.  In that case the internal hard drive (or SSD) was supplied with a recovery partition.  You may be able to use Lion or later on a boot-able USB.
Yes, you might want to look at iFixit's guides or Apple's support articles.
Just Torx screws.


Why does iPhone and iPod touch auto-brightness setting work relative to a brightness you set rather than absolute? iPhone and iPod Touch aside, I've always considered manual brightness and auto brightness to be mutually exclusive settings.  Intuitively, auto brightness means exactly that - the device figures it out.  Why is the iOS auto brightness setting implemented relative to the manual brightness setting rather than absolute?  In other words, why is manual brightness even an option when auto brightness is selected?

Because a one-size-fits-all auto-brightness setting is going to be unpleasant for a large number of users, either because the automatically-selected levels are either too difficult to see, too bright, or eat too much battery.  The automatic setting is based on the threshold you set specifically so that the device can "figure out" ideal settings within a range that you can tolerate.

More to the point, I have a question for you.  Is there a point on the auto-brightness slider that you're comfortable with?  If not, that should be all the proof you need that the slider is necessary!  If there is a setting that looks ideal all the time, you've got nothing to complain about - the system works for you.


Buying MacBook Pro off of craigslist - what to look for? I'm meeting someone tomorrow to purchase a MacBook Pro.  This would be my first Mac owned but I had a job a couple of years ago where I was provided with a MBP.

I know how to inspect basics (ie, check system window and make sure the hardware matches the description), but what else should I look for?

It is the 2.2 i7 15 inch (assuming base model but its hard to tell from product description).

http://store.apple.com/us/configure/MD318LL/A?

All of that being said, What should I be looking for aside from just verifying that the product matches description?  Is there any specific problems/ware to look for either specific to this model or Macbook Pros in general?  Are there any basic tests I could run to try and diagnose any of these problems?

I wouldn't purchase this machine unless it's still covered by AppleCare.

Inspect it closely for nicks and dents, indicating a drop.  I would check the Console logs for any indication of ongoing OS level problems.

Unfortunately testing hardware can take a while, but is worthwhile before buying.  Run AHT (see http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1509?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US) and do the quick test.  To do it you'll probably need the original disks that came with the machine.

The only other thing I can think of would be to verify that modules such as bluetooth, WiFi, Ethernet etc, are showing up properly (and information is being populated in) system profiler.  To get there, hold option while going to the apple menu - it's the first option.

Listen for loud fans, can indicate overheating or bad sensors.

Aside from that... it's always risky.  Check Apple's stock of refurb units.  They come to you refurbished by Apple, with a 1-year warranty, and often don't cost that much more than a CL unit, but with much less risk.


Excel 14.1.0 (110310) on OSX 10.7.5 doesn't have Full Screen function I have OSX 10.7.5 on 2009 MacBook with Excel 14.1.0 but I don't have Full Screen function. I Googled and am sure that this version of Excel and OSX should have Full Screen, but I just can't find it. If you can help I would greatly appreciate it.

Updated to 14.3.4 and got the Full Screen feature.


Will Pages/Keynote/Numbers be free for old macs? Will Pages/Keynote/Numbers (ex. iWork) be free for old macs?

It appears that everyone that owns an older copy of iWork for iOS gets a free upgrade whether or not your version came from a retail CD or the Mac App Store.

If you don't already own iWork - you will have to pay for either a new Mac or the apps piecemeal on the App Store.

The above summary is my understanding of this MacWorld article that includes calls with Apple Press relations and an "on-the-record" confirmation that all owners of iWork should get free upgrades despite some glitches in the initial roll out today.

http://www.macworld.com/article/2056159/what-you-need-to-know-about-apples-free-apps-policy.html


Unable to reach Startup Manager or any boot options on OSX Leopard I have 5 year old 17" MacBook Pro running Snow Leopard that, without any warning, is suddenly unable to locate its startup disk. I've tried every possible boot key combo, but only zapping NVRAM works, everything else results in a grey screen including the startup manager and diagnostics.

Definitely not the hard drive or hardware. I plugged the disk into another computer and it functions perfectly.

Any ideas or help appreciated.

There is a partition on your hard drive called EFI. At boot up your system looks for the EFI as very first step.

EFI is responsible for the booting process, and if it is broken for some reason the computer wont boot at all.

Using your hard drive on another computer wont tell you if the EFI is still intact since it is not used in that set up. EFI is about 200 Meg in size and it is normally hidden partition. You would have to unhide it in the Disk Utility to see it.

So what can you do about the EFI?

Repair your disk using something like iPartition tool, or simular.

Do it manually: You can recreate the EFI System Partition (ESP) using the command-line gpt tool.

Or, if you have a full back up in the iCloud, you could wipe the disk and start over or run the OS X restore (use cmd+r) during boot.

Some Macs that came with OS X Snow Leopard can use Internet Recovery after installing OS X Lion or later and a software update.


Triggering Launch Agents for path in sandboxed app using WatchPaths does not work I am trying to create a user LaunchAgents that will trigger a script when a path managed by a sandbox app will change (in my case, when /Library/Containers/com.omnigroup.OmniFocus3/Data/Library/Application\ Support/OmniFocus/OmniFocus.ofocus will change).

For this, I want to use the WatchPaths key of launchd, I already tried with a Folder Action, but those are limited to file addition in a folder.

I have made a working test to listen on a file and folder in my home directory and trigger a notification. e.g.:

<?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>me.mayeu.helloworld</string>
        <key>ProgramArguments</key>
        <array>
            <string>/usr/local/bin/terminal-notifier</string>
            <string>-message</string>
            <string>Test</string>
        </array>
        <key>WatchPaths</key>
        <array>
                <string>/Users/me/watchtest/</string>
        </array>
</dict>
</plist>

This works well for whatever changes happen under the watchtest folder.

But when I replace the WatchPaths key with the OmniFocus database, this does not work anymore (no notification are triggered):

<?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>me.mayeu.script.OmniListen</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
      <string>/usr/local/bin/terminal-notifier</string>
      <string>-message</string>
      <string>Test</string>
    </array>
    <key>WatchPaths</key>
    <array>
      <string>/Users/me/Library/Containers/com.omnigroup.OmniFocus3/Data/Library/Application\ Support/OmniFocus/OmniFocus.ofocus</string>
    </array>
  </dict>
</plist>

I have a feeling that this is due to the sandboxing of the app. But I can't find any documentation about that.

I am using macOS Mojave 10.14.2.

So I found the solution. And it has nothing to do with sandboxing, but everything to do with the fact that I had a \ in my path because I copied it over from the shell.

e.g.: .../Data/Library/Application\ Support/... should be .../Data/Library/Application Support/....


Does iOS 13.3 have haptic touch app switcher? When I was using iOS 12 (Final version) it has the 3D touch app switcher to switch between apps instantly.

After that when iOS 13 launched publicly, it replaced 3D touch with haptic touch which is simply holding and pressing for a long time to popups and other 3D touch use cases.

But I couldn't find any ways to switch apps using haptic touch in iOS 13? Are there any mechanisms in iOS 13.3?

I have iPhone 7 Plus running on 13.2.3.

Does iOS 13.3 have haptic touch app switcher?

Yes. On your iPhone, you can press and hold on the left edge of the display to bring up the iOS multitasking UI/app switcher.


Lenovo USB 3.0 Ethernet adapter (MacBook PRO) I have a Deltaco USB 3.0 hub which I've connected a Thinkpad USB 3.0 Ethernet Adapter.

When I boot, or wake, my MacBook Pro (late 2013) won't detect the network interface to be connected at all. I have to re-plug it on the Deltaco USB hub, and 3-5 seconds later I'm up and running.

What I'm wondering is how do I fix this?

While I'm at it, since I use an Apple server for setting date & time, my clock is skewed by +2 hours (I assume it's displaying the wrong timezone or something) when booting. Is there any way to fix this (unless there's a solution to my first question)?

About the time issue. It was due to dual booting into Windows.

This guide will help you fix it.


Stop sign when booting from internal ssd, boot goes fine if the ssd is in external case sorry for the long post and my english.

I have an early 2011 Macbook Pro 13 which I purchased in july 2011 and it worked fine until one week ago. Since when I bought it i replaced the stock hdd with a 240G OCZ Vertex 3 and it never had any problems.

One week ago my Macbook crashed while I was working (only the spinning wheel was moving but the system was unresponsive in every other way) so I turned off the computer by pressing the power key. When I turned it on again it showed me a stop sign at boot but after a minute or so it booted up normally. The next day it totally stopped booting, hanging on the stop sign and not moving from there anymore.

I thought that maybe my ssd failed after 4 years of intense use, so I took it to an Apple Store and the Genius told me that they couldn't do anything apart from replacing my old hdd (which is working fine) but they couldn't assure me they would be able to recover my data (my last backup was old).

So I took the stock hdd and installed Yosemite again. The computer booted up normally and started working again. The strange thing was that I was able to look at all my files on the failed ssd (which I put in an external sata to usb enclosure). I tried to repair the ssd because Disk Utility gave me some errors. Then I tried again to boot up from the ssd but I got the stop sign again.

So I did this: I took another ssd drive I had and which I was sure was working fine from another pc (it's an OCZ Vertex2 120G). I cloned my working stock hdd and tried to boot up from the Vertex2: i got the stop sign again and couldn't boot up.

I tried the verbose mode and it didn't gave me any particular message before getting to the stop sign.

I tried the following steps:

Reset NVRAM, SMC, PRAM or whatever I could reset
Repairing my ssd with Disk Utility and fsck (no errors)
Disabling kext-signing, even if I had no TRIM enabled

The last thing I did was to put the ssd in the external sata to usb and try to boot up from there: surprisingly it worked.

I am now writing from my original ssd with all my files. So far it didn't give me any error and is working just fine.

I got in touch 2 times with Apple Support and they told me they had no idea and that it must be a hardware failure (?). However, this explanation makes no sense for all the reasons I listed above.

I am using Time Machine to backup my data but my computer is obviously very slow compared to when the ssd was in the internal slot. I can't use it like this everyday and I need a solution to have it working again.

Any ideas?

The problem was a faulty SATA cable. I got a replacement and everything is now working flawlessly.


Can I safely run command-line apps in single-user mode? Obviously fsck is pretty safe to run in single-user mode. I'm using gtypist to learn touch typing and would like to be able to run it in single user mode so that I don't have to load the whole OS just for a command-line app.

When I first try running gtypist I got a segmentation error 11, which "means that the program accessed a memory location that was not assigned". On subsequent attempt get "HOME environment variable not set."

I thought maybe I need to use su to login in as a regular user, but my user account isn't listed in /etc/passwd. Should it be?

Is it even "safe" to run applications in single user mode? If so - would I create a new user? Create an environment variable in the root account? I don't even see HOME listed as a gtypist env variable so maybe it's not a gtypist variable at all.

On side note, just learned that rather than reboot into single user mode one can just open terminal and sudo shutdown now, after which OS X will "quietly and consistently shutdown to single-user mode." Sweet.

EDIT:
I think this question and the suggestion to use ">console" may be a more succinct way of addressing and answering my question.

The TL;DR: Yes, you can run command line tools in Single User Mode. But not all command line tools. That's not what Single User Mode is meant for.

  I don't have to load the whole OS just for a command-line app.

Except, as you're discovering, you probably do.

Single user mode is meant for trouble shooting problems with the computer. It is the bare minimum needed for Darwin, the underlying Free BSD port that OS X is based on top of, to function. What you are placed in is a shell capable of running when things on the hardware are dire. It is a not a fully-functioning shell.

While it's "safe" to run applications in Single User Mode, in so much as you can't hurt things by running something like gtypist, it isn't recommended because it isn't an environment meant for running things other than emergency tools.

You should consider running a Terminal or iTerm2 window in full screen mode if you'd like a monitor that's 100% terminal and running gtypist from there. You're not gaining anything dropping OS X to single user mode, in fact you're losing a great many things and fighting battles that don't need to be fought.

You could use >console login, but if it's simply speed of access you're looking for, the hardware and software are designed to simply be put to sleep between uses, from which awakening is faster than rebooting into SUM anyway.


Mail sent on iPhone via Safari or Twitter or other apps is never received, but email sent from within Mail is fine I am using iOS 6.1.4 on iPhone 5, and I've noticed that at some point in the past few weeks - I do not know exactly when it began - any email I try to send from within any non-Mail app, such as sharing links from within Safari, InstaPaper, Twitter, or Tweetbot, are never received by the recipient. The email does not show up in my Sent Items folder either. There is no error message displayed when trying to send these emails - I press Send and the email window is animated into the background as normal.

I do not have any problem with sending emails from directly within the Mail app itself, these are received fine by recipients and show up in the Sent folder as expected. I have verified that the emails that originate from within Safari or other apps are not simply ending up in a Spam folder.

I have two email accounts set up on my phone, Gmail and an Exchange account for work that I leave disabled/inactive most of the time. The Gmail account is set up as Exchange and the server name is listed as m.google.com with Use SSL enabled.

Has anyone seen anything like this before or know what might be the cause?

I thought I had tried this before, but powering off and restarting the phone has fixed everything.


What's the best way to use SuperDuper to back up multiple hard drives to partitions on a single drive? Here's the setup I'm setting up:

Mac HD (500GB SSD)
Media HD (2TB SSD)
Daily Backup HD (3TB HDD, partitioned into a 2TB Daily Backup Mac HD, a 500GB Daily Backup Media HD, and an irrelevant 500GB Spare HD)
Time Machine HD, (4TB, but this drive isn't relevant for my question).

Using SuperDuper, what's the proper way to back up two separate drives to partitions on a single external drive?  Can I back up my Mac HD and my Media HD at the same time?  It'll be running automatically in the middle of the night, so speed isn't a concern.  I've been backing up one drive M/W/F and the other T/T/S, but I'd like to switch to backing both drives up daily.  With SuperDuper, can I schedule both to run at the same time?

Also: Since my Mac and Media drives are SSD but my backup drive is a partitioned HDD, is there anything I should be careful of when I format the backup drive?

EDIT: I'm specifically asking about backing up multiple hard drives to separate partitions on a single drive.  I already have an external 3TB drive partitioned for backups.  If my Mac hard drive dies, I like having a bootable backup ready to go in an instant without needing to restore it first.  If my Media drive dies, I like having a backup ready to go without needing to restore it first.  I also have another external drive for Time Machine.  I'm religious about backing everything up (safety first, as they say).  I just want to make sure it's fine to back up two hard drives to two partitions on a single drive at the same time.

Actually this is quite possible to store the backups, all different drives on one volume with little effort. The magic words here are "back up to a disk image."

When you select the destination in SuperDuper one of the options is Disk Image. Just give the disk image a name and point it at your backup drive and all files will go into the disk image, completely accessible and completely separate from everything else on that drive.

If you like you can also encrypt the disk image for added security but you would have to create an encrypted sparseimage DMG from within Disk Utility first. I think that would work, never tried it but it makes sense it would.


Active Directory login I am new to Mac's.  I have a new MacBook Air OS X 10.9.5. I was given and told to get it on our active directory domain. I was able to figure out how to bind it to AD. I have allow network users to log in at login windows checked. When accessing options, I have allow all network users.
Directory Utility User Experience, selected create mobile account, selected Use UNC path from Active Directory, Network protocol to be used smb, Administrative, allow administration by checked and allow authenctication from any domain in the forest checked. I have also checked remote login in sharing.  When i log off or restart, I am never prompted with login to login to Active Directory.  Can someone help me.

Thanks in advance
Mike

Thanks to Gordon Davisson question.  It pointed me in the right direction.
I was connected to both wireless and wired. Once I turned off wireless and rebooted, I was able to login with a network account. the problem was, I was connecting to the guest netowrk and it was unable to find the domain. Once I turned off Wi-Fi I was able to log in

Thank you all,
Mike


How to merge files after using split command from terminal? I've split a large file with the split command from a Terminal and copied it from a USB-stick to my MacBook.

This results in couple of files named 'xaa', 'xab', 'xac'.

How do I merge them together again from within a Terminal?

cat xaa > newfile
cat xab >> newfile
cat xac >> newfile

Basically using a single '>' operand send the output to a new file.  using a double '>>' operand makes it append the contents to the end of an existing file (and also out of interest create it if it does not already exist.

If all your files are definitely in a neat alphabetical order, then you could use:

cat x* > newfile

or

cat xaa xab xac > newfile

in case the filenames aren't in alphabetical order.


AppleScript to show package contents of hidden original of alias I'm attempting to build an Automator workflow (which will be saved as a Service, so that I can both access it from contextual menus and invoke it with a keyboard shortcut), that will function much like the Finder's built-in "Show Package Contents" command, but which will additionally accept a package's alias as input. The service will satisfy the following:

It will only be available when the Finder's selection consists of a package or a package's alias.

Rather than show the contents of the package directory itself like the built-in command does, the Service will show the contents of the "Contents" directory (if it exists), located immediately within the package directory.

If the Finder's selection is a package or alias on the desktop, the Contents directory should be opened in a new Finder window. Otherwise, the Contents directory should be opened in the Finder window containing the selection.

My approach has been to have the script first determine whether the file is an Alias, and if it is, to tell the script to show the contents of the original. If the file is not an alias, I'd like to tell the script to simply show the contents of the input.

Excluding the possibility of an alias as input and assuming the input-package is selected in a Finder window, I can successfully write a script that shows the contents of the package's contents folder in the same window:

on run {input, parameters}
    set my_output to {}
    repeat with oneItem in input
        tell application "Finder" to set target of window 1 to ((oneItem as text) & "Contents")
end repeat
return input
end run

When I try to set up an "if...then...else" scheme, I fail.

I'm using the latest versions of all relevant software.

You can try something like this:

   on run {input, parameters}
    tell application "Finder"
        repeat with oneItem in input
            if kind of oneItem = "Alias" then set oneItem to oneItem's original item
            set contentsPath to (oneItem as text) & "Contents"
            if oneItem's container as text = (path to desktop as text) then
                open contentsPath
            else
                set target of window 1 to contentsPath
            end if
            activate
        end repeat
    end tell
end run

You may also want to include a test to make sure the input is the expected type.


Is there anything to worry about with time machine on my macbook pro laptop? I have a macbook pro laptop using mountain lion.  I just setup time machine onto a WD My Passport and it worked fine (took about 2 hours over USB 3.0 for 333 GB of stuff).  My question is, given its a laptop, i will not have the external hard drive plugged in all of the time.  Is there anything i need to worry about with regard to Time Machine config, etc given the fact that i won't have it plugged in all of the time.

If i skip a backup cycle because the hard drive is not plugged in, does it kick off right when i plug it in or when the next scheduled backup gets kicked off?  Lets say I don't plug in the hard drive for a month.  Does it queue up all of those backups or just start from where I am at when I plug it back in?

Time machine keeps a local store of backups if the time machine drive is not available. This is transferred to the backup drive when it is next connected, so you don't even miss an hourly save. You can see these highlighted in a different colour if you enter time machine a few hours after being disconnected from the backup drive.

Source: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4878


What is the /data/db folder in OS X? I'm using OS X 10.6.8 and cleaning up my almost full hard-drive using the free tool Disk Inventory X. I stumbled upon the /data/db folder which weighs more than 600Mb. Before deleting some of its content I'd like to understand: what is it? Is it system critical? Note that I'm a web developer and I often create databases on my computer. It seems that the name of the files matches some of the databases I previously created, but not sure it's a 100% match.

It was custom installed by MongoDB, this the default folder for writing database. So it has nothing to do with OSX.


Video from Mac to Apple TV, audio to Airport Express I want to output video from my rMBP to my Apple TV but send the audio to AirPort Express connected to my sound system.

I have tried every way imaginable to accomplish this, and nothing seems to work. All links in the chain have updated software & firmware. Hardware is the following; rMBP Late 2012, Current Gen ATV, Current Gen APE. All running on rock solid WiFi.

If I start by sending video, it quits when I select the APE audio source, if I start by sending audio, it stops sending when I enable mirroring on the Mac.

I have tried under System Preferences on the Mac to have the system audio routed to the AirPort Express, but no luck. I have tried routing the audio to the APE from the ATV's prefs, also a no go.

Strangely this works like a champ from an iOS device, not from my Mac. I can send the video from the Mac to the ATV and send the audio to APE via Airfoil, but there is a noticeable lip sync issue, so that is not an option.

I read a Lex Friedman article on MacWorld touting the ability to do this.

You'll love this: On Apple Tv go to Settings → Airplay and pick your Express under Speakers. Now stream away to your Apple Tv. Everything is in sync and all, at least using Beamer (which is much superior to screen mirroring if you are watching movies).

Edit: sorry you already tried this? Works perfectly here.