system.log flooded with xpcproxy errors during sleep time. How do I diagnose? A few weeks ago my Macbook Pro 2018 with Catalina 10.15.2 started to get mad during sleep-time, actually it's not really going to sleep as it's flooding the system.log with hundreds of these lines:

Jan 28 14:11:37 MecBucPro-2 xpcproxy[35888]: libcoreservices: _dirhelper_userdir: 557: bootstrap_look_up returned (ipc/send) invalid destination port
Jan 28 14:11:37 MecBucPro-2 xpcproxy[35889]: libcoreservices: _dirhelper_userdir: 557: bootstrap_look_up returned (ipc/send) invalid destination port
Jan 28 14:11:37 MecBucPro-2 xpcproxy[35890]: libcoreservices: _dirhelper_userdir: 557: bootstrap_look_up returned (ipc/send) invalid destination port

I'm pretty sure it could be a driver, maybe the Wacom tablet driver which was updated recently, but I am not sure.

The only thing I'm sure is the Macbook is sleeping fine when disconnected from everything, while connected to display+hub+dock goes crazy.

Any further ways to diagnose this?

The number in brackets "xpcproxy[XXXXXXX]" is a process ID? In this case how to investigate this process as there are thousands in sequence??

Further investigation: wake-up loop was due to a bad USB hub chain which probably makes Catalina go mad (but worked with Mojave). Reconnected 2 hubs and a Thunderbolt dock in a different order and solved it.

Anyway the xpcproxy error is there at every wake-up but at least not in constant loop.


Read files from old windows-formatted external USB hard drive Years ago, I used an external USB hard drive with my PC (most likely Windows XP at the time). I've been trying to recover some files off of the old drive, but I no longer have a Windows machine and the drive is not being read by my Mac. The drive powers on, but nothing happens. No icon on my desktop, no sign of the drive in Disk Utility, no sign in Finder.

I've downloaded FUSE for OS X as well as Paragon's NTSF for Mac OS X, but still nothing. I'm not concerned with writing to the drive, but I'd like to get some old files off of there. Is there anything else that I can try?

You need to copy those documents to a windows machine. After that you need to format a USB stick MS-DOS (FAT32). Formatting USB drive as MS-DOS (FAT32) will alow you to use the USB on Windows and OS ! Will not alow you to write files bigger then 4 GB i think or 2.


Unknown app icon in iPhone I was organising my app screen on my iPhone SE. I move the apps around till I am satisfied. Once I was done, I got this app icon (red circled on the screenshot) on my main screen.

It doesn't open, if I touch it for long, the other apps start to wiggle in their place, but this doesn't respond at all.

What is this and How do I get rid of it?

Restarting your phone may resolve the issue.


Kernel Panic, especially at boot or sleeping mode: Thread "x" crashed. CPU issue? I encounter some problems with my MBP late 2016.

I thought it was from SSD, I have ejected it (now running on external one)
I thought it was from RAM, I have run memtest86, the result was OK
I have reset the NVRAM and SMC

The last thing I’ve tried is running

sudo pmset -a standby 0

But in the very short time I’ve used the laptop, I cannot say it worked.

Update 11.01: It does not work. Crashed in the middle of the night, while in sleeping mode.

Tried now to run again Apple Diagnostics (before ejecting SSD, it does not return any error).
Now it says:

There may be an issue with a storage device
Reference Code: VDH002

A friend of mine that works in the electronics area said that the problem is related 100% to CPU. Can this be the real problem?

Kernel panic log:

Anonymous UUID:       7C99A374-6082-162E-9E48-E9EF518D47B5

Fri Jan 10 12:16:55 2020

*** Panic Report ***
panic(cpu 2 caller 0xffffff80182bc42f):  initproc exited -- exit reason namespace 2 subcode 0xa description: none

uuid info:
 0x116a20000    uuid = <dfc3c4af-6f97-3b34-b18d-7dcb23f2a83a>
 0x10bc46000    uuid = <bbd445b6-fba9-3a9c-828f-a112f63e2080>

Thread 1 crashed

RAX: 0x0000000000000000, RBX: 0x000000010bc94068, RCX: 0x000000010bc91000, RDX: 0x000000010bc94088
RSP: 0x0000700001c4d3f0, RBP: 0x0000700001c4d490, RSI: 0x000000010bc94078, RDI: 0x000000010bc46000
R8:  0x000000010bc46ae8, R9:  0x0000000000000d0e, R10: 0x0000000000000010, R11: 0x0000000000000202
R12: 0x0000000100021c1f, R13: 0x0000000000001eb0, R14: 0x000000010bc96748, R15: 0x000000010bc46000
RFL: 0x0000000000010246, RIP: 0x00007fff5f8cfb7f, CS:  0x000000000000002b, SS:  0x0000000000000023

Thread 0: 0xffffff802c565520
    0x00007fff5fa0a126
    0x00007fff5f893ede
    0x0000000000000000

Thread 1: 0xffffff802d7b8a40
    0x00007fff5f8cfb7f
    0x00007fff5f8cfa07
    0x00007fff5f8cf8d1
    0x00007fff5f92cb2a
    0x000000010bc67c1f
    0x000000010bc78439
    0x00007fff5f88463d
    0x00007fff5f886de6
    0x00007fff5f895f42
    0x00007fff5f88a792
    0x00007fff5f88b396
    0x00007fff5f8936ed
    0x00007fff5fac4611
    0x00007fff5fac43fd
    0x00007ff991871e00

Thread 2: 0xffffff8034ae9520
    0x00007fff5fac43f0

Thread 3: 0xffffff802fa20a40
    0x0000000000000000

Mac OS version:
18G103

Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 18.7.0: Tue Aug 20 16:57:14 PDT 2019; root:xnu-4903.271.2~2/RELEASE_X86_64
Kernel UUID: C41337A1-0EC3-3896-A954-A1F85E849D53
System model name: MacBookPro13,1 (Mac-473D31EABEB93F9B)

EOF
Model: MacBookPro13,1, BootROM 241.0.0.0.0, 2 processors, Intel Core i5, 2 GHz, 8 GB, SMC 2.36f98
Graphics: kHW_IntelIrisGraphics540Item, Intel Iris Graphics 540, spdisplays_builtin
Memory Module: BANK 0/DIMM0, 4 GB, LPDDR3, 1867 MHz, 0x80AD, 0x483943434E4E4E424A544D4C41522D4E5544
Memory Module: BANK 1/DIMM0, 4 GB, LPDDR3, 1867 MHz, 0x80AD, 0x483943434E4E4E424A544D4C41522D4E5544
AirPort: spairport_wireless_card_type_airport_extreme (0x14E4, 0x159), Broadcom BCM43xx 1.0 (7.77.61.2 AirPortDriverBrcmNIC-1305.8)
Bluetooth: Version 6.0.14d3, 3 services, 27 devices, 1 incoming serial ports
Network Service: Wi-Fi, AirPort, en0
USB Device: USB 3.0 Bus
USB Device: USB2.1 Hub
USB Device: USB3.1 Hub
USB Device: AS2115
Thunderbolt Bus: MacBook Pro, Apple Inc., 41.1

Update 12.01: I have ejected the internal and external SSD, did an SMC and NVRAM reset, but still, receive the error.

Update 2 12.01: Tested RAM with memtest86 and passed without problems

Update 3 12.01:  get an eraser and cleaned the contacts of the SSD. After that, I have mounted it to the laptop and installed Catalina from an external SSD system installer and worked smoothly. Disk Utility says that's healthy.

The screenshot with the panic shows that the reason for the kernel panic was that launchd stopped running.

I would suggest looking at the log files for launchd to see if you can find the reason for that in there. Usually you'll see something like "exited at instruction [...]" or "trying to read/write [...]" or "[...] (sent by PID [...])" right before the crash.

I don't see anything in your observations that indicate that this must be a problem with the CPU. It could be a software problem (such as problem with your installation media) - and it could be a hardware problem (most likely I would say is RAM - might also be a cooling problem).

I would suggest booting into Internet Recovery and let the machine sit there for an extended period of time to see if it crashes here. If it still crashes there, I would swap the RAM modules and check if that fixes the problem.


Change libtool used in command line I followed this post to install automake, autoconf and libtool.

When I check automake and autoconf versions they look fine. However, when I check libtool's version I get the following

$ libtool --version
error: /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin/libtool: unknown option character `-' in: --version

however if I run libtool from install folder I get

$ /usr/local/libtool/bin/libtool --version
libtool (GNU libtool) 2.4.2 Written by Gordon Matzigkeit <gord@gnu.ai.mit.edu>, 1996

So I think there is a version of libtool already installed with OS X. Is there a way to change it so that when I execute libtool it calls the one on /usr/local/libtool/bin?

Unless your $PATH is different than normal, you could solve that with a sym link of the tool you want.

$echo $PATH
/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin

Then if the libtool you want to run first is /usr/local/libtool/bin/libtool then a quick

sudo ln -s /usr/local/libtool/bin/libtool /usr/local/bin

At that point, you might have to restart your shell or rehash or hash -r in bash to get the libtool from /usr/local/bin to be preferred.


How do I turn off Activation Lock on Apple Watch? With watchOS 2 it looks like Activation Lock is enabled by default. How do I turn off Activation Lock on Apple Watch? I want to know for when the time comes to sell my watch or have it serviced.

It seems that simply unpairing it turns off Activation Lock.

Before you send your Apple Watch in for service, sell it, or give it away, you should turn off Activation Lock on your Apple Watch. Just unpair your Apple Watch from your iPhone:

  Keep your Apple Watch and iPhone close together.
  Open the Watch app on your iPhone and tap the My Watch tab.
  Tap Apple Watch, then tap Unpair Apple Watch.
  Enter your Apple ID password. If you forgot your Apple ID password, you can reset it.
  Tap again to confirm.

  If you can't access your iPhone or Apple Watch, or if your Apple Watch
  isn't paired with your iPhone and you need to turn off Activation
  Lock:

  On a computer, go to iCloud.com.
  Sign in with your Apple ID, and open Settings.
  Under My Devices, click your Apple Watch.
  Click X next to your device.
  Click Remove to confirm.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205009


Connect MacBook Pro to two external monitors Is there a way to connect my MacBook Pro to two external monitors (either VGA or HDMI; no Thunderbolt) in such a way that the Mac screen serves as a third monitor?

What hardware do I need?

To get a three screen setup (two external screens, and laptop screen) connected without daisy chaining Thunderbolt displays, you need:

One external monitor hooked up to the Mini DisplayPort
One external monitor hooked up from USB to DVI

I am assuming you already have the first item taken care of as it is the easiest.  So, let's focus on the second one:

You need something like the Diamond BVU195 HD USB 2.0 to VGA / DVI / HDMI Adapter.  This will give you your "display adapter" for your second external monitor.

Now, you would set your primary monitor the same way you would in a dual monitor setup.   This article from OS X Daily details it nicely.

When you disconnect, as was mentioned in one of the comments above, your main display will revert back to the laptop screen.

That's it.  You're done.  But if you want to see this working, check out this YouTube Video.

Enjoy!


Display of downloaded files with the Dock icon Using a Mac, with the downloads folder placed on the Dock, the downloaded files were displayed in a linear curved stack (when clicked) with the last downloaded files on the bottom and earlier downloads atop of it. This was convenient for managing recent downloads. Now, for some mysterious reason, clicking the downloads icon on my Dock yields a n by m display of icons within which I can't identify the latest downloads.

How to get it back to the way it was before?

The view mode of your downloads folder on the dock probably changed. Secondary-click (right-click / ctrl-click) the icon, then under the "Display contents as" section, click "Fan". Also, on top of the list, be sure that "Date added" is checked under "Sort by".


Can't compile source code on mac I already have xcode installed on OSX Yosemite. I have also run it and accepted terms and conditions.

I can also do gcc --version and I see

Configured with: --prefix=/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/usr --with-gxx-include-dir=/usr/include/c++/4.2.1
Apple LLVM version 7.0.0 (clang-700.1.76)
Target: x86_64-apple-darwin14.5.0
Thread model: posix

Now if I do

wget http://apache.mirrors.pair.com//httpd/httpd-2.4.17.tar.bz2
brew install pcre
tar zxvf httpd-2.4.17.tar.bz2
cd httpd-2.4.17
./configure

The error I get is

Configure:
configure: Configuring Apache Portable Runtime Utility library...
configure:
checking for APR-util... yes
checking for gcc... /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/OSX10.10.xctoolchain/usr/bin/cc
checking whether the C compiler works... no
configure: error: in `/Users/abhi/Downloads/httpd-2.4.17':
configure: error: C compiler cannot create executables
See `config.log' for more details

Why can't the C compiler create executable? I showed you that the C compiler is installed correctly on my machine.

You need to convince configure that there are more c compilers than gcc.
Try:

export CC=clang


Mac Overheating Problems and Fan Noise I have a old MB, which has Snow Leopard 10.6 Installed onto it. How can I fix the overheating and that fan noise? Whenever i open a large file or like install Windows 7 from Bootcamp, it would overheat and make some wind noises from the fan. It's a preety fast mac, i installed new RAM and just newly installed SL onto it. Can someone help me?

The first thing that I would do is open up the case and use a can of air to blow out all the dust bunnies that have likely accumulated since the Macbook was first put into service; that will probably help quite a bit.


How to get Quartz Composer working on macOS High Sierra? I'd like to install Quartz Composer. So I head to Downloads Center and download Additional Tools for Xcode 9 package which contains Quartz Composer.

After copying the app elsewhere, launching it, and clicking Get Started I get this error below. How do I get it working?

Download the latest (its still old) graphics tools here:
https://developer.apple.com/download/more/

The DMG for XCode 7.2 contains a version of Quartz Composer that runs on High Sierra.


Selecting a SSD for Fusion Drive My aging Early 2009 Macbook White is getting a bit long in the tooth, so  after learning about Fusion Drive, I'm considering combining the existing 500GB HDD with a budget-to-medium-class SSD drive, to prolong the life of the machine.

As far as I understand, Fusion Drive will fill up the drive to within 4-5 GB of its capacity.

In other news I read that some mainstream SSD controllers (eg. Sandforce) have very poor write performance when the disk is used to its full capacity.

So my questions are:

Is the "fullness" of a Fusion Drive SSD considered "full capacity" in the context of controller performance degradation?

Which aftermarket SSDs are supposed to perform consistently fast in the Fusion Drive scenario? So far I have looked at Samsung 840, OCZ Vertex 2, Agility 3, Intel 330, based on a combination of price, brand reputation and reviews - but several of them are Sandforce drives.

Thirdly, does it make sense to create an empty 8-10 GB partition on the SSD before creating the Fusion Drive, to keep the drive from filling up? And is it even possible to create a Fusion Drive on a partitioned SSD?

Cheers!

It is pretty close to "full capacity" (the first 117 of 128 GB are filled), but SSDs do overprovisioning for this reason.
As long as you have enabled TRIM on your SSD, you should be fine. I keep my (non-Fusioned Crucial RealSSD 300) SSD near full capacity and don't experience degradation, as long as I have TRIM turned on (if it's turned off it gets terrible fast).
Yes, you can create a Fusion Drive by specifying the partitions, e.g.:

diskutil cs create fusion /dev/disk0s2 /dev/disk1s2

If you are looking for non-Sandforce controlled devices, you have many options now: Crucials M4/M500, Samsung SSDs, OCZ Agility/Vertex 4, and more.

For further reading, check out AnandTech's article with more details and pretty graphs.


Why is the Mountain Lion Installer unable to complete due to recovery partition problems? I just bought the Mountain Lion upgrade, but it's unable to complete. When I select my harddrive it says:

  Some features of OS X Mountain Lion are not supported for the disk
  “kollaps”.

  Features such as FileVault and Recovery Mode won't be available if you
  install Mountain Lion on this disk. To learn more, click More Info. To
  continue with the installation, click Continue.

I continue the installation, but after a reboot and some minutes has passed it claims that it cannot create a recovery partition.  The installation aborts.

Here are my partitions:

$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *750.2 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS kollaps                 498.6 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
   4:                  Apple_HFS Blank                   250.6 GB   disk0s4

And here's my GUID partition table:

$ sudo gpt -r show disk0
       start        size  index  contents
           0           1         PMBR
           1           1         Pri GPT header
           2          32         Pri GPT table
          34           6
          40      409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
      409640   973843192      2  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
   974252832     1269528      3  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
   975522360   489364624      4  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  1464886984      262151
  1465149135          32         Sec GPT table
  1465149167           1         Sec GPT header

My existing Recovery HD works just fine.  I have verified all partitions, and cleaned up file system permissions.  In addition I have resized my main partition slightly to make sure the EFI has been recreated (in case it had problems).

Still no go. Do I really have to reinstall the full HD?

WORKAROUND: When I selected the partition "Blank" (disk0s4) as my upgrade partition, the warning dialogue didn't appear.  It installed a fresh OSX Mountain Lion on it, and I used the Migration Assistant to copy settings, programs and users from the primary partition.  This means that the Recovery HD was not at fault even though the installer claimed that, but I guess something was "wrong" with my primary partition.  This solution still isn't a very good one.

From what I've been able to gather, this issue occurred because of the existence of partition 4. A default install of OS X, as of Lion, involves three partitions: EFI, your OS X boot volume, and the recover partition.

Features such as Recovery Mode and FileVault require original partitioning schemes in many cases - especially when FileVault is already in use on a partition, as it the partition scheme has been converted to a CoreStorage group. This makes things much messier to try installing without an original layout.

This seems to be the most likely cause of your error. Since I have no logs, dumps, or other material to go by, I can only speculate and apply my knowledge and experience to the matter. However, seeing as OS X installed just fine to the 4th partition, which was blank, it seems to me that the partition scheme itself was to blame, as I stated above. Sorry about the inconvenience.

Good luck and happy upgrading!


Missing header files on macOS Catalina I am having issues with header files on macOS Catalina. I get command-line tool errors like the following :

/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX.sdk/usr/include/sys/resource.h:443:29: error: parameter name omitted
 int     getiopolicy_np(int, int) __OSX_AVAILABLE_STARTING(__MAC_10_5, __IPHONE_2_0);
                             ^~~

and gcc errors

/usr/local/Cellar/gcc@8/8.3.0/lib/gcc/8/gcc/x86_64-apple-darwin18/8.3.0/include-fixed/math.h:535:15: error: storage class specified for parameter 'nextafte'
 extern double nextafter(double, double);

I dig into header files and gcc on macOS Catalina use this answer as a reference point. The answer states

Regarding header locations, I have Apples headers in /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/:

$ sudo find /Library -name stdio.h
/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/usr/include/c++/v1/stdio.h
/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX.sdk/usr/include/sys/stdio.h
/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX.sdk/usr/include/stdio.h
/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX.sdk/System/Library/Frameworks/Kernel.

When I run the same command, the header locations are slightly different:

/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/usr/include/c++/v1/stdio.h
/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX10.14.sdk/usr/include/sys/stdio.h
/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX10.14.sdk/usr/include/stdio.h
/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX10.14.sdk/System/Library/Frameworks/Kernel.framework/Versions/A/Headers/sys/stdio.h
/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX10.15.sdk/usr/include/sys/stdio.h
/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX10.15.sdk/usr/include/stdio.h
/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX10.15.sdk/System/Library/Frameworks/Kernel.framework/Versions/A/Headers/sys/stdio.h

As can be seen the SDKs are now split into MACOSX10.14 and 10.15 unlinke before. Another difference is with the header files. According the the answer in reference,

if you install gcc via brew, it will add headers in /usr/local/:

$ sudo find /usr -name stdio.h
/usr/local/Cellar/gcc/8.2.0/include/c++/8.2.0/tr1/stdio.h
/usr/local/Cellar/gcc/8.2.0/lib/gcc/8/gcc/x86_64-apple-darwin17.7.0/8.2.0/include/ssp/stdio.h
/usr/local/Cellar/gcc/8.2.0/lib/gcc/8/gcc/x86_64-apple-darwin17.7.0/8.2.0/include-fixed/stdio.h
/usr/local/Cellar/gcc/8.1.0/include/c++/8.1.0/tr1/stdio.h
/usr/local/Cellar/gcc/8.1.0/lib/gcc/8/gcc/x86_64-apple-darwin17.5.0/8.1.0/include/ssp/stdio.h
/usr/local/Cellar/gcc/8.1.0/lib/gcc/8/gcc/x86_64-apple-darwin17.5.0/8.1.0/include-fixed/stdio.h
/usr/local/Cellar/gcc/7.3.0_1/include/c++/7.3.0/tr1/stdio.h
/usr/local/Cellar/gcc/7.3.0_1/lib/gcc/7/gcc/x86_64-apple-darwin17.3.0/7.3.0/include/ssp/stdio.h
/usr/local/Cellar/gcc@7/7.3.0/include/c++/7.3.0/tr1/stdio.h
/usr/local/Cellar/gcc@7/7.3.0/lib/gcc/7/gcc/x86_64-apple-darwin17.5.0/7.3.0/include/ssp/stdio.h
/usr/local/Cellar/gcc@7/7.3.0/lib/gcc/7/gcc/x86_64-apple-darwin17.5.0/7.3.0/include-fixed/stdio.h
/usr/local/include/c++/8.2.0/tr1/stdio.h
/usr/local/lib/gcc/8/gcc/x86_64-apple-darwin17.7.0/8.2.0/include/ssp/stdio.h
/usr/local/lib/gcc/8/gcc/x86_64-apple-darwin17.7.0/8.2.0/include-fixed/stdio.h

However, when I run the above command I get:

/usr/local/Cellar/gcc@8/8.3.0/include/c++/8.3.0/tr1/stdio.h
/usr/local/Cellar/gcc@8/8.3.0/lib/gcc/8/gcc/x86_64-apple-darwin18/8.3.0/include/ssp/stdio.h
/usr/local/Cellar/gcc@8/8.3.0/lib/gcc/8/gcc/x86_64-apple-darwin18/8.3.0/include-fixed/stdio.h

Where are the other header files? What should these commands return in macOS Catalina?

you may need to reset the SDK path as its seems it gets wiped out by the upgrade and not reset by xcode install, seems more likely to not be set if youre using zsh.

try:

export SDKROOT="/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX.sdk"


How do you uninstall Keynote 6 but leave Keynote 5? I installed Keynote 6.x recently, and decided I want to use the old version (5.3) - commonly known as iWork '09 instead.

I have deleted 6.x Keynote using Finder, but it comes back when the App Store does software updates (which also sets *.key files to open in Keynote 6.x). I can't figure out how to get the App Store to prevent Keynote from coming back...

Open System Preferences and click on App Store

Uncheck "Install app updates" (and probably "Download newly available...")


How to best manage 1 iTunes account with SEVERAL devices in our family. We have 1 iTunes account for my family. We have 4 iPhones, 1 iPad, 2 MacBooks, 1 iMac, and several iPods.

I understand that each device can be configured to only sync certain playlists, so I do not have to listen to my husband's music, or kids' music, and vice versa.

What I do not understand is that when I try to sync my iPhone, I get 100 apps on my phone.  Is there a way to create playlists for apps and have only certain apps sync with certain devices?

Also, I have all of my business contacts, my work notes, etc. on my phone, which I do not want on my kids' phones.  Do I ultimately need another account?
If I need another account, can I still share everything that is already on the original account, or do I lose it? Thanks!

You can use a shared Apple ID for the iTunes, and app store purchases. Yes, you can select which apps sync to different devices

  To sync downloaded apps to iPod touch, iPhone, or iPad: Connect your
  iPod touch, iPhone, or iPad to your computer.

  In iTunes, select your device (below Devices), and then click the Apps
  button.

  Select Sync Apps, and then select the apps you want to sync.

You can create a unique Apple ID to use that for syncing contacts and calendars via iCloud. You can also sync contacts and calendars from an Exchange Server (or Google). Assuming you don't share your Mac account across the entire family, you can also just opt to sync contacts and calendars locally.

You may find the Macworld article All about iCloud: Common signup scenarios to be useful.


My Mac isn't locking when I put it to sleep If I go  -> Sleep or even hold the power button, my Mac goes to sleep but when I go to wake it up I immediately see the screen I'd put it to sleep on. Before I was asked for my password again upon waking my Mac. I know that you can quickly tap a key after using the power button shortcut to prevent it going to sleep and you won't be locked out, but even after having my Mac in sleep all night last night and waiting a few seconds or minutes before attempting to wake it today I'm not prompted for my password which worries me because I have sensitive information throughout my Mac.

I have just deleted everything in ~/Library/Preferences/ in hopes it would fix bugs. Was that a mistake? Could that be the reason I'm having this issue? Should I go ahead and restore my machine to prevent other weird bugs which may have come up because of that?

In System Preferences > Security & Privacy > General, make sure you've checked "Require password [x seconds] after sleep or screen saver begins":


Create an EFI partition I had the following problem with my internal HD. When I started my mac, after the logo loaded the screen went black and an error panel with the message: "Unapproved caller. SecurityAgent may only be invoked by Apple software" showed. I've had HD problems before so I have an external HD with Mac OS X installed. I used it to boot Mac OS (with no problems) and used Disk utility to repair the ESP (disk0s1 partition of my internal HD), but the partition was deleted in this process. My internal HD (disk0) now looks like this:

I have a backup of my internalHD on disk1, so I could just delete the disk and reinstall everything but I'm curious if the HD can be restored without doing this, so no worries about data loss if the attempt fails.

My thoughts on how to solve this are to implement the following procedure:

  Copy the ESP from disk1, and add it to a new partition on disk0 (I don't know if this can be done simultaneously, so the newly created partition has the exact size of the ESP, or if I need to create a partition and then copy the ESP into it).
  Move the newly created partition from disk0s3 to disk0s1, and then disk0s3 (internal HD) to disk0s2.

I don't know if this will solve the problem, of it can be done, and if so, how to do it.

Any suggestions are welcome!

Googling the error message I get a plethora of different causes: e.g. no space on the main volume, broken SATA cables etc.

So restoring or rebuilding the EFI partition probably won't solve your problem.

Recreating a/the EFI partition should be easy though:

Create some OS X installer thumb drive
Detach your external drive
Boot to the thumb drive.
Open Terminal in the menubar > Utilities
Enter diskutil list to get the disk identifier of your internal disk (probably disk0) - you will get about 12-14 disks almost all of them related to the thumb drive. Check the sizes to get the right one - below I assume it's disk0.
Unmount disk0 with diskutil umountDisk disk0
Check partition table:

gpt show -r /dev/disk0

Remove the two existing partitions:

gpt remove -i 1 /dev/disk0
gpt remove -i 2 /dev/disk0

Create a new partition and re-add the other two:

gpt add -i 1 -b 40 -s 409600 -t C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B /dev/disk0
gpt add -i 3 -b 1952255592 -s 1269536 -t 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC /dev/disk0
gpt add -i 2 -b 409640 -s 1951845952 -t 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC /dev/disk0

If the disk is stubborn destroy the gpt and a add a new one:

gpt destroy /dev/disk0
gpt create -f /dev/disk0

Now repeat the previous step and add the three partitions.
Attach the external drive
Get the disk identifier of the external drive with diskutil list (probably disk14 or even higher - below I assume it's disk14)
Unmount disk0 with diskutil umountDisk disk0
Unmount disk14 with diskutil umountDisk disk14
Clone the EFI partition of the external drive to your internal drvie with:

dd if=/dev/disk14s1 of=/dev/disk0s1 bs=1m

Enter reboot to reboot your Mac


Can I choose a preferred (Siri / communications) device? I have an iPhone, an iPad, an iMac, and a HomePod. When I say "Hey Siri", if all or some of the devices are close, they all try to answer. If I get a FaceTime call, they all ring.

Is there a way to prioritize these devices, for example, when I have all these devices in one place, to say I want to only hear my computer ring. When I'm using my HomePod, to filter my phone and iPad, so they don't try to answer.

Thanks!

Your devices communicate with each other over Bluetooth to determine which devices respond to "Hey Siri". If you experience that they all answer, you should observe the following:

Ensure that Bluetooth is turned on
Ensure that all devices are updated
Ensure that "Hey Siri" is turned on in Siri settings on all devices

Regarding phone calls, there's no way of prioritising devices automatically here unfortunately.

You can manually turn devices on/off by opening the Settings app on your phone, select Phone and select "Calls on Other Devices" - from here you can enable/disable calls on your various devices.


What processes run while my Mac is asleep? What processes, if any, run while my computer is put to sleep (not hibernation mode)?

For example, if there's an application which prints a line every second to a file, will it print lines while the computer is asleep? If I have an application running doing video conversion, would it continue its process while the computer is sleeping? If I have an IM application running, will I receive messages while the computer sleeps?

Nothing will run while the computer is asleep. Unlike humans, where sleep is different than death, when a computer sleeps it is essentially equal to being powered off.

There are a few subtle differences, the primary being that it wakes up faster than from a cold boot. This is because there is enough power supplied to the RAM (memory) to keep it active, but this does not mean there is power supplied to the CPU (heart), or that any processes are active.

Any processes that are active are below the operating system, in the BIOS of the computer. This is where the "Wake On Lan" feature resides, for example.


Several Google Chrome Helper orphan processes Chrome keeps leaving GCH processes behind, even after stopping the main process. How can I quickly kill all GCH processes in one go?

Assuming these aren't zombie processes (ones that can't be killed), you can try pasting the following command into Terminal:

killall Google\ Chrome\ Helper


Why does my symbolic link not work? I wrote a small Julia program:

println("Hello world!")

I can run Julia from the Terminal:

$ /Applications/Julia-0.6.app/Contents/Resources/julia/bin/julia test.jl
Hello world!

To make my life easier, I tried to create a symbolic link to the julia file.
However, it doesn't seem to work!

$ sudo ln -s /Applications/Julia-0.6.app/Contents/Resources/bin/julia /usr/local/bin/julia
$ julia
-bash: julia: command not found
$ type -a julia
-bash: type: julia: not found

How do I get my symbolic link to work properly?

What is confusing for me is that /usr/local/bin/ is in my PATH:

$ echo $PATH
/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/Library/TeX/texbin:/opt/X11/bin

I figured out what went wrong:
I made a typographical mistake when I was creating the symbolic link!

WRONG

sudo ln -s /Applications/Julia-0.6.app/Contents/Resources/bin/julia /usr/local/bin/julia

CORRECT

sudo ln -s /Applications/Julia-0.6.app/Contents/Resources/julia/bin/julia /usr/local/bin/julia

(I was missing the julia in .../Resources/julia/bin/...)


Beamer keeps asking PIN code connecting to Apple TV All of a sudden Beamer can't connect to my Apple TV anymore. When I'd like to play a movie it asks PIN code. I enter the PIN code displayed on the TV screen, and seemingly it does not accept it because in the following moment a new enter password window comes up in Beamer and a bit later a new PIN code is displayed on the TV.

Something went south. I haven't changed my network setup and haven't touched any setup of Apple TV.

However, my Iphone can connect to Apple TV and I can use it as remote. I can connect to Apple TV from my Macbook Pro and share my screen. Beamer is displayed in Apple TV setups as Unknown device.

I checked, 25 March a new TvOs was released, my device has this version. Is there any chance Apple introduced something "magic" in this update cause my issue? If it is true, in general how quickly Beamer guys release some solution for this?

I did so far the following any result:

restart MBP
restart Apple TV
delete Beamer with its cache and other crap it produces (ForkLift helps to delete these files as far as I see)
Beamer beta version (no available beta version right now)
factory reset of Apple TV
I read through multiple issues on Apple's site, but no result

Honeslty, I run out of possible solutions.

Any help would be appreciated.

Same thing happened to me. Definitely an issue with the new tvOS. Beamer just has to update their app so it's compatible. I've already shot an email to their support team to let them know. Right now the only workaround I've found is to set the Apple TV to require a password (not a 4 digit PIN) - it should say what it is directly below that (like a 6 digit number) and then when Beamer asks for the password - just enter that and it'll accept it.


Bootcamp Windows 10 - No image are available For those that don't know yet, Bootcamp no longer requires (supports) USB drive to install Windows.

I'm trying to install Windows 10 but getting a "No image are available" notice on Windows setup window after entering the license key.

I haven't found a single result about this online (so far). Any ideas?

Thanks...

  El-Capitan on Early 2015/MBP 13".

When I used an old product Win 7 Pro product key thinking I could upgrade (iso was Win 10 single language) it stated no images available when I entered my old key.

When I skipped entering a product key, it brought up the iso image as expected.

On the second computer, I downloaded the first english image from Microsoft and it accepted the pro key.  Very strange that the single language image meant home only (not pro).


Disable oscillating light on MacBook Pro when in sleep mode This is not the same question as Can I disable the lighted Apple logo on the back of my MacBook Pro?

When I shut the lid of my macbook pro, it goes into sleep mode.  When it is in sleep mode, there is a small oscillating white light on the front of it.

That small pill-capsule-like shape on the long metal strip glows forever on end when in sleep mode.  Is there any way to disable this while keeping the computer in sleep mode?

Yes.

Put a piece of cardboard in front.

I have tested and approved this solution.

As far as I know, this is the only non-destructive solution.


On reboot system asking for keychain password for local items I reinstalled OS X Yosemite, I am now using a new admin password (I also changed my iCloud account password.) Upon setting up iCloud, it reused the iCloud data.

Everything is running fine BUT on each reboot I am asked to enter the "old iCloud password" for all system agents using the "Local Items".

___________ wants to use the "Local Items" keychain. Please enter the keychain password

and it only accepts my old iCloud password, not the new one ...

Keychain password & login are only the same until you change one, then you need to change the other separately

Source: OS X: Keychain Access asks for keychain "login" after changing login password

  Note: This doesn't happen if you change your account password using Accounts preferences.
  If you want your default keychain to be unlocked automatically when you log in, synchronize your Keychain Access and account login passwords by doing this:

  Open Keychain Access (you can get to it by choosing Utilities from the Go menu in the Finder).
  From the Edit menu, choose Change Password for Keychain "login."
  Type the former password of the account that you are currently logged in to, then click OK.
  If you entered the correct password, a new window appears; enter the original password again in the Current Password field.
  In the New Password field, type the password that matches your current account password.
  Re-enter the newer password in the Verify field, then click OK.


Get out of OS upgrade installer on restart? The installer for 'El Capitan' stops and says

"File system verify or repair failed.
Quit the installer to restart your computer and try again."

It shows a "Restart" button. When I restart, it gets back to exactly the same place again.

How do I quit the installer so it doesn't start again upon boot?

I tried holding command-s on restart (from here), but that did nothing.

I do not have a recent system disk available.

Edit: I shut down completely. Let it stay powered off for 30 seconds. Restart holding down command-r (as noted here and in one answer below).  It chimes, goes through 3/4 of one progress bar, starts another progress bar, goes through half, then says "Install OS X" and looks exactly like the (failing) 'El Capitan' upgrade. It has ignored my command-r I believe. This page says "It's possible that you didn't press Command-R early enough.  Restart and try again." I think that is unlikely, since I held it down right from the start.

Edit 2: Restart has a menu, with "Disk Utilities", "Terminal", etc. When I try to quit the installer, it wants me to choose another startup disk. Once it didn't like "Macintosh HD" as a choice, but then on a second round it was fine.  When I try to repair the disk, I get "file system check exit code is 8", so I think the disk is hard to repair, (perhaps because it is mounted?).  I have an external drive, but it has the backup, so I don't know how to make it a bootable drive.  In /var/log/install.log there is "WARNING: 997: Failure to setup sound, err = -50", but I think that is not important.

The really weird thing is looking in /var/log/install.log it says (paraphrased without all the dates, etc. because I can't type it all):

The volume Macintosh HD appears to be OK.
File system check exit code is 0.
Repair completed successfully.
...
Attaching disk image /Volumes/Mac OS X Install DVD 1/BaseSystem.dmg
Evaluating 1 disks
OS X Base System is a valid target.
...
Shrinking host partition and creating new recovery partition
...
Verifying file system.
Using live mode.
Performing live verification.
Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
Checking extents overflow file.
...
Checking volume bitmap.
The volume Macintosh HD could not be verified completely.
File system check exit code is 8.
Detaching Base System disk image.
Evaluating 1 disks.
..
Ensure recovery failed.
Operation: Ensure recovery system failed, Failure Reason: Error Domain=com.apple.DiskManagement Code=-69845 "File system verify or repair failed."

It makes it look like maybe the downloaded image is corrupted? But why would it have started the install if the image was corrupted? And why is it ignoring my command-r upon restart?

Edit 3: I managed to choose "Macintosh HD" as the boot drive, and boot back into the old system. It seems fine, but I still have no idea how to upgrade successfully.

Edit 4: I am upgrading from snow leopard, so a lot of these options won't work.  I appreciate everyone's help.  The answer to this question was, "Notice there is an installer menu.  Choose quit from the installer menu.  If it won't allow you to choose 'Macintosh HD', reboot a few times until it does."  If someone submits that, I'll accept it.

I wrote a blog post on some options, and you should be able to boot to your Recovery HD and re-install some OS X onto an external drive. You could also try to re-instal the OS on top of the current drive as that's not designed to delete anything important and might just work to painlessly repair things.

http://apple.blogoverflow.com/2015/09/back-up-then-step-up-to-el-capitan/
http://apple.com/osx/recovery

Without knowing how proficient you are with more advanced install options, installing even on to a 16 GB USB flash drive would get you to a place to re-run the correct installer and try again with the upgrade. From the second link:

  If you use the Recovery System stored on your startup drive to reinstall OS X, it installs the most recent version of OS X previously installed on this computer


How to reset HomeKit? I have been using HomeKit on an iPhone 8 and 6s(both iOS 11.2.5) to control six Philips Hue bulbs through my 4th-gen Apple TV for the last few months with no issues.

Yesterday my Amazon Echo randomly stopped being able to control them so I reset the wifi settings(on the echo) and that solved the issue. At the same time my HomeKit also stopped working. All lights now give "no response" warnings.

I can still use the Philips Hue app on my iPhone to control the lights as well as through Alexa.

I am wondering why this may have happened and how to solve the issue.

I have tried restarting my Apple TV, but to no avail. I’m not sure what else to do or how to even go about resetting HomeKit. I can also still use the Apple TV as per normal so it is connected to the WiFi.

In response to answer regarding “reset HomeKit configuration” from privacy:

Here's a solution from How To iSolve:

  Step 1: Go to “Settings”.

  Step 2: Open “Privacy” and tap on “HomeKit”.

  Step 3: There tap on “Reset HomeKit Configuration”.

  Step 4: Finally hit Confirmation Tab to finish the process.

However, I recommend reading the solution through, you might not even need to reset your HomeKit.


restore MacBook from sparse image I recently wiped my MBP hard drive as well as installing a new SSD.

I have a sparseimage backup of my old drive (created with Carbon Copy Cloner) that I want to restore onto the SSD.

I've tried to restore using disk utility but I seem to be getting inconsistent error messages.

The instructions on the CCC website don't seem to work for my restore.

Any suggestions?

Wouldn't you want to use CCC to restore the image as well? The single time I did this, I just swapped source-destination and it worked a treat. CCC should be better able to handle it's own data…


Cable lock with Mac Mini How do I use a cable lock with my Mac Mini? It doesn't appear to have any mounts for the typical cable lock. Do I have to get an enclosure and secure that to the desk?

Yes, you need an enclosure to use a Kensington lock.
As you can see Mac Mini doesn't have a pin lock.


Backed up videos won't play on the iPad they were backed up from I was at a point where my iPad was full on storage due to huge amount of photos and documents. It was iOS 8.3 at the time. I decided to back it up and update it to iOS 10. I connected it to my PC, backed it up and updated it. It then gave me the option to restore from the back up so I did. I activated my iPad and started using it. Everything is fine, it is faster and smoother however when I try to play videos from backed up photo album, white loading circle starts turning and does not stop. How can I fix this?

If there is any other way to get videos from the backup file I could do that too.

You have iCloud Photo Library'a memory saving feature activated, and either is your Internet extremely slow or you're experiencing a bug, to fix the bug restart your device.

To deactivate the memory saving feature in photos:
Settings->Photos & camera -> Save and Store originals (or some synonym for it)
This requires you have enough free space on your device for all your pictures

Information from Apple's support page: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204264


iPhone Mail.app - Showing Disabled Email Accounts I have lots of emails on my iPhone from an old account that I no longer use. Mail reminds me often that it cannot connect to the account.

When I uncheck the account from email preferences, the  account disappears completely from Mail.

How can I keep the emails in my application so I can browse through them, while configuring Mail not to try checking for new mail?

iPhone 5s iOS 7.1.2

When you remove an email account from the iOS mail app, it removes all the emails (and other data) from the device. There is no way to keep mail on the device from an account that was removed.

If you leave the account(s) signed in to the device, you can set the mail app to only fetch new mail manually. This would allow you to have the mail on your device, without getting new mail automatically.

EDIT

To fetch manually, go into Settings > Mail, Contacts, and Calendars > Fetch New Data. There you will see a section at the bottom called Fetch and set it to manually.


Dragged pages larger than source document I have a 35-page academic paper in foo.pdf created using LaTeX. The full document is 950 KB.

I want to extract the figures and tables at the end of document into a separate file, so I open the document in Preview and drag the pages I need onto the desktop. This creates a new file, foo (dragged).pdf which is 2.2 MB.

How can the last 10 pages of a 35-page document be 2.4 times larger than the original document? Is OSX adding lots of metadata to these pages? I consider this a curiosity more than a problem, but still...

The Mac OS does not optimize PDF files the way Acrobat or other PDF generating applications usually do. It may also be that when you drag the page to the desktop is is making a PDF that is really just a wrapper for an bitmap image.

You could try using "Export As..." by right-clicking a thumbnail of a page and see if that results in smaller files. Another choice would be to delete all of the pages you do not want to keep and then save the file.

Here is a decent thread about optimizing PDF file sizes in Mac OS. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3213814?start=0&tstart=0


Incompatible Software with 10.9.1 I just updated to 10.9.1 and when the system restarted I got a window that said "Incompatible Software". But I got a Little Snitch window on top of it obscuring that window. For whatever reason I could not close the LittleSnitch window nor could I switch to the "Incompatible Software" window. I tried multiple times and the only way out was to restart the machine. All was well after that.

But I don't know what software was listed in the window and what options I had. Is there anyway to have that window back?

Not exactly the answer to what you asked but Incompatible software programs will be moved to /Incompatible Software. So just look and see what is in that directory


My MacBook pro Wi-Fi is slow, other devices are OK The problem is that the WiFi on my MacBook is so slow it is almost unusable, it can be compared to an EDGE connectivity. My iPad and Nexus 4 both work good and have no problems with WiFi and signal is strong even though I'm two rooms from my router. Anyone has an idea of what the problem could be?

Your MCS is zero (0) which would explain why your WiFi is slow.

That can happen if there is channel crowding (not only from your devices but neighbors included).

You could just change the channel for now 1 to 5 and try.

Or you could do a quick analysis of the channels do following:

In Spotlight type "Wireless Diagnostics"

Click on Wireless diagnostics to start it.

Now in the menu bar click on the Window - Utility - WiFi scan -Scan Now.

Sort the result by channel so you can see how crwoded are the channels.

Open your FritzBox set up page and set it to the least occupied channel.

If you do not know how, open any of the following  Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Safari.

In the address window type 192.168.178.1 , that should open the FritzBox set up page.


External hard drive frequently ejects itself when using Aperture I have a brand new external hard drive which frequently ejects itself on a regular basis (every ~20 minutes or so), seemingly only when I have Aperture open (my Aperture library is located on the external hard drive). The disk works perfectly fine for long periods of time when I am not using Aperture.

I have read many places online that this could be related to disk inactivity sleep, disk journaling, Spotlight indexing, faulty Firewire cables, faulty Firewire ports, hard drives which are about to die, etc. However, the disk seems to work perfectly fine when I am not using it for Aperture and none of the many forum threads I have found have pointed me in the right direction.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to identify and fix this issue?

Thanks in advance.

A book was just released by SCSC called "Hard Drive Troubleshooting," which mentions disk ejection in numerous places. The book is free and you can get it by going to:

http://www.scsc-online.com

Go to the downloads section and click on the book to download it.

I would think that if the drive is failing over a specific region, the disk will issue I/O errors and MAY timeout causing the system to think the drive is no longer connected. I believe the book mentions something like a 60 second timeout. To me, that would sound either like bad sectors on the drive OR corrupt data on the drive that the system can't make sense of. For example, if your file xyz.dat is either corrupt or unreadable and it just happens to be read by Aperture (and ONLY Aperature) then the problem would occur only when Aperture in use.

If you haven't tried Disk Utility on the drive to verify/repair it, I would do so.

...If you're using Mountain Lion, all bets are off.

Hope this helps.


How can I use rEFInd boot manager without an enter key? I have a MacBook Air (11-inch, Late 2010) (it’s old I know) and I have installed rEFInd on an USB. The thing is, my return key does not work, so rEFInd is basically useless. Is there any way rEFInd can be configured to be used without the return key.

You can try using one of the following:

rEFInd does have the ability to work will a mouse. If this does not work automatically, then you may have to edit the refind.conf file. This file can be found in the EFI/BOOT folder of the EFI volume labeled ElTorito on the USB.
By default, you can make your selection by pressing a number key. So for example, if the first row on the displayed rEFInd menu has three icons, the you can make a selection by pressing either the 1, 2 or 3 key. In fact, you can do this before the menu is even displayed.
The return key has the ASCII code of 13, which is a control M. So you can substitute pressing the control+M key combination for pressing the return key.


How can I redirect the output of screen to a file? I'm trying to capture data from a Serial Port by opening 'screen' from the terminal. It works, I see the data coming but I can't figure out how to save it to a file.

I tried to redirect the output of screen by adding > file.txt to the command line that opens screen, something like this:

screen /dev/tty.Airconsole-1 > file.txt

But it didn't work, it creates an empty file but I still see the data on the screen window.

Ideally I would like to redirect to both, I mean keep it in the window and at the same time feeding the file, probably by using the tee command.

Found possible answer at Stack Overflow:

Have you tried:

screen -L /dev/tty.Airconsole-1 > file.txt


My new iMac connects to my router, but not to the internet. How to fix? I have a 3 week old 2012 27-inch iMac and this morning I turned it on and it wouldn't connect to the internet. It connected to my home network just fine, just not the internet. I assumed it was my router's fault, but every other device in the house connected to the internet just fine. I have already tried turning it off and on again, many times, as with my router. I have also tried turning the Wi-Fi off and on in System Preferences. Any help?

You are connecting your Mac to the router via WiFi.

The first thing to check is that your Mac is asking for an IP address and your router is giving it one.

Open System Preferences > Network and select "Wi-Fi" in the left hand pane. On the right is should say "Wi-Fi is connected to [router name] and has the IP address [IP address]"

If it does you have a deeper problem, if it doesn't say that but instead says it has a self-assigned address that start with 169 then you have a DHCP problem.

Click on the "Advanced…" button at bottom right and in the Advanced pane click on "TCP/IP". Make sure that "Configure IPv4" is set to "Using DHCP" and then click on "Renew DHCP Lease" and see if you now get a good address.

if you are getting a good address from your router then try something simple, run "ping -c 5 google.com" on the command line and you should see ping send and receive 5 packets.

If neither of those work then please run ifconfig at the command line and you will see a number of blocks starting with an interface name of "en" followed by a number. Your wireless is probably "en1" or "en0". Paste this output into your question and we will have a look at it.


Calendar month view is unresponsive on iOS 9 On two phones that I have tested the month view in the Calendar app in iOS 9 is unresponsive or ignore taps. It seems like most of the time double tapping a day will open that day but sometimes (rarely) only single tapping a day will open that day. Is anyone else seeing this. Is there a workaround I can try before restoring my device?

Apple fixed this issue with iOS 9.1. It is mentioned in the release notes.


Backup the Time Capsule itself How do I (automatically) backup my Time Capsule?

I'm worried that I will lose important data like photo's and video's when the harddrive of my Time Capsule crashes.

Apple does not provide an automatic function for this.

You can manually Use Airport Utility and its "archive disk" function to make a snapshot copy of the current Time Capsule drive to an external disk connected directly into the Time Capsule's USB port.

This can take several hours. But if your time capsule dies then you could copy these files back to a new Time Capsule or a repaired Time Capsule.

See pondini.org.


How to transfer videos from Mac to iPhone so I can post a video to Instagram? I created a 15 second video on my Mac and want to post it to Instagram.

I've tried converting it to Quicktime with iTunes and adding it to the iPhone that way, but I can't see the video in the Photos on the iPhone.

I've also tried reducing the file size and emailing it to myself and opening the email on the iPhone and downloading the attachment, but it doesn't load it to Photos so I can't access the video anywhere on the phone. I've even tried opening the mail attachment video in a video editor on my iphone, "videoshop," which supposedly saves the video to my Camera roll, but again, I can't see the video in Photos, so I can't upload the video.

Mac is system 10.7.5
iPhone 5 with iOS 8.3

You can use AirDrop to send files from Mac to iPhone. You can read more about it here https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203106


iTunes Store - Use My Credit Card Not Store Credit For A Gifted Item I have some store credit on my iTunes account that I got couple months ago and am gifting a film on iTunes for my sisters birthday..
If i gift the film does the cost come off my store credit or my credit card?

Quote from Apple's Support page about Gifting...

  "When you purchase an iTunes Gift, you must have a valid credit card
  on file; you can't purchase an iTunes Gift with store credit..."

  - http://support.apple.com/en-us/ht2736

So to simplify..

Apple charges the gifted item straight to your credit/debit card. NOT the credit on your account.


"newgrp: too many groups" - why is it complaining? In my earlier question, I got a response recommending the "newgrp" command. It diligently did the job of putting my desired group at the "top of the list" for the "id" command, but, why does it also complain about "too many groups"? What is the limit, and, where is the documentation about that?

From the source code of newgrp

if (ngrps == NGROUPS_MAX)
    warnx("too many groups");

and I think  NGROUPS_MAX is defined as 16.

That is given in syslimits.h


iPhone 6 Plus Wireless connection problem My brother bought an iPhone 6 Plus, and it has a small problem.  When it connects to a wireless network, it will disconnect, and reconnect within a couple of seconds about every hour or so.

He has made sure that the software is up-to-date, and that didn`t help.

WiFi settings are Its WPA/WPA2, AES. Other iPhones connect without a problem.

What would be causing this, and how can it be fixed?

You can go to settings go to WiFi and see if there’s anything wrong with the passwords if there’s nothing wrong with the passwords then switch up some of the network settings and that doesn’t seem to work then switch to another network type


Mac - How to copy Documents directory to a USB stick? I'm trying to copy the entire Documents folder from a Mac to an external USB drive using the terminal. I'm using the Terminal because the machine will not load any users (it just shows Other) and the Documents directory is the only thing I need before reinstalling.

I've called the USB drive "USB" and formatted it properly as Mac OS Extended (Journaled)

When I try:

cp -R Documents /usb

It returns the entire list of everything that needs copying with: "No such file or directory" on the end.

For example

usb/Pics: No such file or directory

The first two lines when I run the CP command are

/usb: Read only file system
Unable to copy extended attributes to /usb: Read-only file system

So that's probably the problem, but it lets me create directories on the USB through the terminal, which would suggest it's not read only?

Anyhow, I'm lost, and would appreciate any help.

Connected external storages are mounted under /Volumes directory under the root directory. Try running the following command:

cp -R Documents /Volumes/USB

where, USB is the name for the mounted external drive.

-R flag would cause the entire Documents directory hierarchy to be copied.


How to know if MacBook Pro with LG 5K Monitor Displaying at Correct Resolution I've got the new MacBook Pro with TouchBar and the new LG 5K monitor.  I plug it into the USB port directly (single usb-c port using provided cable).

It looks good but I can't tell if it is really showing 5K.  In About/Displays it shows 5K but when I look in the apple display app it looks like it has less resolution then the 4K monitor I have sitting next to it (when I unplug the 4K, the screen resolution does not change even after reboot which I think is to be expected).

My question is, How can I know that my 5K monitor is really working at 5K?  is there some kind of 5K test pattern I can look at?

I called apple and they had no idea how to know.  Worst support call from apple ever.  guy said he had no manager, could not escalate.  Told me it's like buying a third party product from Walmart (even though I bought it from the apple store and it was in Tim Cook's keynote)

Under the display tab in the screenshot you posted there should be a "Resolution:" option. Click on the "Scaled" option to the right of it and it should show several resolutions, with the one you are currently using highlighted. If the resolution you want is not listed trying hold option and clicking "Scaled" for more options.

Alternatively, if you are comfortable with the command line, the follow command should list the resolutions used on all active monitors:

system_profiler SPDisplaysDataType | grep Resolution


Apple USB ethernet adapter is not detected I have a Macbook Air running 10.7.4 and I'm trying to connect to ethernet using the official Apple USB to ethernet adapter. However, the mac never detects the new network interface. It never displays a dialog asking me to set it up. It doesn't show up in network preferences. As far as I can tell, the mac doesn't know it's even plugged in.

I've verified both the adapter and the ethernet cable I'm using work with another mac. I've tried both USB ports on the Air.

Anyone have an idea how I can troubleshoot this? Is there a USB utility that I could check out?

I had the same problem and a couple of minutes ago I saw something about the "Android File Transfer Agent" having problems with the device.
So uninstalled "iSyncr" software (sync android over Wifi), disconnected the usb device, plugged it again and now it's working fine.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3941878?start=0&tstart=0


Can't get Siri to set a reminder for me to call my bank I need to confirm a change of address with a bank on January 1.  So I do my usual and ask Siri to set a reminder for me to do so.

"Hey Siri, remind me on January first to call US Bank about the address change"

Siri responds every time with:

"I don't see U Bank in your contacts.  Perhaps you meant one of these?" and then displays a bunch of contacts that start with the letter U.

This is really annoying... I use Siri all the time and almost never, ever, have even the slightest problem getting her to do whatever I need.  But this particular phrase just seems to stump her.  The text readout of what she thinks I said is perfect, but her response is not.

Incidentally Voice Dial is off, in case anyone thinks that's related.

Why is she misinterpreting this and insisting that I'm trying to call a specific contact?

It's because you're using the words "to call". By default Siri is interpreting this as you wanting to call a contact, which in this case is missing.

Perhaps you could just change the words to something like:

"Hey Siri, remind me on January first to change the address for US Bank"

This should just create a reminder for 9am on 1st January to change the address for US bank.


How can I see if an OS X install disc is compatible with the computer I'm installing on? I have an old Mac Mini G4. I'm trying to do a fresh OS install on it. According to my searches, the last OS version that will run on it is 10.5.8.
I have several install disks lying around, which came with various Macs I've bought over the years.

I've been trying to install some of these on my Mini G4, but when I reboot from e.g. a 10.5.4 installation CD or DVD, I get a message that my Mac isn't supported by this installer. These disks are labeled with the OS version, but offer no indication of which Macs I can use them on.

Is there a way to check which Macs can be installed from a given installation CD/DVD?

Here is a complete list of all OS X versions and builds included with Mac computers. To get the build number of a DVD check the /System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist file that is on the Install Media.

The string value for the Key ProductBuildVersion is the information you are looking for.

Now you can either check all of the bundled DVDs for the proper build number of your Mac Mini G4 or you can hack any of the DVDs (which potentially could be installed on your Mac) and include your machine in the "allowed" targets.

As an alternative you may "search" for a proper retail version.


Prevent StandBy closing MacBook lid during no power connection but Display connected I have currently no power connection to my MacBook Air, but I have a Display connected. I want to close the lid and only work on my external display.

So I want to prevent my MacBook going to StandBy when I close the lid. When I have the power cable connected, it will just switch to the bigger screen. But when the connector isn't attached, it will go to sleep.

  How to prevent going to StandBy if no power connector is attached? Any
  app or terminal command?

I am running OS X Yosemite on a MacBook Air mid-2011.

NoSleep prevents sleep when lid is closed.


Change text message forwarding from a device other than iPhone? I have an iPad mini that I'm using right now for most things, as my iPhone broke yesterday. I won't be getting a new one for a while.

Is there any other device I can change text message forwarding option from to make SMS go to my iPad mini?

Is there any other device I can change text message forwarding option from to make SMS go to my iPad mini?

No.

You need a working iPhone, connected to cellular network and Wi-Fi to enable text message forwarding to your other iOS devices (iPad, iPod touch) or your Mac.

In your current scenario, there is no way to configure SMS forwarding to your iPad mini as your iPhone is not active. Even if SMS forwarding were configured previously on your iPhone, with it not being active, you won't be able to receive the SMS messages on your iPad mini.

However, you can continue to receive and send iMessages with your iPad mini as long as it is connected to Wi-Fi (active Internet connection).

(In case you are not aware, SMS messages can be distinguished from iMessages, by looking at the colour of the message bubble. SMS are shown in green while iMessage are shown in Blue. SMS are sent over your carriers cellular connection and iMessages are sent over the Internet using Apple's servers)

More details can be found in the Apple support article, How to forward SMS/MMS texts on your iPhone.


iPad Safari scroll bar missing on some webpages On this web page* when I scroll up or down, there is no scroll bar. So I have no idea where I am positioned or how much more of the page there is.

* https://sourceforge.net/p/snapraid/discussion/1677233/thread/51d86bb9/

Is this a bug in recent (13.4) Safari? Or something weird done by that website?

This is not a bug, but a design fault on Apple’s part.

Going to the page you posted, the scroll bar on my own iPad is also not visible, but it is there. Scroll to the top of the page where the dark grey header is and you will see the scroll bar appear.

Visiting this post on my iPad, the scroll bar is visual, and you should be able to see it yourself.

Both are white pages, but the scroll bar is behaving differently, why?

Apple predetermines the color of the scroll bar as the page is loading up, and doesn’t respond actively to what is displayed on the page (here lies the design fault). Until Apple changes how the scroll bar responds to content displayed live, this will continue to be an issue.

If you want to see this in action and if you have an iPad that displays the bar at the bottom of the screen where you swipe up to go home. One page that shows this issue exceptionally well is TheVerge.com. Visit this page and slowly scroll to the bottom paying attention to the “Home Bar” at the bottom and how it reacts to light and dark backgrounds and then the scroll bar, and it’s lack of any response, even disappearing when you reach the white section of the page.


Ensuring file sharing stays enabled MacOS I have a large set of mac mini's in the field with smb/afp shares enabled. For reasons completely unknown to me the file sharing sometimes gets disabled for some nodes. I could not find a single thing in the logs, but for now I'm trying to write a quick workaround until we can find the issue.

Currently I'm writing a script that simply periodically checks if file sharing is enabled, and otherwise forcing it on again.
A lot can be done with the systemsetup binary, but it can't do anything for filesharing.

Can anyone tell me either what commandline binary is used to enable file sharing, or which services specifically I need to launch with launchctl?

Proper tools in macOS client are sharing and launchctl which have to be run as root:

Check man sharing how to use it.

To start/stop or load AFP or SMB use:

sudo launchctl [subcommand] -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.AppleFileServer.plist

or

sudo launchctl [subcommand] -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.smbd.plist

The proper tool to deal with macOS server related tasks is serveradmin which has to be run as root:

sudo serveradmin -h
Usage: serveradmin [-dhvx] [list | start | stop | status | fullstatus | settings | command] [<service_key> [ = <value> ]]

  -h, --help     display this message
  -v, --version  display version info
  -d, --debug    print command
  -x, --xml      print output as XML plist
Examples:
serveradmin list
    --Lists all services
serveradmin start afp
    --Starts afp server
serveradmin stop ftp
    --Stops ftp server
serveradmin status web
    --Returns current status of the web server
serveradmin fullstatus web
    --Returns more complete status of the web server
serveradmin settings afp
    --Returns all afp configuration parameters
serveradmin settings afp:guestAccess
    --Returns afp guestAccess attribute
serveradmin settings afp:guestAccess = yes
    --Sets afp guestAccess to true
serveradmin settings
    --Takes settings commands like above from stdin
serveradmin command afp:command = getConnectedUsers
    --Used to perform service specific commands
serveradmin command
    --Takes stdin to define generic command that requires other parameters


135GB of Hidden Space + Snapshot Metadata Tree Invalid error in Disk First Aid I have a serious problem with "Hidden Space" eating up my hard drive.

I'm running High Sierra on a mid-2013 MacBook Air "Core i7" with a 500gb ssd.

The last few weeks, something has to been continually filling my hard drive, as free space has plummeted from 200gb to less than 10gb. No matter how much I delete, my free drive space still hovers around 10gb-15gb. Even when I delete a large amount of files, the size of deleted files doesn't correlate with the amount of free space cleared after I empty my trash.

DaisyDisk found that I've got 135gb of "Hidden Space", 127gb of which is "Still Hidden" and DaisyDisk is "Unable to locate"

I've tried all of the listed items on their support page for this and none of them have solved my problem. I've also contacted their support team but have yet to hear back.

As far as potential solutions I've already tried that haven't worked;

I've turned off Time Machine
I've deleted my local Time Machine snapshots, which was the culprit for many people with similar problems.
I've never used Carbon Copy Cloner, which was another usual suspect for people with this issue, so that's a dead end.
I've re-indexed Spotlight, which was a solution for a few people who had this problem in Lion, but doing so didn't do anything for me.
Last but not least, I ran Disk Utility in Recovery Mode, and got the following "Snapshot Metadata tree invalid" error:

I tried the solutions listed re; that error as well, all of them having to do with thinning or deleting local snapshots via Terminal, and that hasn't solved anything for me either....

Most of the research I've found suggests that this is an issue with Time Machine's local snapshots, but I've tried all of the listed solutions that worked for other people where that was the problem, and unfortunately none of them have worked for me.

Alternatively, it seems more like my hard drive is continually creating data, until it runs out of space, and then when I try to clear space, it just gets filled with whatever is creating the data. I have no idea how to figure what's doing this or why...

Here's a screenshot of my Activity Monitor re; what's writing to disk;

Any help or advice anyone could offer on what else I can do to try and fix this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

The system temporary files was causing this so I solved this issue by doing a clean install. That ended up being the only solution that would work.

In case anyone else comes across this problem, I posted more of an update with screenshots here; https://discussions.apple.com/message/34146008#message34146008


How do I do the following with iMovie? I am trying to do a few things with iMovie, and unable to figure it out.

I marked different places in the video with a "Marker". Is there a way for me to select anything between two specific markers?
I am trying to move to a specific point in the movie. This turns out to be difficult with the mouse! It keeps jumping within 20 seconds of where I want to put the marker, or go to. Is there a way to go to a precise place in the movie?
Is there a way to add a fade-in/fade-out between clips (not for the whole movie as in Settings on the right upper corner of the clips)?

For me, iMovies' user interface is largely inscrutable. Perhaps that's because it caters to a video editor's workflow - something that's largely foreign to me. Anyway, this won't be a detailed answer, but hopefully enough to inch you forward.

The main thing I've noticed with markers is that they are like magnets: when the pointer is close by, it seems to "snap" to the marker. The only real use I've ever found for them is that they can be inserted during video playback (M). This is useful if you're looking for a place to cut a video, or make a splice to insert something. Here's another take on it.
Try using the "Precision Editor" (in the iMovie menu bar: Window->Show Precision Editor while a clip is selected in the editing panel. It may also help to "zoom in" (make the clip longer) using the slider in the upper right-hand corner of the editing area). Cf
Yes. The way I use this is as follows:

Split the clip (iMovie->Modify->Split Clip) at your chosen point.
drag one of the Transitions from the palette to the edit area in between the segments of the split clip
adjust the length/time of the transition with a double-click on the transition in the edit area

The picture shows the sequence, but you may have to view it full size to see the details.

Again - I'm no expert; you'll learn more, and quicker, by searching for help on the Internet. And keep looking! Some of the most useful features in iMovie are well-hidden: I think the "Ken Burns Effect" may be the best of these hidden features.


After Successful Bootcamp Installation of Windows, Mac OS X is unaccessable URGENT HELP NEEDED!

I have a Late-2014 iMac. Recently, I tried to Boot Camp it. However, It went horribly wrong and now I can't access Mac OS X. I am still able to access Windows though. Here's what happened:

I went to Boot Camp Assistant, and checked all the boxes, Create a Bootable USB, install Windows 10 Software, and Install Windows. I ran the process through correctly until It asked me to select the partition sizes. I set it to 700 GB Mac OS and 300 GB windows. However, after pressing enter, I pressed esc because I wanted it to be split equally. However, the process already started. So I force quit the Application and restarted the process. This time I gave Windows a little bitmore space. After that, everything went smoothly. I installed windows, installed a couple apps but when I tried to boot into Startup Manager (by holding Alt at startup) it didn't work. Then I tried to boot into Mac OS using the Boot Camp Manager via windows, but it replied with this:

Then I tried booting up Mac OS from Windows Advanced Startup Options, but that didn't work either. Whatever I tried, it just lead to windows. So then I tried to get into Mac OS Recovery using Command + R, but that didn't work so I tried using Alt + Command + R, but that didn't work either. I have absolutely no idea what to do whatsoever. Please Help Me!

EDIT: Using another computer, I installed Mac OS Catalina Install USB. Using This I Intend to use Recovery. HOWEVER, I cannot find a way to boot into it. Can anyone help me attempt to boot the USB from windows?

I Opened up Windows in Advanced Startup Options, pressed boot from another drive, then pressed Cmd + Alt + R and was able to boot into Internet Recovery. Then I pressed continue to Mac OS and I was finally able to boot into Mac OS.


TiVo videos on a Mac? Has anyone found a good way to view TiVo Premiere videos on a Mac (late 2012 mini, El Cap)? TiVo Transfer for Mac worked fine for years, but now only downloads partial files and has been abandoned by Roxio. I can't make cTiVo download complete files either - it calls it "Complete" after transferring 25 MB of a 1.6 GB video.

Did you post your ctivo issue over on Github? The other place to look for options is tivocommunity.com


Big Sur - No "Create New Folder" option when using the finder to download files Since I've upgraded to Big Sur, the "Create New Folder" option has disappeared from Finder when it is opened in the context of downloading a file.
Here's an example:

A colleague sent me a file via Slack.
I'm clicking on the download button on Slack.
I'm browsing the Finder to the desired folder (I have writing permission in that folder)
I'm trying to create a new folder for that file. ISSUE - In the past I would have the ability to either (1) right click in an empty area and from the context menu create a new folder, or (2) from the top bar click on "Create New Folder". However, the first option is now impossible because even when I right click an empty space there's no such option, and the button for the second option simply doesn't exist.

Any ideas? Did Apple ruin finder like they've removed the calculator widget?

I'm not on Big Sur yet, so this is guesswork.
Potential reasons it's not working.

Those icons in the top bar have always been customisable - maybe it just reverted your icon choices.
Finder, View Menu > Customise Toolbar… Actions contains the New Folder item.

Presumably you're not getting the right click option because you aren't seeing any free space, according to your 2nd pic.  (previous 30 days is not free space)

Cmd/Shift/N has been the key commend for New Folder for a long time.


iMac restarts instead of shutting down I have a problem with my iMac restarting when it should be shutting down. This doesn't happen all the time but appears to happen more frequently when I've had the computer on for a few hours.

What happens

I shut the computer down via Apple Menu > Shut Down
The shut down cycle completes
The computer immediately reboots

It doesn't behave like this Mac OS X never shuts down. The Mac responds to being shut down immediately.

Fixes I've tried

First I should state I've pulled out all USBs etc. The only wire in is the power cable.

Disk Utility

I've been in touch with Apple Support about this issue, and the only advice they could give was to run First Aid in the Disk Utility. Sometimes this allows me to shut down. Other times not.

Resetting the SMC

I've reset the SMC which doesn't help. This often leads to another issue which is freezing on reboot (Apple logo and progress bar that doesn't move). To fix this I reset the PRAM/VRAM

Reset the PRAM/VRAM

Resetting the PRAM allows me to shut down most of the time. Even then I have to do it 2 or 3 times before it works.

Complete reinstall/upgrade

I've also reinstalled the system twice, one time upgrading from El Capitan to Sierra. This has temporarily fixed the issue, but it soon comes back after a week or so.

Setup

iMac (27-inch, Late 2013)

3.4 GHz Intel Core i5

6 GB 1600 MHz DDR3

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 775M 2048 MB

macOS Sierra 10.12.5

EDIT: Current Energy Saver Settings

I'd really appreciate your help here guys, this has been going on a while and it's becoming a bit of a nuisance.

EDIT: This question appears to highlight a pretty common occurrence. I'm happy to invest more into the bounty to get an answer that resolves or at least identifies the problem causing it to happen.

UPDATE:

After going through the steps in the answer provided by @monomeeth, Apple Diagnostics uncovered an error NDT001: There may be an issue with the Thunderbolt hardware. I've run Diagnostics before, but this time I ran it straight after the Mac restarted from a failed shut down. I'll be taking it into Apple for repair, so I'll keep this answer up to date with the outcome.

Troubleshooting is a process of elimination and you seem to have started off well, doing most of the obvious first steps. Below are some additional steps I'd try next, especially since reinstalling macOS only resolved the problem for a week or so.

Test your iMac in Safe Mode

Follow these steps to boot your iMac into Safe Mode:

Fully shut down your iMac
Restart your iMac
Immediately press the Shift key and keep it down
Let go of the Shift key when you see the login window (NOTE: If you have FileVault enabled you may need to log in twice).
Take a note of what happens (i.e. can you shut down normally or is the issue still present)
Exit Safe Mode by restarting your iMac as normal
Now test again after the reboot

Now, depending on the above testing, we can narrow down how to proceed:

If the problem is still present during Safe Mode and afterwards, proceed to 1. Run Apple Diagnostics (see below).
If the problem is not present during Safe Mode then it's time to investigate login items, fonts, and kernel extensions. If that's the case, proceed to 2. Investigating login items, fonts, and kernel extensions (see below).

1. Run Apple Diagnostics

Follow the steps below to run Apple Diagnostics:

Fully shut down your iMac
Restart your iMac
Immediately press the D key and keep it down until you see the Diagnostics screen appear
Wait for Diagnostics to finish (this typically only takes a few minutes)
Once complete, one of two things will appear on the screen:

a No issues found message
a brief description of any errors found plus further instructions

If the diagnostics test does find errors, take a note of what they are

Note: If pressing and holding the D key at Step 3 doesn't work, start again at Step 1 and, at Step 3 press and hold both the OptionD keys instead. This will try and run diagnostics from the internet instead, so you will need to allow more time for it to complete.

2. Investigating login items, fonts, and kernel extensions

Let's start with Login Items:

Startup normally
Go to System Preferences > Users & Groups
Select the Login Items tab
Take a note of your Login Items
Now remove all of them by highlighting them and clicking on the - button below
Restart your computer

Now your Mac will boot up without those login items loading. Test this and see if the problem persists:

If the problem goes away you know one (or more) of the Login items were causing the problem. You can then add them back in one by one until you've identified the culprit. Problem solved.
If the problem does persist, it's either a problem with fonts you've installed yourself or with a 3rd party kernel extension. A little more info below:

Fonts:- You can remove any of the fonts you've installed yourself to see if this makes a difference.

Kernel Extensions:- You can open Terminal (found within your Utilites folder) and enter the following command:

kextstat | grep -v com.apple

The above command will list 3rd party kernel extensions (you may need to stretch the Terminal window so it's easier to read). Look for anything you don't remember installing, or something that belongs to software you've removed, or just anything that looks out of place. Remember though, this is a list of 3rd party kernel extensions and therefore any of them could be causing the problem.


Copy a Dock plist to replace another user's Dock I'm trying to copy a prepared Dock plist to another already existing user account. It seems simple enough:

sudo cp ./default.com.apple.Dock.plist /Users/$USERNAME/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Dock.plist

However, it does not work. I tried to rm -f the existing Dock plist first and then copying over the new one, I tried killing the Dock and not killing it afterwards, I tried rebooting the machine, I tried cp -f, all don't matter. I still get the old Dock.

When I copy over the same Dock plist to the user template folder in /System and make a new account, it suddenly works as expected.

The account of the user who receives the new Dock plist is NOT logged in, by the way. Also the template Dock file is from another computer. However I don't think the file itself is corrupt, since it does work with new User accounts. Also the path is correct because the Modified date of the plist in /Preferences is updated.

What am I missing here? Some rights issues maybe?

As a long shot, you could deploy new user through Meraki, deploying the specific pre-configured dock.

Also, this user's solution might set you on the right path.


automator and python script utf-8 output I wrote a python shell script and it fails in automator workflow :

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

import urllib, json, os, datetime
import locale
locale.setlocale(locale.LC_ALL, 'fr_FR')

url = "http://feeds.delicious.com/v2/json/lefakir/ws?count=8"

urllib.urlopen(url)

deliciousFeed = urllib.urlopen(url)

posts = json.load(deliciousFeed)

for post in posts:
    print " * {0} : [{1}]({2})".format(post["n"], post["d"], post["u"])

The problem occurs on post["n"] and post["d"] which have utf-8 symbols.

Is it a common issue ?

I found myself :

print " * {0} : [{1}]({2})".format(post["n"].encode( "utf-8" ), post["d"].encode( "utf-8" ), post["u"].encode( "utf-8" ))

It was an unicode/utf-8 problem :)


Finder File Sharing: How to access the hard disk? I use an iMac and a MacBook in my local network. I want to access the iMac's hard disk from the MacBook via the Finder's File Sharing.

On both the Macs, I have a user account with the same name and password. Both accounts have local administrator rights.

If I connect from the MacBook to the iMac using with the Finder, I can only see and access the Home directory of the user on the iMac whose credentials I entered. I cannot see or access other directories like /Applications/.

How can I access all contents of the iMac's hard drive?

The system folders are not shared over the network by default. Go to System Preferences app → Sharing and enable File Sharing.

Now under Shared Folders, click on the + button and add the desired folders.


Cannot connect to server "localhost"? I've been developing web apps for several months now on my mac using the built in apache server and everything has been fine. I restarted my mac this morning and now when I try to connect to anything on localhost I get the error: "Could not connect to localhost". Here are some things I have already checked:

Apache is running. System Preferences->Sharing->Web Sharing is turned on.
I ran "apachectl configtest" and it returned "Syntax OK"

Any help would be appreciated.

From the terminal curl http://localhost || echo $? might be a good place to start to determine if this is a resource issue, routing issue or apache issue.

You'll either get back a valid http response or an error that may lead the way to knowing why your other web clients are not connecting to localhost on port 80.


How to disable the No SIM Card Installed warning in iPad when using it without SIM? I have not managed to find a way to disable the warning No Sim Card Installed while using iPad Air without sim-card. I disabled using Mobile data in all parts of settings. I have done this now in three generation of iPads unsuccessfully. The notice window looks like this

How can you disable the warning No Sim Card in iPads?

Ask Siri to "turn off mobile data".
Worked for me on an iPad 4 with iOS 10.2.
Found in this Apple discussion.


Recurring system.log process: "com.apple.dpd: Service exited with abnormal code: 75" - Catalina 10.15.7 I've been trying to remove this weird recurring process that happens every second in my system.log:
Sep 27 23:45:12 User-iMac com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.dpd[1749]): Service exited with abnormal code: 75
Sep 27 23:45:12 User-iMac com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.dpd): Service only ran for 0 seconds. Pushing respawn out by 1 seconds.

It'll also randomly throw this SIGKILL message:
Sep 27 23:51:14 User-iMac com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.mdworker.shared.05000000-0200-0000-0000-000000000000[2434]): Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[122]

I've tried a few things so far:

Disabled SIP in recovery mode, ran sudo mount -uw / in terminal after booting and removed the com.apple.dpd.plist file from System/Library/LaunchDaemons
Re-formatted my hard drive and did a fresh install of Catalina. Repeated the above step.

I've been Googling non-stop so has anyone experienced this or know how to fix it? Thanks!

Fixed! I'm not sure if there will be unintended consequences to doing this but I removed the dpd daemon from /usr/libexec/, which is a hidden folder (literally dragged it into the trash and removed it). No more recurring messages!
DPD in the Man Pages


Why does the Citrix Workspace installer fail on macOS 15 (Catalina)? I tried to install Citrix Workspace v2002 on a new MacBook Air running macOS 15 Catalina. I think the owner of the computer had used Migration Assistant from an old MacBook Air running a significantly older OS.

The installer failed without a user-facing explanation. Other versions of Citrix Workspace and Citrix Receiver also failed to install.

Has anyone else experienced this?

The installer log view showed that a File Not Found error was occurring in /private/tmp.

Inspecting directly, /tmp was a symlink to /private/tmp, which itself was a symlink to private/tmp, that is to say /private/private/tmp! This target did not exist. The erroneous symlink had a modification date in 2016, which made me suspect a problem relating to Migration Assistant.

I think System Integrity Protection was preventing me from modifying /private/tmp, even as sudo and with System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Full Disk Access granted to Terminal.app . I didn't really want to disable it.

In the end I just created the missing target sudo mkdir -p /private/private/tmp and the installer worked.

It'd be nice to know how the erroneous symlink came into existence. The Migration Assistant theory is just a theory at this stage.

addit

Problem recurred while upgrading to macOS 10.15.4 (presenting with An error occurred while updating firmware.). Booted into recovery mode and inspected /Volumes/Macintosh HD/private/ to find that my ./private/tmp directory wasn't there any more. SIP seemed to be off so I could just remove the ./tmp symlink and create a real ./tmp directory. Then upgrade worked!

Hopefully this will be a more durable fix.


iTunes sync error -50 I recently tried to sync my iOS device, but I got a message similar to this one:

I tried googling around, and people generally recommended to disable syncing photos to fix this, but in my case syncing photos was already off.

Any ideas on how to fix this?

I just fixed this by deleting a large video from my iPhone.

Even though I still had about 3 GB left, it seems that iTunes wants there to remain some free space on the iPhone before syncing.

Once I had about 4 GB left, it started syncing again normally.

I hope this helps someone, and for god's sake Apple you could've included a less cryptic error message for such a simple issue.


Why is SubmitDiagInfo failing on Yosemite? My syslog shows the following:

Oct 16 05:47:47 Yosemite-Guertin.local SubmitDiagInfo[299]: Removed expired problem report: file:///Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/awdd_2015-09-15-191203_Yosemite-Guertin.awd
Oct 16 05:47:47 Yosemite-Guertin.local SubmitDiagInfo[299]: Submitted problem report file:///Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/awdd_2015-10-15-224315_Yosemite-Guertin.awd
Oct 16 05:47:48 Yosemite-Guertin.local SubmitDiagInfo[299]: Connection to https://radarsubmissions.apple.com/submit failed. statusCode: 500 error: (null)
Oct 16 05:47:48 Yosemite-Guertin.local SubmitDiagInfo[299]: Error while submitting usage and diagnostic messages. SubmitDiagInfo failed to submit diagnostic messages

Is this a concern?  If so, is there a cure?

When your Mac generates diagnostic logs, submitting them to Apple helps them know what issues are actually happening as opposed to one person reporting a bug. In the long term, not sending any reports is bad for you since your issues will be underweighted / undervalued and other people's crashes will possibly get more attention.

In the short term, one or two errors likely won't make any difference.

To figure out the error, you could use the command line to open a test connection to the server indicated in the failure message:

openssl s_client -connect radarsubmissions.apple.com:443

Several lines of text should flow by if you have no errors or issues. The tail end of a successful test should look like:

SSL handshake has read 2962 bytes and written 456 bytes
---
New, TLSv1/SSLv3, Cipher is AES128-SHA
Server public key is 2048 bit
Secure Renegotiation IS supported
Compression: NONE
Expansion: NONE
SSL-Session:
    Protocol  : TLSv1
    Cipher    : AES128-SHA
    Session-ID: 9B9A3A1B0136419E428B0857BEBDE5CA2EC2276083B9A6568943E475B59D7F25
    Session-ID-ctx:
    Master-Key: 976B51D8E678BB520EEB66BB701510F40620551AFE88A51D62F0167434D9695A0784A4DDA8956CE1EBA73ED034BA8AC5
    Key-Arg   : None
    Start Time: 1445003611
    Timeout   : 300 (sec)
    Verify return code: 0 (ok)
---

At this point, you wan wait for the timeout or press control-D one time to exit the openssl test connection. The obvious thing that would break is if your computer and Apple's servers thought the time now was more than 4 or 5 minutes apart. You can go to your system preferences and toggle the "set time automatically" switch once or twice to get your clock updated with Apple's public time servers.


How can I combine multiple photos into a single image on my iPhone? I want to combine multiple photos like this

I tried  many apps like diptic, picstich and many more.

But they all combine like this.

Just a bit of clarification: I don't want to create panorama, don't want to stitch and mix images. I just want to add multiple images horizontally or vertically.

Have you looked at Frame Magic. There's a free version and a 99¢ version


How do I stop iTunes 11 from randomly match SD and HD episodes of a TV-series? I'm trying to add my entire TV-series collection to iTunes so I can easily view it on my AppleTV. Everything was great until I tried to add DVD-rips and BD-rips of the same show. Now it just randomly matches the qualities. It might match Season 2 episode 4 (DVD) with Season 4 Episode 9 (BD). Some series from Blu-rays are in 720p and some in 1080p, and I have the same problem with them! iTunes matches them completely at random.
I've been trying everything (or at least what it feels like)!

Tags I've used are different between episodes: Episode name, Release date, Sort episode name, Short description, Long description, ContentID, TV Episode number, Track number.

Tags shared within a season: Copyright, XID, TV season number, Album, Disk number.

My temporary (and very, VERY space consuming) solution has been to make each and every episode in all the lower quality ratings available – a 1080p episode will be made into both a 720p and SD file also, a 720p will also be made into an SD file. I have over 4,000 episodes in my library, and it's very annoying to have at least two qualities of all of them.

Anyone out there that has a solution? How do I make iTunes understand that Season 3 Episode 10 and Season 6 Episode 5 are different from Season 1 Episode 6?

Have you tried directly editing the info in iTunes?
For example, you can manually select all of the season 4 TV shows, right click, press the "Get Info" button (Not what most people expect)

You should see a window like this (when selecting multiple items), which you should be able to directly modify the season number:


2.7GHz Intel Core i7 vs 2.6GHz 6‑core 9th‑gen Intel Core i7 I have a 15" 2016 2.7GHz Intel Core i7 MacBook Pro. It has 16GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3 and a 1TB SSD. I'm considering upgrading to the latest MacBook Pro, which has:

2.6GHz 6‑core 9th‑gen Intel Core i7 processor, Turbo Boost up to 4.5GHz.
16GB 2400MHz DDR4 memory.
1TB SSD storage.

What will be the difference in speed between the two MacBook Pros? They have almost identical clock frequency and both have Intel Core i7 processor.

I don't do any graphics processing, so I don't see that all of those Cores will be used. Is that wasted CPU resources?

My main activities are Web surfing (using Safari), periodic screen recording, and running a bunch of apps at once (I don't close app windows since it is quicker to flip between them). Some of the apps (with multiple windows opened) that I use and constantly have open include:

Pages
Numbers
Mail
Safari (two windows with 10 tabs each)
Calendar
Google Chrome (one window with 8-10 tabs)
Preview (about 5 windows)
Day One Classic
1 Password
Messages
Harvest app
Dictionary
Dropbox
Monosnap
Wrike for Mac (project management)
TextEdit
Terminal

My consideration for upgrading is that webpages can be fairly slow to load (no, it isn't the Internet connection), and I have about a 3-5 second delay sometimes when scrolling in Safari and Mail.

What will be the difference in speed between the two MacBook Pros? They have almost identical clock frequency and both have Intel Core i7 processor.

Both the processors belong to different generation. While 2016 MacBook Pro features 6th-generation Skylake processor, 2019 models feature 9th generation Caby Lake processor.

Table of fourth generation MacBook Pro models

Branding and clock speed aside, there's a lot of under the hood performance, fabrication, architectural and energy management improvements which happen in newer generation processors leading to improved overall system performance, battery life and thermal management.

  I don't do any graphics processing, so I don't see that all of those Cores will be used. Is that wasted CPU resources?

It's a broad question and whether CPU resource gets utilized fully depends on specific use cases. If you have an Apple Retail store around, I assume you can use advise of one of the store personnels in choosing the configuration that best suits your workflow.