How to revert to Lion from Mountain Lion? I'm running a Mid-2011 Macbook Air, my first Mac.  When I bought it, it had Lion pre-installed.  Yesterday I picked up an external hard drive, and made my first Time Machine backup.  In the next few days I plan on going to Mountain Lion, but am trying to be cautious.

If I have issues with Mountain Lion, and want to revert to Lion, what steps can I take now to ensure that I don't lose anything when going back to Lion?  Will a Time Machine backup + the Lion Recovery disk maintain all my documents/data/settings?  So, I'd have a Time Machine backup of my post-update Mountain Lion system, will Lion/Time Machine be able to take all the documents and data that were created under Mountain Lion and restore them to my system after reverting to Lion?

Essentially, I'd like to know what other steps I can take now, while I have Lion, that will make this hypothetical reversion a smoother experience.  Is my plan of Time Machine + Lion Recovery disk fundamentally flawed in some fashion?

edit:  As discussed in the comments, I've made a TM backup, and made a Lion Recovery disk.  I went forward with Mountain Lion's install.  I see in the Mac App Store, that I have ML available to redownload, but there's no option there for Lion (which I was sort of expecting, but now have confirmation).  Looks like the only way to reinstall Lion at this point is to use that recovery disk.

The Time Machine backup should do a pretty good job keeping all of your documents and most of your settings and should be backwards-compatible*, but I recommend making a complete, bootable backup of your previous system so that you're guaranteed to be able to restore your machine to exactly as it was before updating.

I'm a fan of Carbon Copy Cloner (free trial) for making the backup. Back up to a clean disk or partition using CCC and tell it to copy everything. It will also help you
clone your Lion Recovery HD onto the backup disk.

Once the backup is done be sure to try booting from it to make sure everything worked.

*Should be, but I haven't personally tested.


How do you force a 5 GHz wifi connection? Wifi networks are often set up in dual-band mode, with the same SSID served on both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands. I'd like to always use the 5 GHz band (due to interference with Bluetooth and other devices that degrades performance). How do I force Mac OS X to use the 5 GHz base station? (I do not have admin access to the network, so I can't just assign the 5 GHz network a different SSID.)

Note that this question is not asking how to force a particular flavor of 802.11, rather it is asking how to force a particular frequency band.

In short: you can not force a frequency band in OS X 10.9 Mavericks. (On 10.5 you can...)

You want to connect to the device using Basic service set identification (BSSID) instead of regular Service set identification (SSID). Connecting to a BBSID will connect you to a specific device regardless of the connection strength. Connecting to SSID will connect you to a specific network name, if similar network names are available it will connect to the best signal/noise ratio. It must be noted that your OS X chooses the wlan, not your router, and OS X switches to the strongest signal available (2.4GHz or 5GHz).

To find a specific SSID and BSSID combination, you can run:

/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/Current/Resources/airport scan

Before OSX 10.6 you could connect to a specific BSSID using:

/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/Current/Resources/airport --associate=XXX --bssid=YYY

Where XXX is the SSID/network name and YYY the MAC address of the base station you want to talk to.

On OS X 10.6 and beyond it is no longer possible to connect to BSSID directly. There is no known API for this and no third party Software exists that can do this. So you need to change your 5GHz SSID to a unique name or you need to go back to OS X 10.5, or you can change the 2.4GHz channel from within the router. I think these options are non-valid in your case.

UPDATE As maxim points out, you can force a frequency band and use that to fix to 5GHz.

On linux you can use iwconfig, but this tool is not available for OS X.


Powerbook g4 not fully booting to login screen FireWire problems I posted earlier about this and I got an answer that told me to use a FireWire cable to connect to another Mac and load the files onto that Mac. Here is a link to the earlier question: Powerbook G4 not fully booting to login screen

Well I finally got a FireWire cable and tried it. It worked, and I connected that Hard drive to the iMac as a device. I can open up the hard drive and look inside and see all of the folders that would normally be on the hard drive. However, when I look inside those folders, they are totally empty. Is this a cause of what happened earlier? Or is it a problem with the FireWire? How can I fix this? When I tried unhiding files and that didnt help. I also looked at the hard drive with get info and it looks like there might be more than just the folders on it, or folders are actually larger than I would expect.

From what you're seeing I'd guess that the startup drive on your Mac has some sort of file system or directory problem.

If this were my computer, I'd reformat the hard drive and (assuming that went without a hitch) restore from my backup.

If a backup wasn't available, I'd run DiskWarrior (be certain it's a version compatible with the OS on the "borked" drive.) If that failed, I'd try the repair disk function in Disk Utility as a last resort.

Note that it's quite possibile that Disk Utility will repair this disk. Given that Disk Utility is free, one might wonder why I'd opt for the utility that costs money. My reasoning is that DiskWarrior is non-destructive and allows you to preview the "repaired" drive before committing to changes. If you absolutely can't or won't use DiskWarrior, at least use Disk Utilities "verify" mode before attempting the repair.

Unix Gurus might advocate using fsck instead of Disk Utility but I prefer the GUI approach.

I would also advocate casting a suspicious eye on any disk that you've had to use drastic methods to recover. Given the age of the computer in question, and assuming an original disk drive, my tendency would be to immediately transfer recovered information to a new disk and install that into the computer. In the old days I might put the old disk to work as a "shuttle" drive but in this era of keychain jump drives and DropBox I'd just strip it for bits or send it to the ewaste recycler.


Password prompt before OS is boot My Macbook previous OS is Mavericks,one day, i use find my iphone to lock my macbook and the Computer started to prompt me enter password(not the lock my mac Firmware password, i removed it right after the first Firmware password prompt) before the OS start to boot(It's like asking for password on BIOS if it were a PC).Then i upgraded to Yosemite and it's no longer ask me for password before system start booting up. The question is how i can get back the old password prompt, or is it just me confusing that the password is prompt before system start.

To re-enable an EFI password:

Boot into Recovery holding Command+R at the startup chime
From the menu bar, select Utilities > Firmware Password Utility
Enter a Firmware password and quit the Utility pane.

Note that you’ll only be prompted for this EFI password if you attempt to boot the machine differently than you would normally. Otherwise, you’ll boot directly into OS X at startup without being prompted for the EFI password.

To re-enable a login password:

Open System Preferences.

Select Users & Groups > Login Options > Automatic Login: OFF


Always open app in "reduced" form When I Open certain apss (such as MacVim) I don't need the toolbar. So is there a way to make the app know this and always open in with the toolbar hidden (eg. as you would do by pressing the bean shaped button on the upper right)?

Add this to your ~/.vimrc to auto-minimize the toolbar in MacVim:

set guioption-=T    "hide toolbar


iPhone 6s question in reference to my iPad If I sync my messages to my iPad will I get an alert on my iPhone?
And if I delete messeges on my iPad will it delete the same messages on my iPhone?

If you sync both iPad and iPhone you will receive alerts in both the devices. While, deleting messages and conversations has to be done on each individual device separately so deleting is not synchronised.


My mac would not boot so I formatted the drive and now it has no OS So there is a whole other backstory as to why my computer would not boot and why I needed to format the drive. The only thing I need to know is how can I install an OS to my computer. I tried CMD-R, but it only gives me the option to upgrade to Lion and when I click to do that it tells me that Lion is no longer available. I do not have access to other macs so I don't know how I can install an operating system on my own. Oh and my computer is one of the 2010 Macbook Pros.

When you formatted your drive, you must have been "standing" on some other boot drive ... backup (??). That said, clone its OS to your newly formatted drive. Use Carbon Copy Cloner ... the best. If you don't already have CCC, get it and install it on the drive where you "stood" to do your original formatting.


Hide Siri's window on macOS Sierra After asking Siri a question on macOS Sierra -- her response window just stays pinned in the upper right corner.

Is there a keyboard shortcut or another siri command to hide that window without having to click the small "x" button?  Maybe a way to make it automatically close after some time has passed?

Without Type to Siri enabled, you may close the Siri window at any time by pressing the ESC key. However, I am unaware of a way to automatically close Siri after some time has passed or by using the keyboard with Type to Siri.


Test e-mail with previous version of iOS The email app on my ipad suddenly stopped working without me changing any settings. I don't know if upgrading to the latest version of iOS might be the reason but I want to exclude it.

Is there a way I could test my e-mail with previous version of iOS? I'm looking for an app or some software to install on my Macbook which would let me test things locally.

Is it possible with xcode?

The only way to test on a previous version of iOS on an iPad/iPhone/iPod is to actually restore a backup to the version or wipe out the existing version and install a previous version over it.

There's no app that will allow you to do what you're looking for because the devices just won't allow it.

It's rare that an iOS update itself will cause the stock mail app to stop working.  You didn't mention what mail app you were using so I can only assume it's Mail.

With Xcode, you can run various different iOS versions on the simulator only.  If that will work for you then that's your only chance at testing.


What documentation is included in the box with the iPad 3? The Apple website states that there is "Documentation" included in the box and several unboxing videos on YouTube clearly show some kind of physical documentation - but don't state what it is. What should this documentation include?

Specifically, I am wondering if there should be some kind of newbie-getting-started-guide included? And what this contains?

I just checked the box for my iPad 2. There is essentially nothing other than:

a tiny card with minimal instructions. This tells you that there is further documentation at help.apple.com/ipad, along with information about needing to download iTunes, etc.
The obligatory "Important Product Information Guide" containing a whole lot of legal stuff.
Some Apple stickers.

So I think your best bet for information would be the iPad user manual linked in the other answer.

A couple of photos of the card are shown below:

Please note that this is from the iPad 2 so this may have changed since I bought mine. Although Apple has been moving towards less and less documentation over the years.


Disable vertical quote bar? Mail.app's vertical bar formatting of replies is usually useful.  I have one annoying case that comes up very frequently for me that I have been trying to find a solution for.  I am a Python programmer and am on mailing lists that include Python code snippets regularly.  The problem is that Python command line application uses >>> as its prompt.  This triggers the quote formatting behavior incorrectly.  For example, the following email snippet is formatted incorrectly (IMO).

The code is useless, just to show the idea

>>> a = [1,2,3]
>>> a.append(4)
>>> a.sort()
>>> c = max(a) + 1

I would be very happy to have

>>> [1,2,3].append(4)::sort()::max() +1

The result in Mail.app is:

Does anyone know of a way to disable the quote bar behavior altogether?

source email: https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-ideas/2019-February/055374.html

You could turn off quoting.
mail > preferences
see responding section.


WiFi Not staying connected after sleep-wake Background
I am having keychain issues since upgrading to El Capitan, Described below. Also working with Apple support since 2 weeks and i have no hope for a solution
OS X El Capitan keychain login cannot be found to store

Issue
I close the lid on my computer and then when i open it it loses the connectivity to WiFi and i have to connect it every time

After connecting i get a message as below

Meaning that it can't save the password or something and then i am back to square one where after coming out of standby i'll have to reconnect again

Question
Is there any way to have my wifi stay connected without relying on Keychain. Meaning is keychain the only way for it to save my password or save my connection

Please let me know if more clarification is required

This issue just resolved on it's own yesterday, it might be something Apple pushed but i do not see any app updates


How to turn off display by pressing the power button of MacBook Pro 2016? (Changing the behaviors of the power buttons) I'd like to know how to change the behaviors of the power button of the MacBook Pro to have "turn off display" function. (As far as I know, default setting of a single press of the button gives you nothing or switching users depending on situations.)
I noticed a similar question was asked many years ago in the link below.
How do you change the behavior of the power button in Lion?
However, this terminal tip is outdated (press to sleep is not default anymore) and I want to have the display turned off instead of hibernating the whole system or popping up a dialogue. My university Ethernet disconnects any hibernated devices and that's why I'd just like to have the display off (and locked simultaneously).
(I added "turn off display" button at the far-right side of the Touch Bar, but it's definitely a waste of Touch Bar real estate. More Touch Bar space for scribbling videos is desired...)
As I couldn't find anything that satisfies my situations above, let me ask you all. ♂

As far as I know there's no Apple supported method of changing the power button behavior like that.


Ridiculously slow MacBook Pro I have a MacBook Pro (I think mid 2012). About three months ago it started running really slow, so I renstalled the OS with a recovery partition. For a few weeks it ran very well with an overall very seamless experience.

Yet, as of two days ago, suddenly it started running extremely slow again. When I use vim and save a 200 line text file it takes about a minute average. When I want to click an icon or menu bar, it's not unusual to delay even highlighting the widget for 30 seconds.

I thought it might be the hard disk drive, so today I changed to a brand new SSD. This, however, had no effect.

The computer runs at this very slow speed even when system monitor says that there are 1.5GB RAM left and 97% idle CPU.

Does anyone know what the issue might be?

Right now I’m trying to run the recovery partition again, yet even booting from it has already taken me longer than writing this.

Edit

I have only used about 30 GB of my startup disk.

I am not aware of any malware, yet, I canot be sure.

I have 4 GB of RAM (DDR3 1600MHz)

CPU is i5 2.5 Ghz

Update

I got it into recovery mode, and even here it's painfully slow, even if I select a disk i disk utility, it takes quite some time to even highlight the name. Could a reinstall even do the trick here?

More clear details

Computer specifications:

MacBook Pro 13" (mid 2012)

CPU: 2.5 GHz i5

RAM: 4 GB 1600MHz DDR3

Graphics: Intel 4000

Disk: 500GB (now 120GB) Only 30 GB when running slowly.

No retina.

OS: Mavericks, it came with Mountain Lion (It has run well with Mavericks)

SOLUTION

As suggested I tried to replace the Hard Drive cable following this post.

The cost of this was the cable itself (around 32 EUR), and was done with only PH0 and PH00 screwdrivers.

It's been working perfectly for around 30 minutes with no sign of the prior slowdown. The repair was very easy and the effect is just as one could wish for.

Hard drive cable failure is almost guaranteed to be your problem. We have a deployment of around 70 2012 13" MBPs for staff members, of which around 10% have had a hard drive cable failure. I had a suspicion you were going to say you had the same model from the symptoms you described.

The symptoms on our problem MacBooks are exactly the same as yours with the MacBooks running excruciatingly slowly on the most basic of operations. Replacing the cable has restored full speed without any further work needing to be done. Simply re-seating the cable's connector on the logic board has worked on a couple of occasions - in the short-term - but these have generally slowed down again, sometimes completely failing.

The odd thing is some of these MacBooks haven't been subject to any abuse and the cable has showed no signs of damage. However, the simple fact is that replacing the cable has worked.

The cables are available online (genuine cables can be had at a reasonable price on a certain auction site) and can be changed in under 10 minutes. The fiddliest part is disconnecting and reconnecting the IR receiver/status LED as there's a tiny latched connector to undo, but otherwise it's an easy fix.


Remote desktop to home from work / VPN / Dyn / ...? Occasionally I’d like to connect to my home computer from my work computer. Both run Yosemite.

I’d like to do this using Remote Desktop, as in I’d like to be able to run all programs on my home computer as if I was sitting behind it (view my Desktop, and access and run all my apps)

At work most outgoing connections are blocked. Can I get around this by using a paid VPN service whenever I want to connect to home? I have no experience with VPNs but do understand the concept and since I have admin rights on my machine I must be able to set one up.

Once the VPN is up and running I guess I can use any Remote Desktop app to connect to home?

Then the next question is that I probably need a fixed IP address or hostname at home, since I’m on a residential DSL connection that periodically changes IP. Would DynDNS help me with that? I see that Dyn also has a Remote Access product - would that let me see my desktop and run apps, or only access my files?

Can anyone confirm if this general overview is correct and possibly recommend a good VPN service and remote desktop app for this type of scenario?

I don't want to use iCloud!

I have personally used TeamViewer.

No need for a VPN or DDNS
Free for Personal Use
Works on Mac, Windows, Linux, Andrioid, etc.
Substantially faster than VNC

With a VPN, you run into the issue of it either being blocked by your company's firewall or if it is a SSL VPN, you either have to pay for the service or spend a lot of time and effort setting it up - it's quite complex and not something that is baked into consumer grade routers.

DDNS or Dynamic DNS can be done quite easily and it's fairly cheap, but it's not required.

I have found that TeamViewer performs much faster than VNC which is choppy and lags quite a bit over remote connections.  It also dosen't have all the hassles associated with VPN connectivity and there is even a USB version that you can run without having to install (meaning you can put TeamViewer on a USB stick and run it from any computer with Internet)


How to install Snow Leopard from XP on MacBook? The only OS installed on my MacBook is a XP pack 3.

I would like to install Snow Leopard on XP but when I boot from CD , It does not work I have a "panic kernel error"

any help ?

you have to make a bootable usb disk.

Transmacfor for Windows (2-week trial) can format USB drives for mac and restore .dmg files to USB drives.

http://www.asy.com/scrtm.htm

Download Transmac and install in Windows
In the right-side panel of Transmac, right click on your USB Drive >> Format Disk >> Format with Disk Image
Point to your .dmg file and click Open.

your USB Drive has to be at least 8GB.


Disable AirPlay on a Mac I want to prevent the user from being able to stream to remote speakers with any client on their laptop. Is there a way to globally disable AirPlay on a Mac OS X (10.6 or 10.7) system?

Unfortunately, Apple hasn't provided an easy way to disable this functionality. However you can deny global access to the application that provides AirPlay mirroring by changing its unix permissions

In order to disable AirPlay mirroring, we have to deny the computer access to the application that allows the computer to AirPlay mirror: Fire up a terminal and enter the following command:

sudo chmod 000 /System/Library/CoreServices/AirPlayUIAgent.app/Contents/MacOS/AirPlayUIAgent

Enter the administrative password and restart the Mac afterwards. If you try to AirPlay mirror to an AppleTV now, the AirPlay icon will stay blue, as if it's still trying to connect but it never will.

The only disadvantage is that it locks up the menubar. The user won't be able to use any of the menu bar items after they tried mirroring the screen. You're still able to adjust the volume using the keyboard, though. Logging out and back in will restore the functionality of the menubar until you try to use AirPlay mirroring again.

To eliminate the temptation of using AirPlay you can hide the AirPlay icon by opening System Preferences > Displays and unchecking the "Show mirroring options in the menu bar when available" checkbox. You will need to repeat this step for every user on the system.


Open Ports and Network Config Needed For Home Sharing At work, I cannot get home sharing to work with the iOS Remote app to see my Macbook Pro's iTunes instance. Both the laptop and the iOS devices are connected to the same network (have tried both wi-fi and Ethernet for the laptop)

Going into the app, no devices show up and it says to enable home sharing.

Home sharing is enabled in iTunes and as soon as I go home and connect to my home network, I can see the MacBook Pro's iTunes install via home sharing.

So my question is what port(s) configuration would have to be done to make it show up at work? Our IT people said it's not an intentional blocking of the service and would like to help if we can figure out what ports need to be opened to make home sharing work.

As mentioned in this Apple support document the following ports have to be open:

Home Sharing uses TCP port 3689 and UDP port 5353 to communicate with shared iTunes libraries.

Additionally port 123 (TCP/UDP) has to be open to set the time automatically.

This is a list of all ports for Apple-related protocols, in case there are any remaining issues - Apple KB: TCP and UDP ports used by Apple software products


Automatically sync select folders between two Macs over LAN I'm working on two Macs, an iMac and a MacBook, both under OS X 10.8.5. There are several GB of data that I need on both computers. I have used Dropbox and ownCloud, but I don't see why I need to transfer the files over the internet when I have a cable that connects both computers directly over my local network.

What I want is a solution that automatically syncs selected folders between these two computers, similar to a Cloud service, but directly, without the Cloud.

I have no idea how to run rsync and don't want to learn it, so the solutions shouldn't be more complicated than installing Dropbox. It would be nice if the solution was open source and free, but that is not a must.

Update [2014-05-19]:

I'm under OS 10.9 by now, and I use ChronoSync to sync my computers. I wrote an AppleScript that mounts one computer from the other, opens a ChronoSync file, and then unmounts the volume again when syncing is complete. I saved this AppleScript as an app and put it in my Dock. So now all I have to do is plug in the USB cable into my laptop, have both computers running, and click the app symbol in the Dock.

The only problem I have is with ChronoSync sometimes showing an error on .DS_Store files. I'm unable to exclude this file type or file name, although theoretically ChronoSync offers the option to do this. It's not a real problem, though, as I told ChronoSync not to stop syncing on errors, and as yet I haven't had any problems with those files.

I may look into iBackup, soon.

Update [2015-04-13]

It's been two years now and I still happily run my AppleScript. I accidentally stumbled upon this question yesterday, and realized that I never shared the code of my script. So here it is. Open the AppleScript-Editor, insert this code, and save as an application.

mount volume "afp://YOUR_USERNAME:YOUR_PASSWORD@192.168.2.50:548/YOUR_USER_FOLDER"

tell application "ChronoSync"
    activate
    open alias "Macintosh HD:Users:YOUR_USER_FOLDER:PATH:TO:SYNC_FILE.csyn"
    tell document 1 to Synchronize

    -- wait until syncronization is finished
    repeat while syncStatus of document 1 is not 0
    end repeat

    tell document 1 to save
    tell document 1 to close

    quit
end tell

tell application "Finder"
    eject disk "YOUR_USER_FOLDER"
end tell

Notes:

Replace CAPITAL_LETTER_PHRASES with your information. Take care that you don't accidentally delete the colons (":") between them.
Use the correct IP address for your "remote" computer.
I pass my username and password in the afp-URL. If I remember correctly this will cause your password to be written to your log files. This is not an issue for me, because the computer that runs this script is not connected to the internet. If you worry about security, you might want to delete that part and fill in your password each time in the prompt that comes up. I don't remember, if that breaks the script.
Remember to allow "File Sharing" under the "Sharing" settings in the System Preferences of the computer you want to connect to (in my case my laptop; the above script runs on my desktop computer at home). I deleted all the predefined "Shared Folders" and "Users" there. I always deactivate File Sharing after syncing, because otherwise someone else on the same WLAN might access my computer.

I still have to look into iBackup, lol.

BitTorrent Sync does exactly what you want. It syncs over LAN by creating a "secret code" between the synced folders. You have the option to view your files on an iOS device through their free app. It's free and supports multiple platforms.

This is quoted from their website:

Sync and Share - Sync unlimited files between your own devices, or share a folder with friends and family to automatically sync anything.
Private and Secure - File transfers are encrypted. Your information is never stored on a server in the cloud and your data is protected by private keys.
Bigger is Better - BitTorrent Sync is specifically designed to handle large files, so feel free to sync original, high quality, uncompressed files.

I have been using it for couple months now. It's pretty much set it up and forget it.


How can I install the newest EFI firmware upgrade from El Capitan? I've got an early 2011 MacBook Pro (8,1) and I am trying to install the newest EFI firmware upgrade, however it only supports 10.8.5 and 10.9.5.

Unfortunately I have no clue as to what the best course of action would be to get this installed. I really need this firmware upgrade, to get access to Apple's Internet Recovery system.

Any tips or pointers would be greatly appreciated.

First check your current Firmware and SMC version About your Mac -> More -> System Report. Check the Boot ROM and the SMC version. It should look similar to this:

The latest Boot ROM version for your MacBookPro8,1 (Early 2011) is MBP81.0047.B2A and the latest SMC version 1.69f4 (SMC 1.7).

If you get the same versions the latest EFI updates are already installed.

The most secure method is to swap the internal hard disk with a spare 2.5" drive and install Mountain Lion or Mavericks.

Then download Mac EFI Security Update 2015-001 and install it.

After a reboot the firmware will be updated. Shut down your Mac after the successful update and swap the drives again.

Recheck the Boot ROM version and the SMC version.


Can Apple refuse service under warranty if an iPhone presents only some scratches? One morning I found that one corner of my iPhone was hit and there is a scratch on the metal and the small plastic border around the glass. The glass is in perfect shape.

Now, I encounter an overheating problem with the phone and I want to go to Apple but I'm wondering if I could have problems with the warranty due to this.

I have had some personal experience with this type of warranty problem. I had an iPhone 3GS which had stress cracks in the white case. I left the phone in my pocket the day before my genius appointment, and hey presto it went in the washing machnie.

It came out dead! I took it in, told the gyt what had happened, he took one look at the cracks, and replaced the unit.

Legaly with warranties - if there was a problem with the product at the time of purchase you are able to take a refund without any quibble.

Going back to your specfic case, a few scratches on the phone will go down to standard wear and tear, and cannot be expected to be the cause of overheatingt. Obviously if the scratches are deep so deep in fact the phone is in bits then they won't refund or replace.


Error during WebSocket handshake: Status line contains embedded null (using livereload, node-inspector, and karma) Whenever I run something in my Terminal that requires a websocket to a browser (livereload, node-inspector, karma), I get the following console error "Error during WebSocket handshake: Status line contains embedded null." Not sure if this is the right place to ask this question, but any help would be appreciated.

Lame, looks like it was my accountability software x3watch.


How to import Live Photos from Finder to Photos.app? I only use Photos.app as a browser of all my images.

I unselected the copy items to the Photos library so my files can live in my hard drive and I don't duplicate them inside the Photos Library.photoslibrary archive.

I use Image Capture to import the iPhone pictures to a folder and after I used to imported to Photos.app and everything was great.

But now with Live photos I get two files for each picture, the picture and the little movie that makes the Live part possible. The problem is that if I try to import them to Photos.app, it doesn't recognise them.

Is there any way to import the picture with the Live functionality to the app without duplicating the content?

You have to import the two files of the same picture (the photo and the video) with the same name.

Photos will recognise them as a live picture then.


My Mac only boots to internet recovery and doesnt install MacOs I have a MacBook Pro Early 2011 and I had it with High Sierra OS, as I'm going to sell it I tried to revert to factory settings via recovery... the thing is that it shows an error and didn't install it.

I was touching stuff in Terminal following some guides I found online and I made things worse, the thing is that now the Mac only boots to Internet recovery, and when i try to install macOS Lion (the only option I have in recovery) it shows an error and doesn't download.

I tried to make an bootable USB from Windows with Sierra but the Mac doesn't see it (I used Transmac because i don't have access to another Mac to make it from there).

The other thing that I don't understand is that when I use Disk Utility to erase the disk it doesn't show "HFS Extended Journaled", just "macOS Plus Case Sensitive, Encrypted", etc.

I'm truly desperate, I don't know what to do.

i managed to get it back up, i downloaded mac os lion 10.7.5 and i used transmac software to make a bootable USB drive with lion 10.7.5.dmg inside from my Windows 10 machine.
Steps (on windows 10):
1- get MacOS Lion (in my case) 10.7.5 (not older, because if its older you wont be abble to update it to Sierra)
2- get transmac trial software (15 day trial)
3- open transmac as administrator
4- plug in USB drive (8GB or more)
5- on transmac locate the USB drive, click right mouse button and click "format disk for mac"
6-click "yes"
7-when it finishes formatting, click right mouse button again on the USB drive and click "restore with disk image"
8- search and select the Macos Lion.dmg file
9- click "yes" and wait until it finishes (it may take a while)

when i booted from the mac with the USB drive (push the power button on the mac and righ after push "cmd") it gave me another error and refused to install... after a lot of searching i found that reseting NVRAM may help, so it did (turn on the mac holding option (alt)+cmd+P+R), and after the long install process i was on MacOS Lion, and from there i updated to Sierra, and after that High Sierra.

Thanks to all for trying to help me and i hope my experience can help someone in the future.

Sorry for my english


iCloud Drive not working after El Capitan upgrade, files not in com~apple~CloudDocs On one of my computers, iCloud Drive is not working after upgrading to El Capitan. The iCloud Drive folder is missing all my files in finder. Normally, these files are stored in ~/Library/Mobile Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs/ for me locally. However, even this folder is empty. My iCloud Drive shows up fine on another one of my computers. I thought a fix may be to disable and reenable iCloud Drive in System Preferences, but when I do that I get the following message...

I have important files on iCloud Drive, so a cautiously click cancel. I have about 40 GB of files on it. I'm wondering if I should just be patient. I installed El Capitan two nights ago and need to access my files. I've been riddled with problems with iCloud Drive. After some misguided tinkering, many of my files take a ridiculously long time to load, but that's another thread. Does anyone know how I can safely get my iCloud Drive files back on my computer?

edit: In reponse to the first answer. brctl log --wait --shorten gives

[note]    0.000 [2015-10-02 19:59:14.231] sqlite.clientTruth             sync-down.periodic-sync BRCPeriodicSyncOperation.m:137
    scheduled a useless periodic sync
[note]  717.386 [2015-10-02 20:11:11.617] sqlite.serverTruth             zone.server               BRCServerZone.m:771
    received 0 edited items from the cloud for com.apple.CloudDocs
[note]  723.513 [2015-10-02 20:11:17.743] sqlite.serverTruth             zone.server               BRCServerZone.m:771
    received 200 edited items from the cloud for com.apple.CloudDocs
[note]  2317.776 [2015-10-02 20:37:52.007] xpc.activity.com.apple.bird.configuration-server-update user-defaults           BRCUserDefaults.m:335
    downloading iCloud Drive configuration
[note]  2508.863 [2015-10-02 20:41:03.093] sqlite.serverTruth             zone.server               BRCServerZone.m:771
    received 0 edited items from the cloud for com.apple.CloudDocs
[note]  2514.711 [2015-10-02 20:41:08.941] sqlite.serverTruth             zone.server               BRCServerZone.m:771
    received 200 edited items from the cloud for com.apple.CloudDocs
[note]  4009.626 [2015-10-02 21:06:03.856] sqlite.serverTruth             zone.server               BRCServerZone.m:771
    received 0 edited items from the cloud for com.apple.CloudDocs
[note]  4016.041 [2015-10-02 21:06:10.272] sqlite.serverTruth             zone.server               BRCServerZone.m:771
    received 200 edited items from the cloud for com.apple.CloudDocs
[note]  5433.434 [2015-10-02 21:29:47.665] sqlite.serverTruth             zone.server               BRCServerZone.m:771
    received 0 edited items from the cloud for com.apple.CloudDocs
[note]  5440.516 [2015-10-02 21:29:54.746] sqlite.serverTruth             zone.server               BRCServerZone.m:771
    received 200 edited items from the cloud for com.apple.CloudDocs

The first step is using brctl log from terminal to see what activity is happening and if you have errors.

How Do I Know If A File Has Been Successfully Synced To iCloud Drive?

From there, you can be patient or call AppleCare or post a follow on question with some specifics on what's happening to your cloud sync.


Why is the "Word of the Day" screensaver giving me false information? I'm using the "Word of the Day" screensaver under OSX 10.8.

It says "Press the D key to see more.", however hitting the D, or any other key, instead brings up the password screen used to terminate the screensaver and get back to work.

Is there something I might have messed up, or it's just a sentence they forgot there but isn't really supposed to work?

According to this discussion it is supposed to open the "Dictionary" app. However, according to that discussion doesn't seem to work if the screensaver is set to require a password.

I have not tried on MacOS X 10.8, but on 10.9 it is no longer possible to disable the password of the screensaver and only set the time after which the screensaver activates. So it seems that it is no longer supposed to work and it is a sentence they forgot.


Bluetooth headphones automatic connect I have LG HBS 730 Bluetooth headphones. I would like them to automatically connect to my Retina Macbook pro. How can I achieve that?

They should automatically connect as soon as you have paired them. They won't automatically reconnect if you take them out of range without turning them off first, to reconnect them, go into range and briefly press the call button on them. If you turn them off, then turn them on again and they don't connect, this is either a product issue, or your MacBook might not have the right settings.
Make sure that your MacBook is discoverable via bluetooth. If none of that works, contact LG and tell them about your problem, including all the steps you took to try and fix the problem. They will know more about it than me.


What is the difference between a reset and delete I have a problem with my iPod nano which plays a track initially and later skips to the next track. I tried the same track in itunes v12 and it plays with ease. I had asked for this here for which I got an answer as to try doing the reset+delete all.

But my doubt is that if I am doing the reset (which I have done) then am I not in-directly deleting all the songs+the voice over

If I am wrong with the above then could please tell me what exactly is the difference in the reset and the delete

When you reset you basically restarting the hardware and the device reloads the software.

When you delete you remove all the data from the device.

Though to solve your problem I would suggest you try the following:

Use iTunes to Restore your iPod to factory default. Once complete reload your content.

when you restore you erase the device completely and it reinstalls a new copy of the software to the device.

Regards

Kyle


macOS: Is there a way to keep the Emoji & Symbol viewer on top/without disappearing? Since I'm not a MacBook Pro /w Touch Bar user, I occasionally use the macOS Emoji & Symbols viewer to double-click various emoji entries into the system. However, the Emoji & Symbols viewer is annoying because it's easily hidden by other application windows, and it seems to disappear once you click outside of the application window and select another app.

I can't find a way to make it "float" on the Desktop, or to prevent it from closing when switching to another app?

No, it opens on a per-app basis.

You can open it twice [or more], in different apps, & it will remember position & settings separately for each & swap between as you switch apps.

It used to be global, a long time ago, but hasn't been for quite some time.


What are the minimum and recommended hardware requirements for Xcode development on OS X? I am a freelancer programmer and so far I have only worked on projects on Windows platform. I don't have much idea about OS X hardware. I am not looking for a very high end configuration but integrated development environment and one database server should just run fine. I have a Dell laptop i7 processor, 8 GB RAM, 1 TB HDD; I am fairly satisfied with the performance. I am mainly going to use it for app development and not for any rich graphics app development.

What are the minimum and recommended hardware requirements for Xcode development on OS X?

Being a programmer myself, I think screen size and amount of memory are the most important factors to consider. The processors and graphic chips of all current MacBooks will be sufficient for this kind of work, although the MacBook Airs come standard with an Intel i5 processor, which can be upgraded to an i7 for a small price.

Memory: MacBook Airs come standard with 4 GB, which I think is not enough. They all have the option to upgrade to 8 GB though. The 13" MacBook Pros come with 8 GB standard, with 16 GB as an option. The 15" MacBook Pros have 16 GB standard.

For screen size, I like to have lots of it to do development work. Unfortunately, Apple stopped selling 17" laptops some years ago. On the other hand, almost all MacBook Pros now come with a Retina display, which means they have a much higher resolution for the same screen size. If you are comfortable working with smaller font sizes, you can switch to a "more space" option in the display settings, which gives you lots of screen real estate. You can choose between 13" and 15" MacBook Pros, but the 15" models are Apple's top of the line, so they might be costlier than what you're looking for. The MacBook Airs don't have Retina displays, and they come in 11" and 13" models.

A last point to look out for is disk size. All MacBooks, except for the 13" MacBook Pro without Retina display, come with an SSD. But with the cheaper models it's just 128 GB. On all MacBook Air models you have the option to pick up to 512 GB, and up to 1 TB on the MacBook Pros.

I suggest you go to the online Apple store for your country, and customize a MacBook Air or MacBook Pro to your liking and within your budget. Welcome to the Apple development world!


Stop sharing primary [boot] and Time Machine drive via AFP? I have three folders setup as shared folders in the Sharing [System] Preferences on my AFP [not SMB] file server.  My file server is running OS X [not OS X Server] 10.11 El Capitan.

When I connect to the file server via AFP and authenticate as an admin user, I am able to mount these three folders, as well as my home directory and the file server's primary [boot] and Time Machine drives.

I would prefer that the file server not share the primary [boot] and Time machine drives with AFP clients, even if the user is an admin.

I have a different file server that runs OS X Server 10.8 Mountain Lion.  Here the primary [boot] and Time Machine drives are not shared by default.  This is what I want but I don't want to install OS X Server to get this.

I am thinking that there must be a way to do this as both OS X and OS X Server are using /usr/sbin/AppleFileService to provide AFP service and so the difference must be happening somewhere else (or the default behavior has changed between OS X 10.8 to 10.11).

Does anyone know how to do this?

Issuing the following command and restarting /usr/sbin/AppleFileServer would seem to have been the solution.

$ sudo /usr/bin/defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.AppleFileServer admin31GetsSp -boolean true

It wasn't.  Connecting to the file server as an admin user continued to result in my seeing both share points and volumes.  I wanted to see share points but not volumes.

Issuing the following command and restarting AppleFileServer was the solution.

$ sudo /usr/bin/defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.AppleFileServer fullServerMode -boolean true


How to install Linux & Windows on a Macbook I've been contemplating on buying a Macbook Pro, but what I want to try and do is to have Linux, Windows and Mac (Primary) running on the Macbook. I feel this is a good idea for me, as I'm in my first year of Computer Science in Uni, so I would like to get a serious feel for Linux and Mac, as I've been using mostly just Windows up until now. As well as the fact, I can carry the Macbook about and so forth.

I'm a bit of a newbie still when it comes to Macs, but shouldn't be a problem picking up on things. I have just been looking at different ways to install all three Operating systems, some use Virtual Machine, whilst others opt for partitioning the hard drive.

I basically want to know which method would be most fluid for me, as well as what precautions I should take should anything go wrong. I need to have it running smoothly, especially since a lot of important work will be on it.

For windows you can install it in bootcamp is very easy because there are a lot of videos or tutorials in youtube for this job.

Install Windows With Bootcamp

For linux you can install Parallels.

Install Linux With Parallels

Virtual-Box.

Install Linux With VirtualBox

Or VMWARE.

Install Linux With WMWare WorkStation


Sub menu for the menu bar ? Ive got various menu bar icons all of which i use, but they are beginning to take up too much room. Is there a way i can get them all to sit under a sub menu in the menu bar ? Im running OSX 10.10.5

Bartender is an app for rearranging menu bar items and creates a separate menu bar for more.
Bartender 2's menu bar is submenu-style.

Bartender 3 integrates the submenu into the position of the existing menu bar, with a toggle.


Mac Pro early 2008 doesn't boot anymore I got a Mac Pro early 2008 2x 2.8 quad-core for 12 years now. A few weeks ago, it stopped booting after 5 seconds. I restarted it and it was ok. But the problem came more and more often the next days, and today it just doesn't boot anymore. It stops after only 2 seconds. I've noticed that the CPU LEDS 5 & 6 flash in sync one time at the very end, when the fans stop with a last 'clic'.
I tried everything I could do before posting this question, I mean unplug all hardwares, cleaning, and I followed the very complete answer from @monomeeth Boot fail diagnosis

When I press the DIAG_LED, I got only the LED 2 on. So I don't know if the problem comes from the Logic Board or from the PSU... hope it's not both :(

I'm about to order a used PSU for trying, but I'd like to be sure.
The noob question is : if it's a PSU trouble, why the computer was able to start correctly sometimes ?

Thanks in advance for your precious help !

The new PSU did the job ! The EFI led is still off but everything works fine now :)


Apple remote desktop - Change between red arrow and magnifying glass as "remote cursor" when in observe mode I use Apple Remote Desktop (ARD) to provide remote support to various users on our LAN.

Sometimes i use "observe" mode, this has always given me a magnifying glass which i could as a cursor use to magnify things on the users screen.

Recently i was on a remote session in "observe" mode and instead of a magnifying glass i had a red arrow, screen shot below.

When i closed the session and went back, again in "observe" mode the red arrow was gone and magnifying glass was back.

Any idea where / how i can toggle between the two ?

Background im running 10.14 (latest sub version) and was connecting to a computer on 10.15 (latest sub version)

That's called the assistance cursor, and can be added as a button to your toolbar as per the screenshot.

It sounds like maybe you found a hotkey to toggle it, although I'm not sure what that might be.


Change location of screenshots mac Right now they default to desktop, and I followed instructions found here. It works up until I shut down the computer; I was wondering if there was a permanent solution?

Terminal command to change screenshot save location:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture location "/path/to/new/location"

Put your desired screenshot path between the double quotes as it is required if any spaces exist in the location path! Locations without a space will still be executed properly.

Example path with a space in new path:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture location "/Users/YourUserHomeFolder/Pictures/Screen Shots"

So no one is confused, the ~ character is a shortcut character symbol for your user's home folder. Other answers/sites might use this symbol.

Example:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture location "~/Pictures/Screen Shots"

The above defaults command will change the location screenshots are saved. The only problem is the path location must always be available or else it'll default back to the Desktop.

Example scenario: If you set the path to a removable volume such as a flash drive at /Volume/USBFlashDrive and remove it, or the location for some reason becomes unavailable from perhaps deleting, it'll revert back to its default location.

The only thing you'll need to change is the /path/to/new/location. This can be found from Finder by right clicking on your chosen folder. Then, after the context menu appears, hold the option key to change Copy "..." to Copy "..." as Pathname, so you can paste it into Terminal as the replacement for the example path provided above.


What does the shortcut picture with x within bounded right arrow mean? This is the shortcut I am interested in:

This is Forward Delete (on Windows keyboards called Del). You can achieve it on MacBook keyboard with Fn+⌫ Backspace.


How does the Tech Support know my exact location given my location services is turned off? When I logged in to support.apple.com and search for the nearest service provider, it said it is not possible, as I expected. My location services are turned off since Day 1. There is no particular reason, I just do not need that for the device in question. Only one device is added to the particular account, and I never really carry this device to anywhere.
I remember to have search up my zip code once (on the support website to get the nearest provider) which probably might be available to them (albeit unlikely), or they probably have the data because of the details provided by Apple Store from where I purchased it.
It freaks me out, since I do not see something that they see. Not because they have the details.

There could be multiple sources that Apple has received your location from.
Even if you do not think about it, your IP addresses is actually transmitted to the web server (Apple's server) every time you load up a web site. In many cases an IP address can pinpoint your location to a specific city or similar. This would be enough for them to able to suggest a store in a specific zip code.
In addition WiFi-enabled devices without GPS are still able to find their location from other sources - for example the names (SSIDs) of WiFi access point the device "sees". When it is moved around, it is possible to assemble a list of known access points which can then be translated into a position by an online server. For example the cars that Google uses to gather data for Google Maps also collects WiFI SSID information for this purpose.
If you're especially worried that Apple support knows your location, I would just ask them where they have your address from. If you're located within the European Union, you have rights based on the GDPR that would ensure that they're obligated to tell you that they have this information on file.


Apache won't start on reboot I have an issue where Apache will not start on a restart.  I have tried commands like

sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.apache.httpd.plist

to allow Apache to start, but it hangs up and I am unable to reach the site.  I get the message

(48)address already in use ah00072  Unable to open logs.

which tells me that port 80 is in use.  When I look at the active processes listening to port 80 I find that it is apache (httpd) is the only process running on 80.  So I run

sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.apache.httpd.plist

to remove apache from the 'automatically' launching at startup, and I am able to run apachectl start without an issue.

The mac is running 10.12.5 Sierra.

I've had good luck using the homebrew builds to start and stop daemons as they handle the launch preferences well with simply syntax.

brew install apache2
brew services start httpd

A side benefit of having this version is you can patch and upgrade faster than Apple does. The downside is you might need to move your configuration files from the system side to the /usr/local/bin side one time.

If you are running a headless mini - I also am a big fan of using Server.app to make the web service a couple of clicks easy and the server.app also helps with certificate management, gives you Apple Push Notifications and several other useful bundled services.


What is the Apple / OS X name for "Alternate Data Streams"? On old Macs before OS X files already could have two "forks" - a data fork and a resource fork.

According to Wikipedia, at some point the HFS+ filesystem of OS X gained the ability to have an arbitrary number of forks, much like Microsofts "Alternate Data Streams" (ADS).

  HFS Plus permits filenames up to 255 UTF-16 characters in length, and n-forked files similar to NTFS, though until recently, almost no systems software takes advantage of forks other than the data fork and resource fork.

I want to know what the official term is for these forks or streams. I guess it's possible they're just called "forks" but that term has several meanings already in computing. I've done some searching but can't find a definitive answer.

Apple uses "multiple fork" or the shortened form "multi-fork" consistently through its documentation, so it seems it is the official term. I list here a few examples:

https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/General/Conceptual/SLGlobalGlossary/Glossary/Glossary.html (Last updated: 2010-07-09)

  HFS+  Hierarchical File System Plus. The Mac OS Extended file-system
  format. This format adds support for filenames longer than 31
  characters, Unicode representation of file and directory names, and
  efficient operation on very large disks. HFS+ is a multiple-fork
  volume format.

https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Porting/Conceptual/PortingUnix/io_porting/io_porting.html (Last updated: 2012-06-11)

  (...) some Mac applications also take advantage of the HFS+ file
  system’s ability to handle multi-forked files.

https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/CoreFoundation/Conceptual/CFBundles/AboutBundles/AboutBundles.html (Last updated: 2010-07-08)

  Bundles can reside on volumes of many different formats, including
  multiple fork formats like HFS, HFS+, and AFP, and single-fork formats
  like UFS, SMB, and NFS.

When talking about "fork" in computing I can only think of either HFS+/HFS forks or the system call for creating a child process.


Find my Mac: "Online, no location available" I'm testing the "find my Mac" feature at icloud.com and one of my Macs can't be found. The site reports "Online, no location available".

I've looked around a bit including at Apple's TS 4006, which includes troubleshooting for this situation. So I'll mention that:

Find My Mac is enabled on the Mac in System Preferences --> iCloud.
The date and time zone on the Mac are correct.
The Mac is connected to the internet via Wifi. Other Macs on the same Wifi network are found, so it doesn't appear to be a problem with Wifi location.
Location Services is enabled in System Preferences --> Security & Privacy --> Privacy
I am in the USA, where this feature should work (and as mentioned, does work for other Macs on the same network).
I'm logged in to the same iCloud account on multiple Macs, but only the one Mac is not found.

Also, though not specifically mentioned in TS 4006 or on other sites that I've seen:

The Mac does not have a firewall enabled
The "Play Sound" feature of Find my Mac works. If I click on this at icloud.com, a loud annoying noise plays on the affected Mac.
The affected Mac is able to determine its own location well enough to set the time zone automatically and identify the city I'm in.
Web sites that ask for my location on the Mac (e.g. Foursquare) get the correct location.

Rebooting the Mac does not have any effect on any of this.

The Mac is a 2012 MacBook Air, running Mac OS X 10.8.5, with all current updates applied.

Turning on Wi-Fi did the trick for me.

My MacPro's location wasn't showing up.  It is connected to the Wi-Fi router via ethernet.  I turned on Wi-Fi (to the same router), and my MacPro's location now shows up in icloud.com under the Find My iPhone pages.


Can I run two DVI screens from one Thunderbolt 3 port? I'm planning on buying the MacBook pro 2016. I can get it with two or four Thunderbolt 3 ports. However, I want to run two DVI screens with it, and I need one port for charging, and some extra I/O ports would be nice.

I've seen the following online:

but these only have one DVI port per Thunderbolt 3 port. Is there any way to power two displays like this from one port?

Yes, you can. Here is what you can do:

Buy the CalDigit Thunderbolt™ Station 2 (Updated CalDigit TS3 Lite Thunderbolt 3 Docking Station)
Buy a simple HDMI --> DVI adapter
Buy a Thunderbolt --> DVI adapter

Now, using one Thunderbolt port, you have added two monitors. The Thunderbolt Station includes a Thunderbolt Port, a HDMI port, and plenty of other things the new Macs dropped (Cough Cough, USB ports).


iOS 9 Screen Recording in El Capitan I used to record iOS devices through QuickTime, however now it's only recording audio (not sure is this linked to OS X 10.11 or iOS 9).

How can I fix this (without third party sofrware)?

You have to choose New Movie Recording (⌥ ALT+⌘ CMD+N) instead of New Screen Recording.


What does FreeMemory actually do? There's a highly-rated app on the Mac App Store called FreeMemory.  It claims to be able to "increase your free memory with a simple click."  Although it's free right now, I believe it normally goes for 99 cents.

As a computer scientist, my intuition about the app is that it's almost certainly snake oil; in a modern operating system, anything the app could do would be unnecessary at best and actually harmful to performance at worst.

My best guess is that the app probably does something to cause the system to dump the "Inactive" memory, which probably has no effect whatsoever on performance.  However, very little information is provided about the app, and I'm reluctant to install it on my machine.  I'm also not as familiar with OS X as I am with Linux and Windows, so I could be mistaken about how OS X handles RAM.

My questions are:

What exactly does FreeMemory do, and how does it accomplish it?  Is there some public API that can give user-space programs access to the operating system's memory management parameters?
Could using FreeMemory actually confer a performance boost, or is it snake oil as I suspect?

Absolutely nothing other than swindle people out of their money. Don't ask me why Apple approved it. iOS and OS X manage memory as required. A lot of FUD out there claiming it's poor at it. No evidence to support those claims. No facts ever presented. No one with a modicum of experience or education in the field has ever come up (that I've seen) and accredited the claims. Snake oil.

You want to improve performance? Buy a better device. Only better hardware can equate to better performance. You can of course optimize a system, but this doesn't do that, it only shifts available memory.

Here's a breakdown of how to understand memory management in OS X (courtesy of Apple):

  Free memory

  This is RAM that's not being used.

  Wired memory

  Information in this memory can't be moved to the hard disk, so it must
  stay in RAM. The amount of Wired memory depends on the applications
  you are using.

  Active memory

  This information is currently in memory, and has been recently used.

  Inactive memory

  This information in memory is not actively being used, but was
  recently used.

  For example, if you've been using Mail and then quit it, the RAM that
  Mail was using is marked as Inactive memory. This Inactive memory is
  available for use by another application, just like Free memory.
  However, if you open Mail before its Inactive memory is used by a
  different application, Mail will open quicker because its Inactive
  memory is converted to Active memory, instead of loading Mail from
  the slower hard disk.

Now even with rudimentary understanding of memory management in Apple's OS, tell me if you think "freeing up" Inactive memory is of any use? It is available to any application that requests it and if the same application wants to grab a hold of it again, it gets a speed boost. It's of course not this simple, but razing Inactive memory and moving it to Free memory results in no increase in performance. After all, how could it? A good system should hoard all your memory and allocate it to things that need it. Free memory is wasted memory as it's, by definition, not being used. If you have 8 GB of RAM and keep 4 GB free at all times, then you have a system running 4 GB.

Inactive memory in OS X is allocated intelligently. I'll change my tune when I see valid and reliable data that claims otherwise. And honestly, if nothing else, do you think some third party app has found the holy grail of memory management that has eluded Apple's world class engineers all this time (not to mention the thousands of contributing open-source UNIX programmers)? Like I said, snake oil.


When I try to download an app, it says Verification Required? I can't update my Apps, or download Free ones. Also when I go into Settings there isn't a None option for payment options.

I tried to enter my credit card but it says "Your payment method was declined"

My iPhone model is an iPhone 5c.

I would start with Apple support - https://getsupport.apple.com

Choose billing support in the web page or see if there is a phone number to get human support. If you exhaust your banking cards, then you might need to contact your bank to ensure your card details are correct so you enter them correctly on Apple’s site.

This thread explains how to edit AppleID information to match what your bank reports. Verification required


1440x900 no longer available on my external display after "MLB for NVIDIA" fix My early 2008 Macbook Pro was recently fixed for the known "MLB for NVIDIA" issue. Since I've gotten my computer back, my external monitor no longer has the correct resolution available. This was working fine before. I've tried resetting PRAM and the problem still persists. Why?

Computer: Early 2008 Macbook Pro, OS X 10.5.8
Monitor: Acer 19"

I'm not sure if this'll help (as the resolution should be available without resorting to third party software), but perhaps try SwitchResX and see if it makes the resolution available?


Can I specify file associations at a more general or specific level? Can I set Mavericks to do things like:

Open password-protected PDFs in a particular app (Skim), and other PDFs in another app, like Chrome or Preview?
Open all videos in VLC? Currently I have to do this again and again for each extension, like mov, m4v, avi, etc. When I double-click a video file, it's anybody's guess what app it opens in, depending on what the extension happens to be. Can I tell OS X to open all videos in VLC?
Building on (2), can I ask OS X to open all files that VLC can open, in VLC? This goes for both audio and video files.

I'm not certain about separating out password-protected PDFs specifically - it would depend on how they differentiated themselves to the OS, but everything else can be done with RCDefaultApp
which, though quite old, is still perfectly functional.
It adds itself as a control panel & can then adjust defaults for any app & protocol.


No low battery warning & random restarts Since I upgraded to macOS Sierra on my MacBook 15" (Mid 2014), I noticed some weird behaviour:

When I'm running low on power, it doesn't notify me that my battery is going to die. It just shuts down. When I plug it in, it takes a few seconds and then shows me the login window, as if I put it on sleep.
The battery icon doesn't indicate when it is loading
Whenever my screensaver starts after a few minutes (on power AND battery) it locks my screen (as intended). After entering my password I see that it tried to restart (e.g. "Your mac hasn't restarted, because Google Chrome failed to quit.")

I tried restoring the power settings to default, playing with the checkboxes in the "Energy Saver" tab and so on.

The first things I would do are reset the NVRAM and SMC. Below are the steps for doing so, as well as the order you should do it.

1. Reset the NVRAM

Older Macs had what's called Parameter RAM (PRAM), newer Macs use Non-Volatile Random-Access Memory (NVRAM). Here’s how to reset it on your particular Mac:

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

Note: When you log back in you may need to readjust some of your system preferences (e.g. speaker volume, screen resolution, startup disk selection, time zone information, etc).

2. Reset the SMC

Here’s what you do to reset the SC on your particular Mac:

Shut down your computer
Keep the MagSafe adapter (power cable) plugged in.
Press at the same time shiftoptioncontrol (on the left side of the keyboard) and the power button
Let go
Turn your computer back on with the power button.

Once you've done both of these, check to see whether the problem behaviour is still present. Let me know how you go.


iPhone Wi-Fi could not connect I was just using my iPhone when it suddenly disconnected from Wifi. I went into the Settings app, I tapped on "Wi-Fi" and it froze there (only the app was frozen, I could still close it). So I closed it and tried several times until finally I went into the Wi-Fi setting. It was searching for connections but it just kept searching and didn't even show up my wifi connection. I tried resetting it by holding down the sleep button (the one used to lock/unlock iPhones) and home button simultaneously but it didn't work. I've also tried normal restart by first shutting it down and let it boot up again, problem is still there.

I have restored my iPhone twice from my backup, and restored to factory settings and restored from backup, still the stubborn problem is there.

Sometimes it got worse till the whole iOS froze up for about 10+ seconds. Other apps work perfectly fine. Other settings in Settings app are currently accessible.

Running on iOS 7.1.1.

There are a lot of possible things here that could cause your problem.

1)The Wi-Fi receiver on your iPhone could be faulty. You will have to take it to an Apple Store to get that fixed.

2)Your modem might have connection problems. Try pulling out the power cord and wait 5 minutes. While you're waiting, make sure all the cables are fit into the modem and not loose and hanging out.


tmutil doesn't create a real snapshot (since Catalina?) I'm using rsync on top of a mount_apfs snapshots, to backup a consistent file system view and without having to stop applications during the backup.
After having investigated the rsync error 'file has vanished', I've discovered that tmutil doesn't create real snapshots:
15:50:34 [admin@MAC10143-ROTH ~]$ tmutil snapshot /
Created local snapshot with date: 2020-12-21-155054
15:52:08 [admin@MAC10143-ROTH ~]$ sudo mount_apfs -o rdonly -s "com.apple.TimeMachine.2020-12-21-155054.local" / /tmp/snap
Password:
15:52:30 [admin@MAC10143-ROTH ~]$ cat /etc/profile
# System-wide .profile for sh(1)

if [ -x /usr/libexec/path_helper ]; then
    eval `/usr/libexec/path_helper -s`
fi
...
15:53:20 [admin@MAC10143-ROTH ~]$ vi /etc/profile

  <File is changed>

15:58:42 [admin@MAC10143-ROTH ~]$ cat /tmp/snap/etc/profile
# System-wide .profile for sh(1)
#             <====
# TEST CHANGE <====
if [ -x /usr/libexec/path_helper ]; then
...

As you can see, all changes are reflected in the mounted snapshot. I've also tried file additions and deletions.
I think the problem is that Catalina has started to split the whole file system into a read-only system volume plus a data volume (plus maybe something else?):
16:07:33 [admin@MAC10143-ROTH ~]$ df -h
Filesystem                                                   Size   Used  Avail Capacity iused      ifree %iused  Mounted on
/dev/disk1s6                                                466Gi   11Gi  176Gi     6%  488281 4881964599    0%   /
devfs                                                       197Ki  197Ki    0Bi   100%     682          0  100%   /dev
/dev/disk1s5                                                466Gi  276Gi  176Gi    62% 2492125 4879960755    0%   /System/Volumes/Data
/dev/disk1s4                                                466Gi  2.0Gi  176Gi     2%       2 4882452878    0%   /private/var/vm
/dev/disk1s1                                                466Gi  804Ki  176Gi     1%      88 4882452792    0%   /Volumes/Macintosh HD - Data
map auto_home                                                 0Bi    0Bi    0Bi   100%       0          0  100%   /System/Volumes/Data/home
map -fstab                                                    0Bi    0Bi    0Bi   100%       0          0  100%   /System/Volumes/Data/Network/Servers
/dev/disk3s1                                                 25Gi   com.apple.TimeMachine.2020-12-21-155054.local@/dev/disk1s6  466Gi   11Gi  176Gi     6%  488281 4881964599    0%   /private/tmp/snap
16:07:35 [admin@MAC10143-ROTH ~]$

I could try to mount the more specific file systems, but the problem is I want to make the whole / visible to rsync, to perform a system backup. Is there a way?

I'll answer myself, though it's a partial answer.
When tmutils is used with partitions like /, the result isn't a true snapshot, the file system I mount this way reflects the original one in real-time (ie, any change in the original is immediately visible in the "snapshot").
In order to make it work, I have to mount partitions like this:
vol_path=/System/Volumes/Data
snap_id=$(tmutil snapshot "$vol_path" | sed s/'Created local snapshot with date: '//)
mount_apfs -o rdonly -s "com.apple.TimeMachine.${snap_id}.local" "$vol_path" snap-mnt

This works fine when you want to backup a subdirectory like /System/Volumes/Data/Users/user/.
The flip side is that directories like /etc aren't under Data/, but /etc/ is actually a link to Data/private/, so one doesn't lose much by backing up the Data/ dir only.


"System" taking up nearly 90 GB on my mac? I was checking my storage one day on my Macbook Air and found that "System" took up the vast majority of my Mac. I was able to move nearly all of my files off my mac and deleted several applications to no avail. I contacted Apple support, and they told me to re-index the spotlight index and such, but nothing they did helped my situation. Has anyone had the same issue and if so, how can I fix it? (I have been told to re install the OS but wish to avoid doing such because of the fear of ruining the computer.)

I'd download DaisyDisk from the Mac App Store. It will make a graphical mapping of everything stored on your drive. I have a similar problem and I ran it and there is no 89 GB sector on my disk. It's a little pricey at $10. A free option that does a similar task is GrandPerspective.


Can I delete an iOS game and retain my progress? I want to delete a game from my iPhone in order to make room for other apps. If I try to do so, it warns that all of the app's data will be deleted.

This is a game which has stages that you need to unlock in order to play them again. If I ever reinstall this game, I don't want to have to go through the entire process of unlocking stages. I want to be able to retain my progress and start from there. Is there any way to delete the game from my iPhone but have it remember my progress in case I reinstall it later?

I know that Game Center stores information about high scores and badges, but does it also save my progress?

Some developers will help you out by telling you just which files you need to copy from the bundle to keep your progress - it's worth an email. Mika Mobile is one of these - see how I was able to copy my Battleheart progress from one device to another here. If you are comfortable copying a file it's not hard.

If you delete an app then the app's bundle (and the app) will still be backed up as part of the iTunes backup if you have made one.

You could archive the backup, found in ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/.

That's a really chunky approach though. It is going to restore everything, so you are going to overwrite any progress you have made in other apps since that backup.

My approach would be to use iExplorer to copy the Documents and Libraries directories from the app, and put them back later. To be sure that this is going to work you would need to backup, archive the backup, then copy docs & library directories for the app. Then delete the app. Reinstall the app, put the docs and libraries directories back. If your app retains progress like you want then you are free to proceed. If not, restore from the backup and keep thinking... maybe pick some other app to remove?


How to view current display resolution How can I find out the current resolution the screen is running at, in OS X 10.10?

Under settings -> display (which is where I think it used to be), it shows the refresh frequency, but not the resolution.  Using the monitor's controls, I can see it's running at 3840x2160, but how would one find this out from OS X?

You go to apple menu -> about this mac, and there is a Displays tab with the information.


How can I keep my Apple Watch from draining my iPhone's battery? I used to have to charge my iPhone 5s just once a day, over night.

Now that I'm using an Apple Watch, I find that I have to charge my phone 3 or 4 times because my battery is draining.

I'm not using my phone more. I'm actually often using it less, because I refer to my watch for things that used to happen on my phone.

I'm not sure if it makes a difference, but I turned off almost every single notification.

What does usage on the iPhone say?
Have you contacted Apple Support to check the power diagnostics at https://www.apple.com/support/iphone/repair/

Once you have some measurements and data, you can change which apps get notifications, which apps are allowed to run in the background and which apps do background refresh.

You can use the Apple Watch app to deinstall any apps you need to test their power usage and also look at the power usage on the Apple Watch.

People that have honed their iOS power needs over the last 6+ years now have to consider a totally other use case. Now iOS can act as the server backing the Apple Watch as it offloads all of the third party app workload to the iPhone.

Basically, you measure the usage on both devices. Try some changes to minimize the highest users, and then repeat to balance functionality and energy use.

Before watch, my iPhone 6 would end the day with 50 to 30% charge always and when it didn't I knew exactly why I was burning power at a faster rate and planned a charge to compensate.

It's taken a week to sort through Apple Watch and iPhone and I'm actually at better energy use now since I've stopped using the iPhone for some things and have rejected most Apple Watch apps as slow remotes for the iPhone. My glances are down to 6 items I need and 2 for fun. My Apple watch also is making it all day with plenty of power to spare unless I exercise with it for 3 hours a day. That's the only time I've had to do a mid day charge on the watch.


Problem Installing Boot Camp Windows Partition on new Mac Pro I am stuck with a Boot Camp installation on a new Mac Pro.

I have tried Windows 8.1 Pro, Windows 8.1 Enterprise, and Windows Server 2012 R2. (Can't try Windows 7, obviously.)

All three give me this at the end of setup:

  Windows could not update the computer's boot configuration. Installation cannot proceed.

I've tried letting the Boot Camp Assistant do everything, I've also followed the advice in several posts that suggest interrupting the process by booting back into Mac and using Disk Utility to format the Boot Camp partition as FAT, ExFAT, etc. All lead to the same error after rebooting to the USB drive and commencing with Windows setup.

Windows finishes the installation, seemingly, but it just doesn't seem to be able to update the boot data.

So, what's the trick? How did other MacPro6,1 users get Boot Camp paved? Is this a firmware update I'm going to need to wait for?

I tried support, it was a joke. Apple couldn't pass me off to Microsoft quick enough; and Microsoft couldn't pass me back to Apple quick enough. I think that's the most I've ever identified with a tennis ball.

Finally got this working, thanks to a person named "turbostar" over on discussions.apple.com:

Re-run Boot Camp Assistant to remove the Windows partition and restore the full Mac HD as a single partition.
Run a PRAM reset (restart, while screen is still black, hold down ⌘+Option+P+R and keep them pressed until you hear the startup sound a second time).
Open disk utility and repair permissions on the Macintosh HD partition. TWICE.
Start Boot Camp Assistant again.

Seems hokey. With those instructions I thought I would also have to stand on one foot, point to my nose, rub my belly, and hope for rain. But it did end up working.


Volume reduces automatically after pluging headset into macbook pro I got a MacBook Pro 13'' early 2013 with OS X 10.10.5 installed and SONY MDR-1A headphones with a headset cable.

When using "headphone" cable everything works as expected. When I use "headset" plugin (the one with 4 grooves on a jack and a mic on a cord) the volume slightly reduces after 1 or 2 seconds.

Can someone explain this behaviour and tell me if it can be fixed?!

Headphones volume level is separate from the built-in speaker output. For example you can set the speakers' volume to 0 before plugging in headphones and then adjusting the headphones' volume to something different. When the headphones cable is unplugged, the system goes back to the previous volume value.

If I remember correctly, recent Macs also have a impedance sensor in the headphone jack, so that you can have different volume levels for different headphones based on impedance.


Message from voicemail yet no missed call on iPhone 11? I recently got an iPhone 11 and today I noticed I had a voicemail message stating I had one missed call. However, in my recent call list this number didn't show up. How is this possible?

This was during the day, my phone was not muted or in airplane mode, unknown callers are not silenced, there are no numbers in my blocked call list, and "do not disturb while driving" is off.

Any ideas? Thanks!

Edit: as mentioned in another comment by myself, reception is excellent here and I've never experienced a loss of signal. We've got a cellular antenna basically on our roof (figuratively speaking, of course).

Maybe the signal where you're located was low or inexistant, and the person just left a message.

Some companies from the US permit users to send voicemail to other users, without calling them. Also, some apps/services exist for that end.

https://www.techjunkie.com/call-directly-voicemail/

The same thing is possible in Canada, at least for Bell customers:
(look at page 7)
https://service.aliant.bell.ca/PS/pdf-download/3470874/default.pdf


Does "Erase and Sync" remove photos taken on the phone? I don't use iCloud, and I don't want to use iCloud. I see several other questions regarding contacts and settings, but Erase and Sync seems scary for me because I don't want to sync all of my photos, well, anywhere.

I reformatted my computer and now iTunes is telling me I need to erase and sync in order to put new music on it. I've already taken loads of photos and I'm afraid those will be erased if I do Erase and Sync. I'm trying to sync music before I take my flight and don't have time to sync all of my photos

Does Erase and Sync delete photos that I've taken on the phone itself?

You are right to be cautious. The erase and sync dialogue does not tell you which specific pieces of information will be erased.

You will want to tab through each of the places where iTunes allows you to choose synchronization and make sure that photos are not checked.

With that one item, you should be safe from having your photos erased, but making a back up would be a good thing to do before you allow the erasing of unenumerated anything. Also, verify that photos are included in the back up by verifying settings in iOS if you use iCloud  to do the backup.

Here's the screen showing whether you have photos sync enabled or disabled. In my case, the iCloud settings has eliminated the chance I could erase photos over USB via iTunes.


Exchange old MacBook keyboard with newer I have a MacBook Pro from Late 2014 (I think). As you know, Apple introduced a new keyboard-mechanism (called Butterfly). Some of newer MacBooks have these technology already built-in.

It is possible (based on hardware and compatibility) to upgrade the internal keyboard, means remove the old keyboard, get a newer keyboard with butterfly-mechanism and insert it to my MacBook?

No, it is not possible. The keyboards are not compatible.


What variable in the operating system determines the fans in OS X? Right now my fans have been spinning for a couple of hours.

However, the cpu usage is low, nothing seems to be running, spotlight is not indexing, all the diagnostics i can think of tell me not much is happening except i have a few connections open.

I know the fans turn on because of heat, and indeed the heat is high on my laptop right now.  Yet, I don't see an actual cause for this.  What am I missing in my search?

You might want to download Temperature Monitor (free). It will help determine which part of your system is hot (CPU? GPU?), and when things warm up.

I also recommend you investigate your logs using Console (found in your Applications/Utilities folder) to see if there are any unusual errors which seem to correspond with the temperature spikes.

I would shut down, let it cool off, and observe the logs/temperature after restart to see when the fans kick in again.

Good luck.


MacBook Air startup problem(s) Earlier today, I replaced the old, worn out battery in my MacBook Air to a newer one.

Upon startup, the fans within the computer went off at full speed and the entire computer is laggy. I have attempted to restore my computer from a Time Machine backup by holding both Command+R and Option (two different startup times) to which both have arrived at the current result I'm at:

My MacBook Air does not go past the initial startup screen and is stuck with a 0% progress bar.

I've attempted to restart numerous times and I'm fairly certain this isn't helping anything. I assume that the high fan usage is due to the CPU being overworked, but what would be using the CPU that much on a startup?

My question is, how do I go about fixing this? Attempting to enter the macOS Utilities causes a road block before I even start to progress there.

Specifications:

MacBook Air
Mid 2012
latest public macOS release

The third-party battery was too powerful, despite being the same model number (A1466).

According to the Mac Resource Inspector at the Apple Genius Bar, the logic board was overcharged. This made the fan run at a minimum of 6200 rpm and subsequently forced kernel_task to go insane.


Is there a way to run Safari 5 or 6 on Mavericks? Pretty much what the title says: Is there a way to run a version older than Safari 7 on Mavericks?

I've seen multi safari but that doesn't allow you to install the older versions on Mavericks

Also I'd need an actual running local instance, not a virtualization tunnel like browserstack

You already know the answer based on the link you provided.

  Safari is Integral part of OS X.

  That is way you can not run other versions on Mavericks for example.

  The link you provided clearly shows the compatibility.

Quote:
 Will not work, per Multi-Safari website: "Safari normally uses the Web Kit framework found inside Mac OS X to render web pages and execute javascript. This means that if you preserve an old version of Safari to run it on a newer version of Mac OS, it will use the newer Web Kit found in the system and you will get the same results as with the newer version. Thus, you would normally need a separate installation of Mac OS X for each version of Safari you want to test a website into." –  php_on_rails May 7 at 15:27

The solution is to have appropriate OS installed (you can have multiple OS installed) as explained here.


How do I download macOS High Sierra for offline install? Yes, I found

Download macOS High Sierra for offline install [duplicate]

and

macOS High Sierra media installer

but they don't fit my use-case.  I need to update a number of Macs to High Sierra to address Spectre/Meltdown ASAP, and the questions linked above had to do with the High Sierra beta.

So: how do I download macOS High Sierra for offline installs?

Answering my own question:

From the App Store, grab the High Sierra installer.  It will launch "Install macOS High Sierra" after the download completes.  Click "Continue", accept the licensing agreement, select the install drive, then the installer will prompt for an admin password.  After that, it will begin downloading to "/macOS Install Data" on the local machine.

The main data file is

/macOS Install Data/InstallESDDmg.pkg

When the download is complete, the installer will prompt for a system restart.  Before doing that, inspect the download directory:

sudo find /macOS\ Install\ Data  -type f -exec ls -l {} \;
-rw-r--r-- 1 user staff 328        Dec  4 19:03 '/macOS Install Data/AppleDiagnostics.chunklist'
-rw-r--r-- 1 user staff 2613173    Dec  4 19:03 '/macOS Install Data/AppleDiagnostics.dmg'
-rw-r--r-- 1 user staff 1948       Dec  4 19:03 '/macOS Install Data/BaseSystem.chunklist'
-rw-r--r-- 1 user staff 478740408  Dec  4 19:04 '/macOS Install Data/BaseSystem.dmg'
-rw-r--r-- 1 user staff 2124       Jan  8 08:39 '/macOS Install Data/index.sproduct'
-rw-r--r-- 1 user staff 4706541399 Dec  4 19:09 '/macOS Install Data/InstallESDDmg.pkg'
-rw-r--r-- 2 user wheel 1584       Dec  4 19:09 '/macOS Install Data/InstallInfo.plist'
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 893        Jan  8 07:38 '/macOS Install Data/Locked Files/.disk_label'
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 15         Jan  8 07:38 '/macOS Install Data/Locked Files/.disk_label.contentDetails'
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 3557       Jan  8 07:38 '/macOS Install Data/Locked Files/.disk_label_2x'
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 23520      Dec  1 12:37 '/macOS Install Data/Locked Files/cleanup_installer'
-rw-r--r-- 1 user staff 269647     May 17  2017 '/macOS Install Data/OSX_10_13_IncompatibleAppList.pkg'

Then, copy the download directory off to another machine for future use.


Creating a bootable macOS installer errors with ‘dyld: Library not loaded: @executable_path/../Frameworks/IAESD.framework Versions/A/IAESD’ I'm following How to create a bootable installer for macOS guide by Apple, but it's giving me an error. When I execute

sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Catalina.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/disco

It gives me this:

dyld: Library not loaded: @executable_path/../Frameworks/IAESD.framework/Versions/A/IAESD
  Referenced from: /Applications/Install macOS Catalina.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia
  Reason: no suitable image found.  Did find:
    /Applications/Install macOS Catalina.app/Contents/Resources/../Frameworks/IAESD.framework/Versions/A/IAESD: mmap() error 1 at address=0x103C4F000, size=0x00006000 segment=__TEXT in Segment::map() mapping /Applications/Install macOS Catalina.app/Contents/Resources/../Frameworks/IAESD.framework/Versions/A/IAESD
    /Applications/Install macOS Catalina.app/Contents/Resources/../Frameworks/IAESD.framework/Versions/A/IAESD: mmap() error 1 at address=0x103C65000, size=0x00006000 segment=__TEXT in Segment::map() mapping /Applications/Install macOS Catalina.app/Contents/Resources/../Frameworks/IAESD.framework/Versions/A/IAESD
ADMINs-MBP-2:~ ADMIN$

I'm using OS X Yosemite 10.10.5 on a Macbook Pro 2015.

The USB device is a 1TB External Hard Drive, Mac OS Extended formatted.

Encountered this very same issue on my MacBook with Yosemite (10.10.5)
sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Big\ Sur.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/MyVolume

dyld: Library not loaded: @executable_path/../Frameworks/IAESD.framework/Versions/A/IAESD
  Referenced from: /Applications/Install macOS Big Sur.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia
  Reason: no suitable image found.  Did find:
    /Applications/Install macOS Big Sur.app/Contents/Resources/../Frameworks/IAESD.framework/Versions/A/IAESD: mmap() error 1 at address=0x1021F8000, size=0x00008000 segment=__TEXT in Segment::map() mapping /Applications/Install macOS Big Sur.app/Contents/Resources/../Frameworks/IAESD.framework/Versions/A/IAESD
    /Applications/Install macOS Big Sur.app/Contents/Resources/../Frameworks/IAESD.framework/Versions/A/IAESD: mmap() error 1 at address=0x102211000, size=0x00008000 segment=__TEXT in Segment::map() mapping /Applications/Install macOS Big Sur.app/Contents/Resources/../Frameworks/IAESD.framework/Versions/A/IAESD

However the very same command on my newer MacBook with Sierra (10.12.6) just runs fine! I suggest building USB install disks from newer macOS if possible.


Why won't my Mac Pro wake from sleep at the scheduled time? I have a 2007 Mac Pro (running Lion) that has been on the same schedule for a long time;  it is set to go to sleep at 1am, and wake up at 7am.  Recently, it sleeps through its wakeup time.  If I press any key or anything, it wakes up immediately - and I notice the clock is off (it quickly corrects itself).  It is as if when it is asleep, it is no longer keeping time, and doesn't know when to wake up.  Could this be a dead button-battery inside?  I thought these were only used if no AC power was present (it always has power).

Try resetting the System Management Unit (SMU); the SMU is typically responsible for tracking when your Mac is scheduled to wake up.

With regard to your Mac Pro appearing not to keep time, this is not a problem. It is expected behaviour for the menu bar clock to update a few seconds after your Mac has woken up.

The process controlling the clock needs to get a change in time notification before updating; it will not match your Mac's internal clock immediately upon waking up.


How can I open a hidden file in Text Wrangler? I have a .bash_profile file in my Home folder but it is hidden. How can I open it with Text Wrangler (or any other text editor?)

You can use the terminal :

open ~/path/to/.YourHiddenFile -a /Application/YourApplication.app

The hidden file are hidden by adding a dot in the beginning of the file name.

Or with the good old GUI method :

Launch the application you wish to use to edit or view the hidden
file.
Select ‘Open’ from the application’s File menu.
An Open Dialog box will display.
With the dialog box as the front-most window (you can click once in
the dialog box to make sure it’s in front), press command + shift + .
The dialog box now will display any hidden files or folders within
its list items.
You can toggle between the hidden files and folders being displayed
by pressing command + shift + . again.


Associating skype contacts with address book After installation of new Skype version for Mac, each time I search for a contact - it gives me few choices for one person:

the skype contact;
the contact from address book with phone number

Is there a way to merge these two contacts into one? Maybe by adding custom field to address book or by defining same phone number in skype contact entry?

Any guides are much appreciated!

your mac uses your Address Book as its basis for your contacts (skype is reaching in your contact list to pull people up not the other way around). So your Address Book really is the place where you emerge all of your contacts because other applications can use it to pull up contacts so you dont have to manually transfer all of your contacts to an application that might require them.


Microsoft Outlook for Mac 2011 "Not Responding" after upgrade to Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan I'm experiencing issue with my Microsoft Outlook for Mac 2011 after upgrading to Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan.

Activity Monitor and/or Force Quit Applications shows Microsoft Outlook is Not Responding.

I found following knowledge base article:

Outlook for Mac 2011 on OS X 10.11 hangs during account sync operation

Microsoft's workaround:

  To work around this issue, run Outlook for Mac 2011 on Mac OS X
  Yosemite (version 10.10) or an earlier version.

Is there anything else I can do?

FIX: Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 14.5.6 update

Microsoft has an update to fix the problem now.

For more information, check out this knowledge base article documenting the problem: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3098396

  Shortly after you start Microsoft Outlook for Mac 2011 on Mac OS X El Capitan (version 10.11), Outlook hangs when it tries to sync with the server. The Spinning Wait cursor is displayed, and the application status is displayed as "Not Responding."

  [...]

  This issue occurs in Outlook for Mac 2011 version 14.5.5 and earlier versions when they are running on Mac OS X El Capitan (version 10.11).

To install the fix, you can either:

Open Outlook and click Check for Updates on the help menu (if your outlook freezes before you can update, you can create a blank profile temporarily by ALT-Clicking on the Outlook icon),
Download the update package at: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=49183


Apple Script Won't "Click" No Button I have used Accessibility Inspector to confirm the names of the windows and buttons involved, but (on macOS 10.12) AppleScript will not "click" the No button in this Logitech window. Any guidance is appreciated. Thanks.

tell application "Logitech Camera Settings"
activate
end tell
delay 5
tell application "System Events"
    click button "No" of window "Logitech Camera Settings" of application process "Logitech Camera Settings"
end tell

It seems the sheet is missing in the element hierarchy in your AppleScript.

click button "No" of sheet 1 of window "Logitech Camera Settings" of application process "Logitech Camera Settings"


Why do X11 applications start but their windows stay invisible? After using a fresh OS X system for a while, I regularly hit the point where X11 clients start and run, but their windows do not show up anywhere.

I suspect it has something to do with Mac port paths, but i am not sure. Has anyone else experienced this?

It might be a bit of a workaround, but you could try installing XQuartz, a newer version of X11. It bypasses X11 rather than replacing it, so you should be able to uninstall it again if you want Apple's X11 back.


My iphone 4s turns on while charging, but once on it turns off Recently my phone died and I plugged it in, and like usual it turned itself on. But I noticed that once the phone was turned on it wasn't charging. I tried a new charger, but all the chargers I have create the same outcome. I think this may be due to my phone and not the charger, does anyone know why it doesn't want to charge while on?

Sounds like a bad battery to me. You can get a new battery and everything you need to change it at a website called iFixit for like $30 shipped, (don't worry, for a 4S, a battery replacement is super easy, it's just 4 screws and pulling the battery connector off of the logic board).


Use custom .M4A as an alert tone in iOS 12 I have a .M4A file on my Mac that is like a second long. I want it to play when people text me. How can I add it to my iPhone as an alert tone?

To make a custom ringtone or text-tone:

Open clip/song/sound using iTunes. Use the Song Info options panel to trim the start and stop time if you would like.
Select the song in iTunes and go to File -> Convert -> Create AAC Version
Right click on the new version and select Show in Finder
Change the extension from .m4a to .m4r
Delete the song from your library. Make sure to not let iTunes move the original version to the trash.
Double click on the .m4r version of the song. It will appear in your ringtone section.
Change your song's start and stop times if you need to reset them to normal.

Since you already have an .m4a, you should be able to make a new copy and change the extension to .m4r and open it in iTunes.

edit It's important to note that to find the Tones section your phone should be connected to iTunes, then go to the overview of your phone, and select the Tones section from the left panel. The Tones section will generally not show up in your normal library.


Have the snooze buttons on the iPhone changed? For as long as I can remember, I’ve been snoozing my iPhone SE’s alarm by pressing a button on the phone. As far as I can remember, any button would do - home, volume, on/off.

Now, if I press the home button when my alarm goes off, it turns the alarm off completely, instead of snoozing it. The other buttons still snooze.

Has this actually changed, or am I just losing my mind?

iOS 12.1.2 iPhone SE.

It looks like this has been around for a while.

I found an iOS 10 user complaining that the Home Button shut off the alarm:

  turning on the phone (pressing the home button) shuts off the alarm!

(Source)

I also found several articles form a while back explaining you can use the Home Button to stop your alarm.

Just tested and the Home Button also stops it for me.

It could possibly be you thought you pressed another button that you didn’t, or maybe you were using another app or jailbreak tweak.