My iMac will not allow me to log onto my desktop I got a viruses alert when using my Mac and sadly I reacted ASAP.

I gave control to a remote technican via log-me-in and I went through the steps that where asked. After I got off the phone with the supposedly technicians I decided to change my desktop passwords using my old password and to create a new one and it bargain to say my old one was incorrect so I called back they said for me to shut it down so I did and I haven't been able to log back in to my desk top computer at all.

Is there anyway I could unlock and access my computer back like be for with out damaging orlosing any files?

I agree with bmike that since we don't know what the nefarious people have done to you, it's next to impossible to diagnose the problem here.

However, I am going on the premise that you can turn on your computer but you just cannot log in - meaning enter your username/password - as you described.

To reset your OS X password without installation media you need to start up in single user mode via the terminal and create a new Admin account:

Reboot/turn on your comptuer
Hold Command + S while turning on until after you hear the chime.
When you get a text prompt enter in these terminal commands to create a brand new admin account (hitting return after each line):

mount -uw /

rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone

shutdown -h now

After restarting your iMac you should have a new Admin account. When you login as the new Admin you just delete old one, reset your other accounts (if any) and you should be good to go.

Once you get to this step, I highly...and I mean highly like this is a moral imperative...recommend that you change all the passwords for the services that you have stored in your Keychain.

Let us know how you make out.


Run script when logged out? Is it possible to run a script when and only when a user is logged out? Why I want to do this is so I can change the login message (sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow LoginwindowText "Message"). Is there a way to do this?

Machints has got a sample script available here to write the logon and logoff events to a log file.

You basically need to write your script, give it execute rights and then add it to the LogoutHook event:

  sudo defaults write com.apple.loginwindow \ LogoutHook /usr/local/bin/logoutscript

For some more advanced script you can also have a look here

Alternative solution

Have a look at the launchd services. It's the built in service management system used by OSX. Some suggestions are to have launchd monitor a file, and using the logoutHook above, touch the file, which will trigger launchd to run. In the launchd job you can sleep the process for a few seconds to ensure that logout is completed.

Not the ideal solution, but could work.


iPhone4s locked due to "find my iphone" I have given my IPhone 4s to my niece. I have restored the phone to factory settings before giving it to her now we are trying to set it up and it is asking for my log in details for find my iphone. As I have not used the phone for months now I don't know these details and it does not have a forgot password option. Please help! Thank you in advance.

You can reset your Apple ID password by going here:
https://iforgot.apple.com/

Also, make sure when you setup the phone again that your niece uses her own Apple ID and not yours.


How do I remove songs from my iPhone 5s running IOS 8.3? There is a U2 album on my iPhone which I didn't download & isn't on my Mac & I am unable to remove it.

I deleted all Music app storage from the phone, then re-synched with 1 playlist from iTunes on the Mac, but the album still appears on the phone under genres, artists & albums but not playlists.

Yes, what you need to do is go into settings on the iPhone, then iTunes & App Store, and disable Automatic Downloads of Music.

Apple applied the U2 album to everyones account so if u have this option turned on, then it auto downloads.


How do I transfer Boot disk from External HDD to newly inserted SSD? I'm trying to upgrade from my MacBook Pro's original HDD to a SSD. Right now my external HDD, which I installed OSX Mountain Lion on, has to be plugged in to boot. If I unplug it, I get a white screen with a flashing folder icon upon boot up.
I open disk utility and it shows my samsung SSD, which I just repartitioned to use Mac OS Extended (journaled)
EDIT
I click finder and it shows under devices: "OSX" which is the name I gave my external HDD currently running OSX.. and "Samsung SSD." OSX has the standard folders on a mac.. Samsung SSD is blank.
How can I get OSX to boot from my SSD rather than the external HDD? Thanks!
Would doing this get it to do that?

It looks like Disk Utility is being extra cautious and not allowing you to unmount the boot drive to copy it. Assuming your copy of Disk Utility is running from the OSX external drive, you will have to power down and try booting into Recovery.

Normally, you press Command R to enter recovery but I haven't tested with no recovery partition on the internal drive, so you might instead boot holding option to see if the OS can find a recovery HD on the external drive.

If you partitioned both drives and have no viable recovery, you will have to use internet recovery or otherwise get a bootable OS that isn't the one you are attempting to copy.

Worst case, return the bootable drive to the inside of the Mac and run an OS installer to re-install the OS onto the SSD. That will make a proper Recovery HD partition that will allow you to boot and run Disk Utility without needing a bootable OS separate than the two drives you want to copy.


iPhone backup: extracting app vs copy? I'm trying to do a forensic analysis of an iPhone, saving a backup which is as raw as possible.

Using iMazing, I can backup apps using <Copy to Mac>:

.or <Manage Apps: Extract App>:

Which is the one which gives a backup that is as raw as possible?

Indeed, why would they even produce different IPA files?

(<Extract App> produces a IPA file that contains an extra <Payload> folder, <iTunesArtwork>, and <iTunesMetadata.plist>.)

In iMazing there is multiple ways to browse backups or app data.

Here is the few possibilities:

Browse a specific app's backup content

Browse all backup's files and folders

Use the function "Export Raw Data" (right click the device from the sidebar and click "Export Raw Data")


Does OS X El Capitan have a /boot folder I know that the /boot folder contains the static files of the 'boot' loader.

I'm just curious to why I can't see this folder on my Mac. Im using OS X El Capitan.

Does OS X El Capitan have a /boot folder or is there an alternative?

The OS X boot loader is stored in a file called boot.efi which you can find in /System/Library/CoreServices. It isn't stored in /boot.

You can read more about the OS X boot process on Apple's website here: Mac Developer Library - Kernel Programming Guide - The Early Boot Process


Error in logs: kernel[0]: Validation failed, dataSuffix I've the following errors in my system logs when running Pages (or any iWork app):

Aug  4 19:01:09 kernel[0]: Validation failed, dataSuffix:
Aug  4 19:01:09 kernel[0]: b9 d5 6f e2 28 3e b9 48 82 12 80 33 10 14 01 9c 06 00 2b 20 8a e1 64 b1 da f5 90 a3 af ba 32 52 83 4a d6 25 08 d3 88 72 39 a5 2a 39 5e a0 f7 77 66 bb
Aug  4 19:01:09 kernel[0]: vnode_validate_compressed_file_Type4 error: 22
Aug  4 19:01:09 kernel[0]: Validation failed, dataSuffix:
Aug  4 19:01:09 kernel[0]: b9 d5 6f e2 28 3e b9 48 82 12 80 33 10 14 01 9c 06 00 2b 20 8a e1 64 b1 da f5 90 a3 af ba 32 52 83 4a d6 25 08 d3 88 72 39 a5 2a 39 5e a0 f7 77 66 bb
Aug  4 19:01:09 kernel[0]: vnode_validate_compressed_file_Type4 error: 22

What is causing that, how to debug that and how can I fix that?

These errors are reported by kernel and are caused by corruptive file compression in HFS+.

Suggestions:

Please run Disk Utility to Verify Disk for any file-system inconsistency (as well as Verify and Repair Disk Permissions),
If you're using any compression software tool, you may consider to upgrade it or remove it (e.g. Clusters),
Run Console and check 'Diagnostic and Usage Info -> User/System Diagnostic Reports' for any kernel or software crashes which could potentially cause that problems,
Re-install completely the software which is failing (e.g. Pages),
Use Time Machine to recover the files from when it was working,
This could be some hardware issue, please run S.M.A.R.T. tests for your HDD to find any issues or bad sectors,
This you're using SSD, it could have been heavily used (as it has quite short life span in comparision to HDD) or you could be using some bad quality product,
If anything won't help, you may try to make an appointment with Genius Bar.


How to delete audio files' meta data? I have some MP3s on my Mac. I want to import them into my iPhone. The problem is that, using iTunes, the iPhone automatically create several folders or albums, depending on the artist, the album, the genre (and so on) of one particular MP3 file.

Using Windows it's easy to prevent this, since I can delete manually all of these tags and file information, but using the Mac I seem to not be able to do this. Is there any way to delete this information?

Within iTunes, you can select the file and press command-I to get the file information. You can then delete all the meta-data associated with the mp3.


Export local contacts from iPhone My primary means of handling contacts on my iPhone is gmail sync, but somehow it appears I have added a number of contacts to my phone locally. I want just these local contacts to sync back to gmail.

I'm fine with exporting and then importing to gmail, and then deleting the local contacts off my phone. However, I can't seem to find any good way of doing this.

You can do this with My Contacts Backup. This will allow you to export all your local contacts as vCard which can be imported into Gmail.

Remove your Gmail account from your device (so that only the local contacts are backed up), then backup your contacts. You can then import the .vcf into your Gmail.


How can I "fix" damaged applications? I recently attempted to open the App Store application iFlicks and received the following error message.

Unfortunately, this application has been removed from the App Store so I am unable to download it again. I have gone back through my Time Machine restoring different versions from different years but they all provide the same message.

My question, has anyone encountered this problem and, if so, how did you go about fixing the application? Further, how can this be fixed if the application has been removed from the App Store?

Download the Mac OS X Snow Leopard Update.

Apple released an "App Store" Update for Mac OS X Snow Leopard users on January 27th, 2016. This update appears to handle new certificate changes that will render out-dated apps "damaged." Downloading and installing this update should solve the problem.

This is the link to manually update the software from Apple's website.


Open Safari Push Notifications in Chrome I got used to Safari Push Notifications, because they will show up even when Safari itself is closed.
In the last time, I changed to Chrome and now, when I click on a notification, Safari will always open.
Is it possible to config the Safari Push Notifications in that way that that will open the specific website in Chrome?

Some Information about my environment:
- MacBook Air 3,2 (End 2010)
- OS X 10.9.2
- Chrome is default browser

Thank you!

Unfortunately, I don't think this is possible.

Safari's push notifications are specific to Safari, and so cannot be configured to open in Chrome. It's a part of individual apps and their implementation of the push notification system.

You haven't specified which Apple OS you are using, but I can talking from my experience of iOS. I don't know if push notifications are a thing in OSX.


How to trigger download of thumbnails of icloud photo library to iOS? After uploading a large number of photos through the web upload of iCloud Photos my iOS does not show thumbnails of those new pictures but a grid of icons with small clouds in it.

It has been like this since two days now. It seems the only way to get the thumbnails downloaded is to look at every picture on my iOS device.

Is there more efficient way to download thumbnails? (Preferably in the background)

The only way I have found is to click through each one. I usually start at the top and swipe through them, and they should start downloading.


MBP boots into recovery mode/Installation log showing error logs after restarting Yesterday I updated something through the MacBook Appstore. I really do not know what I was updating exactly. I only know it was in the AppStore. It could've been an update from High Sierra to Mojave. I'm not very sure but I think it completed as the red notification badge was gone already and I quit the Appstore. I didn't do anything Special before and after that. Apps I was probably using are: Finder, Safari, Whatsapp, Todoist, Preview...

When I was finished I turned it off and the next morning I turned it on again. The Login page appears and I put in my account Password. The bar then proceeds to load but when reaching about 60/70% of the bar the MBP suddenly boots into a mode which resembles Recovery Mode. There a window reads

"The macOS Installation couldn't be completed."
In the Background there is an app/Window opened called "Installation Log/Installer Log". This is why I think the main culprit is the update from the previous day.

I have saved the logs (.txt) (only Errors, Errors and Progress, all logs) of my latest attempt to log into my account. These can be found on my dropbox. I can upload them to other Services as well if needed.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/e70trzi7u8lb39b/AADbEd1wAj2Q02-wRfufEQhta?dl=0

Thank you for your help!

When you're on the crash screen showing the log, click "Utilities" at the top, then "Startup Disk", and boot from your main OS disk.

YMMV, but this fixed it for me.


External hard drive not recognised by MacBook Pro. Recently my segate 1tb external hard drive has been playing up on my late 2013 MacBook Pro with retina. It has been very inconsistent. sometimes it works fine for a day or two or only 2 minutes, and then other times it doesn't even show up. I have looked in disk utility and I cannot find it there. I tried to run 'first aid' on it in disk utility yesterday but got a message saying something along the lines of "cannot perform first aid because the drive cannot be un-mounted. Thanks in advance for your help!

First off if you notice issues with an external drive like you describe that is the drive trying to tell you that it is failing. Hope you have a backup.

If it is not showing up in Disk Utility you could try rebooting the Mac, with the drive attached, a time or two. Power cycling the drive, unplugging it and plugging it back in, all of which might get it working or might do nothing at all.

If you can get it to mount and there is nothing you need on the drive try re-formatting it. If that fails then you definately have a bad drive instead of just a corrupted one.

If you have a third party disk repair utility (I like DiskWarrior) and it will see the drive run that.

Honestly it sounds like the drive is dying and needs to be replaced, either under warranty or by buying a new one.


Is it possible to perform a factory reset on an old Apple iMac (OS X Snow Leopard) without a disk My mum's got an old Apple iMac from ca. 2009 which after 10 years is pretty much for it.

I'd like to wipe the computer to get rid of any personal data before we get rid of it. Just in case.

As an older machine, it's still running OS X Snow Leopard.

Unfortunately I don't have any of the install disks, because, well, I knew Mum was gonna get rid of the computer so I binned them when I was having a big sort out when I moved house. Call me stupid but I didn't exactly expect to need the install disk to uninstall it. But then I'd forgotten the old adage, if you want to lock yourself out of your house, make sure you keep your house keys with you at all times.

Erasing an old 'spinning rust' Hard Drive is not the safest or most secure way to totally prevent data recovery by a bad actor, even if you use the old 'secure erase' functions.

The simplest & most secure method is to destroy it.
Whether that's by drilling holes through it or taking a very large hammer to it is pretty much dependant on how much fun you may find either option ;)

The remains are recyclable no matter which way you do it.


Getting iPads ready with paid apps and customized settings for a large amount of personnel? Suppose I would like to have over 20 iPads. Is it possible to get the same settings to them fast? One iPad would have a lot of paid apps, I am trying to find out how I can get it so that everyone is using the same apps and same iPads with the same settings -- and only email/etc personalized.

I believe there is no sense that I shared my own iPad's backup, here. I want to make sure all people have the best tools/apps/etc in their iPads before starting to work.

It would be a big plus if the manager could install/upgrade new apps in iPads without other people to worry so everyone running the same apps of the same version number.

Apple has a whole section of their support site for deploying iPads "to the Enterprise". What you'll likely find the most useful are the items about the Apple Configurator, which is a free app (available here) for managing and configuring large numbers of iOS devices.

You may also be interested in this Ars Technica article about iOS 6's management features.


How do I save a contact to a specific iCloud account? I have multiple account sources for my Contacts (family iCloud, personal iCloud, Exchange, etc.) When I create a new contact, how do I specify what account I want it saved to? Right now, Contacts just saves it to the default account.

I'm on the latest Yosemite.

Short answer, you cannot change it on the fly on a per entry basis.  You have to set the default account in the preferences for contacts.app. However, when in Contacts, and you have a card open (perhaps the one you JUST made), pressing the OPTION key will highlight all the groups on the left side of the app that include this card.  When you have your list of cards showing on the right with the accounts or groups showing on the left, you can simply drag that entry to the group or account of your choosing. This is the only method I'm aware of.


Upgrade Macbook Pro from 10.6.8 to 10.8 I am considering upgrading my Macbook Pro with 2GB of memory from 10.6.8 to 10.8 (Mountain Lion).

Are there any other considerations for upgrading?
Is this generally a good idea?

This is a somewhat subjective question. I would personally recommend upgrading to 8 GB of memory and an SSD, but since you're still within the boundaries of the minimum specs, there's no definitive answer. Outside of making sure that all the software you'll need to have working will work, you don't really need to consider anything. I would personally recommend upgrading to Mavericks as it's better supported and optimized then Mountain Lion, and El Cap is not out of the question either.


How can I listen to a playlist on iPad? I see my iTunes playlists (from my computer) in Remote but when I play one of them the sound comes from my computer but not from the iPad. How can I hear the sound on my iPad? Thank you.                                            iPad Pro Wi-Fi, iOS 10.3.1

As you've discovered, the Remote app can really only be used to remotely control playback on other devices.

If you don't wish to sync the playlists from your computer to your iPad via iTunes, then you'll have to stream them some other way. Unfortunately, for whatever (probably music industry-enforced) reason, Apple's own AirPlay technology does not allow sending audio from a Mac or Windows PC to an iOS device. Fortunately, there are 3rd-party solutions that do allow this, like AirFoil.


How to resolve repeated emails asking for verification of my Apple ID? I have received my email to verify my Apple ID, but when I click on the verify now it will not open a verification window in Internet Explorer 8.  I receive the error "Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage".

I do not know what else to do.  I can log into my Apple ID and resend the verification email over and over, but I continue to receive this message.

I have seen this problem where internet explorer doesn't open certain web pages. It may be an issue with internet explorer not having SSL enabled. In internet explorer go to the Tools menu and click internet options (you can also get to internet options from control panel). Click on the advanced tab and scroll to security, make sure there are check marks where it says SSL 2.0 and 3.0 and then click apply.

If that doesn't work just install another browser like safari or firefox.


Push window to beginning, not to the end of stack when I press fullscreen Is it possible to push window to beginning, not to the end of stack when I press fullscreen?

For example, I have tree windows (or spaces) maximized

When I press "fullscreen" button I want new window to appear to the right of "Desktop" (left) space, not after all other spaces. Can I do this somehow?

In System Preferences > Mission Control, if you check the box for "Automatically rearrange spaces based on most recent use," then switching a window to fullscreen mode will place it to the right of the desktop space instead of at the end.


Will installing OS X Sierra mean my Mac can receive two factor authentication codes? I managed to get myself in a two-factor authentication pickle.  My Apple id is associated with a Mac (currently running OS X Yosemite), an iPhone and an iPad.

The iPad just came back from repair and I needed to restore it from the cloud.  Unfortunately before doing that I lost my iPhone!  I now have nothing that can receive the two-factor authentication codes.  (Didn't see that one coming!)

My Mac is tied to my iCloud account and Apple Id, and I see that Sierra can receive these codes and that I can upgrade from Yosemite which is what's currently running on the Macbook Pro.

If I upgrade to Sierra will that mean my Mac can then also receive the two factor codes (allowing me then to get my iPad back up and running)?

Or will I be out of luck as I may need to use two-factor to get the laptop properly set up with Sierra?  If that's the case then I do not want to upgrade as it means I may lose the limited iCloud access that I have via the Mac.

Help!

N.B. Yes, have a full trustworthy backup of the Mac on Time Machine.

You can request the two factor code to be sent to your phone number instead. Click the "Didn't get a code" on iPad, where you're asked to enter the code. Then you can get it sent to your trusted phone number.

The trusted phone number doesn't have to be an iPhone, so you can use any dumb phone that can receive SMS text messages.


I don't know what's wrong with my IPhone 5C My phone has been acting up. It turns on and off by itself. My apps also freeze and crash. Im not even able to back up my phone because every time I do it, it cancels. I turn my phone on and off all the time and I restart it (by pressing the home button and power button at the same time) and it's no help at all. I was thinking about resetting my phone but I'm afraid it won't work. I need help. I don't know what I should do.

If you want to reset your iPhone, maybe first you should backup your data. You can try to backup your data on iCloud, and then restore your iPhone. Unfortunately, you said that you can not back up every time, can you connect it with your PC? If you still can't backup data, you can try to restore your iPhone 5c directly and see how it goes. Don't be afraid. Good luck.


Safari seems to be modified I just ran this command and saw that Safari was modified.

$ codesign --verify -vv /Applications/Safari.app/
--validated:/Applications/Safari.app/Contents/MacOS/SafariForWebKitDevelopment
/Applications/Safari.app/: a sealed resource is missing or invalid
file modified: /Applications/Safari.app/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/InfoPlist.strings
file modified: /Applications/Safari.app/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/ServicesMenu.strings

My questions are:

Is there any way to see what exactly was changed?
Why Safari could have been modified? (I didn't do it and I don't suspect a virus to change translations)

I'm running Safari 7.0.5 on OS X 10.9.4

The way to determine what changed is to diff the current folder against a backup copy from when the code sign was valid.

Why could be as simple and harmless as bit rot or a filesystem error and it could be that some other tool injected code.

Unless you routinely list and checksum each file in /Applications/Safari.app and compare those results, your best bet might be to re-install the latest combo updater from http://apple.com/downloads and re-check that the binary is properly signed. If not, you might need to back up that machine and start with a clean erase and reinstall and watch to see what / when Safari gets modified going forward.


How can I retrieve a saved WiFi password from iOS / iPadOS on secure hardware? I have some wireless networks that I joined on my iOS device and I now want to retrieve the passwords from the device.

These are stored in the keychain presumably so I’d like (by hook or crook if necessary) to get into the iOS / iPadOS keychain and obtain saved passwords or secrets.

I'm primarily interested in old hotspot passwords, but being able to list other items in the iOS keychain would be generally useful. If I need to use a computer, that's fine, but I would also be interested in ways to accomplish this from iOS itself if that is possible.

Is the keychain exportable forensically or natively on modern iOS devices with a physical Secure Enclave?

One trivial solution is to enable keychain sync for iOS 7 and have the keychain contents sent to iCloud.

Then, on a Mac, enable keychain syncing in the iCloud preference pane in system preferences and use Keychain Utility to inspect the iCloud keychain.

Once above step is completed. Open Keychains on Mac and look for iCloud on the right panel. You should then see all the SSID you have ever saved on your various devices and computers synced through iCloud.


Is there an option to delete old photos off my iPod? I have no option to delete old photos off my iPod. They are old photos, by that I mean they were on my iPod then I got them off, and about a year later (I had synced it a couple of times in between) I synced my iPod to my laptop and they all came back with no option to delete them off.

You can choose what should synchronise, from iTunes > [iDevice] > Photos

You can switch off sync entirely, or choose from Albums, Events, Faces; whether to include videos & whether to automatically add recent Events.


Applescript question for copying files I wrote a script to copy files from an SD Card to a Thunderbolt Hard Drive.

I wanted the action to automatically do all of this in a single shelled applescript under an automator action.

When I run this applescript, it seems to work, but now users are reporting back to me getting errors when copying large files (5-8GB).

Here is the script I've written.  I don't know why it's crashing out.  Maybe a timeout error?

on run {input, parameters}

    tell application "Finder"
        set FolderName to text returned of (display dialog "Please enter Today's Date: mmddyyyy-(alphaVariable if more than one card today)" default answer "e.g.03161980-A")
        set loc to disk "WorldRace Storyteller"
        set newfoldername to FolderName
        set newfo to make new folder at loc with properties {name:newfoldername}
        set loc2 to newfo

    end tell

    tell application "Finder"
        set the_files to disk "BMPCC"
        set target_folder to loc2
        repeat with this_file in the_files
            if (not (exists file (this_file's name) of target_folder)) then
                duplicate this_file to target_folder
            end if
        end repeat
    end tell

    return input

end run

I tested copying 8.95GB worth of files and folders and you do get a timeout.

The best thing you can try is to add a timeout clause to the code. When I did this it worked ok. I gave the script 30mins.

I do not have SD cards so in my testing I had to change the code some to accommodate my setup.

I do notice :

you have a two tell blocks for finder where you only need the one.
since you are not using the on run handler and the return input you do not need it in the code.
Your folder creation code has no check for existing names.
This also means there will be an error if the user uses an existing name.
Since they cannot create target folders of the same name there will never be a file/folder existing in it of the same name. So there is no real reason to check if an item exists already. And saying that, you should be able to remove the repeat block and exists checking and just use ( with timeout code):

.

 with timeout of 1800 seconds --30mins

              duplicate items of the_files to target_folder

 end timeout

This will also result in a single copy action in finder rather than possibly 10s-1000s of individual ones.

For your date default answer you can use:

set theDate to do shell script "date +%d%m%Y-"
tell application "Finder"
    set FolderName to (text returned of (display dialog "Please enter Today's Date: mmddyyyy-(alphaVariable if more than one card today." & return & "e.g. " & (theDate & "B") default answer (theDate & "A")))

....

This will give you a current dated dialogue like this.


CP2102 device is not listed in /dev on macOS 10.13 I have the ESP32 board with Silicon Labs CP2102 controller. When I connect it to my MacBook, I can get the details about this device using the command system_profiler SPUSBDataType, but it is not listed in /dev as a virtual serial port - so I can't communicate with it.

    CP2102 USB to UART Bridge Controller:

      Product ID: 0xea60
      Vendor ID: 0x10c4  (Silicon Laboratories, Inc.)
      Version: 1.00
      Serial Number: 0001
      Speed: Up to 12 Mb/sec
      Manufacturer: Silicon Labs
      Location ID: 0x14200000 / 5
      Current Available (mA): 500
      Current Required (mA): 100
      Extra Operating Current (mA): 0

I'm using the official driver downloaded from https://www.silabs.com/products/development-tools/software/usb-to-uart-bridge-vcp-drivers.

Any ideas how to make it visible in /dev? I have also Windows installed on the same computer where it works fine, so the HW and the USB cable are OK.

I found that macOS High Sierra has blocked all unsigned / unmanaged kernel extensions and the SiLabs kernel extension guide doesn’t have information on how to manually enable the required extensions.

An excellent overview of this process is at man blogs - here is one such guide:

https://grahamgilbert.com/blog/2017/09/11/enabling-kernel-extensions-in-high-sierra/

Here are steps to allow this extension specifically:

Go to "System Preferences" -> "Security & Privacy"
In the bottom of the window, you will see a message "System software from developer "SiLabs" was blocked from loading."
Click on "Allow" button
Restart your Mac

Now my device is listed as /dev/cu.SLAB_USBtoUART and everything work as expected.


My code produces weird output in Terminal I've put a small program to solve the "dining philosophers problem" on repl.it, where it runs as expected and produces the following output:

When I compile and run the same program on macOS I get

I suspect some Terminal settings are wrong here, how can I fix this?

This problem is definitely not due to resetting the NVRAM, so don't worry about that.

You're essentially taking a program (main.c) and compiling it on your Mac with the Apple supplied clang compiler to create the main executable. This is where you get the deprecation warnings, which in themselves usually do not indicate a problem as such with the program - just that if this were a "real" program (and not an educational demo) you would want to use an alternative for sem_init().

The output from this program now differs quite a lot from the output of the same program run on Ubuntu or on repl.it, which is essentially just a kind of remote interface to a Ubuntu machine.

I can confirm that I get the same output as you on the Mac, and that it differs quite a lot from the output on Ubuntu, as it does not adhere to the 11 element width of the outputted table. So this problem is not specific to your Mac.

The reason the program differs is that the implementation of the semaphore functions on macOS differs from the Ubuntu implementation. Normally this would indicate that there's a bug in your main.c program.

The bug is that the code does not check the return value of the sem_init() function in the main() function. If you did check the return value, you would see that it returns -1, which means that an error occured. It is pointless continuing after the error occurs, as this means that essentially every following operation on that semaphore will fail.

The reason the code fails is that you're trying to create an unnamed semaphore, which is not supported on macOS. You could fix the program on macOS by replacing the calls to sem_init() with calls to sem_open(). Note that the latter returns a pointer to the semaphore instead of having it as an output parameter.


Calendar issue on OS X Mavericks When I try to open Calendar I'm told "You can't use this version of the application 'Calendar' with this version of OS X. You have Calendar 6.0."

Any ideas why this could be happening? I just uprgaded to OS X 10.9 Mavericks from OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion today.

It would appear that the upgrade has failed to update your Calendar app. OS X 10.9 has Calendar v7.0 and if you do have 6.0 then something went wrong.

I would suspect that there is some serious problem with your existing Calendar app such as permissions.

Delete your Calendar app and either grab a copy from another Mavericks Mac or re-install 10.9.

If you go the re-install route I would be tempted to do a reformat and clean install myself, just to make sure there are no hidden gotchas since you already have one. At the least I would boot into recovery mode and run "Fix Permissions" before the re-install.


Can I log employees' working hours through Bonjour availability? We have a small office network with a Mac server, and all employees have their own Mac laptop they take home at the end of the day.

I am looking for a way to automatically log the employees' time at the office. Theoretically, it should be possible to periodically check for other auto-discovered Bonjour hosts on the network and deduce their time at the office from there.

Now my question is, is there an app or other readily available solution for that?

EDIT:

I should note that the users don't actually log in to the network nor log out. Their computers are not part of an Open Directory. I also really don't want to install or access anything on their computer directly.

I want to log their presence purely based on listening for their network presence. I also don't want to manually manage a list of computers, computers should be tracked automatically once they are discovered on the network.

At the end of the week/month I want to be able to get a list of all connected computer names during that period, with the time periods they were connected. Some graphical representation similar to day-view in iCal would be perfect, but if I have this information textual I could always implement that part myself.

EDIT 2:

I've been doing some research myself and found out about the dns-sd tool. For example:

dns-sd -B _afpovertcp._tcp local

lists all computers with AFP enabled.

However, two problems:

the dns-sd utility from the command-line is not well suited for scripts, the man page recommends against it, the command also doesn't terminate itself
The above example does not work when AFP file sharing is disabled

It looks like you want something like NetSpy or ActyMac to monitor employee activity. It will handle what you want and more, although I'm not sure I would suggest the orwelian approach to employee management.

You may want to look into a pure network monitoring tool like Paessler.

The easiest solution would be for you to just monitor the server log on your OS X server for the time the user logs-in and logs out. A simple script that tracks the time and totals them into a spreadsheet using a nightly cron job.

You can also just use the last command as seen in the screenshot aslong as the file has not be cleared.

You may want to try other basic unix system logging scripts.


burning a multi-session cd into iso I have a multi-session (osx/windows) cd that I'd like to create an iso from. Is there a way to create a single iso file with all the sessions included in it?
Output from diskutil list disk2 is below. The identifier for the optical drive on my Mac is disk2.
/dev/disk2 (external, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:        CD_partition_scheme                        *591.9 MB   disk2
   1:     Apple_partition_scheme                         515.4 MB   disk2s1
   2:        Apple_partition_map                         32.3 KB    disk2s1s1
                    (free space)                         276.8 MB   -
   3:                  Apple_HFS Master Install CD       238.6 MB   disk2s1s2
 –

This question has been asked may times in the passed. Although, multi-session (osx/windows) was probably not mentioned in the past. The Snow Leopard DVD (OS X 10.6) has an additional session containing the Windows Boot Camp software. Below are the instructions for creating an ISO from this type of DVD.
I did test the Snow Leopard ISO using both macOS and Windows 10. Both operating systems open the ISO to different sessions.
Create your own ISO
Use these steps to make an ISO copy of your DVD:

While your Mac is started from macOS (OS X), insert the DVD in an external optical USB drive. (You can also use an internal optical drive, if you have an older Mac with an internal optical drive that still works.)
After the media mounts in the Finder, open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder (choose Go > Utilities).
Select the optical drive so it's highlighted in the Disk Utility window.
Choose File > New Image, and then select your DVD or from the submenu.
Choose DVD/CD master from the Image Format menu, then choose none from the Encryption menu.
Give the new file a name, then click Save. If prompted, enter an administrator user name and password. A progress bar appears while the image file is created (it might take some time to create the image file).
After imaging is done, eject your disc. If you're using an external optical drive, disconnect it from the USB port after the disc ejects.
From the Finder, locate the disk image file you created earlier. Single click on it to select it, then press the Enter or Return key on your keyboard to rename the file. Change the disk image file extension from .cdr to .iso. When prompted, click "Use .iso" to verify this change.

Below is the output from diskutil list disk3. The identifier for the optical drive on my Mac is disk3.
/dev/disk3 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     Apple_partition_scheme                        *7.8 GB     disk3
   1:        Apple_partition_map                         30.7 KB    disk3s1
   2:         Apple_Driver_ATAPI                         1.0 GB     disk3s2
   3:                  Apple_HFS Mac OS X Install DVD    6.7 GB     disk3s3


Internet Recovery loads ML instead of Mavericks Had to recover my computer using Internet Recovery. For some reason it installed Mountain Lion instead of the Mavericks OS I previously had. How did this happen?

Internet Recovery will install the OS that came with the Mac, regardless of whether you updated it at a later date. Once a Mountain Lion is installed, update it it Mavericks through the Mac App Store.


How do i use iBooks or an alternative app across my devices for PDF annotations I've never been able to get this to work so must be doing something wrong. I'm trying to read this PDF(The link is at the bottom of the page) and be able to add notes on my iPad say, but then be able to read it on my iPhone and see the notes/add more notes to it. Problems I often have are having to make a copy of it on each device as it can't be saved or it's in my iBooks on one device but not another (eg - I have a Pro Git book in my phone, but it's never made it to my iPad). I've tried a coupe of different apps and read links also, so I must be missing something fundamental.

As suggested by the OP, from the comments:

Depending on the PDF viewer, the PDFs could be stored in the cloud, using something like Dropbox. Synching is supposed to work in this environment.

If it is just for commenting, decent PDF viewers are Adobe Reader or iOS, or (in any case) PDFExpert by Readdle.


Remove multiple app badge icons with one script? I found this link to remove a badge icon from a single app.

Disable badge for specific app with a script

Is it possible to create a script with multiple apps to remove all badges at once?

Running High Sierra 10.13.3

The following example AppleScript code was tested under macOS High Sierra.

The following is modified code from my answer you linked in your OP:

This version acts on applications in Notification Center in System Preferences that are defined in the appNameList list.

Change the application names and or add or remove them in the appNameList list as needed:

Example AppleScript code:

set appNameList to {"Calendar", "Games", "Mail", "Messages"}

if running of application "System Preferences" then
    quit application "System Preferences"
    delay 1
end if
tell application "System Preferences"
    set the current pane to pane id "com.apple.preference.notifications"
    delay 1
    tell application "System Events"
        tell table 1 of scroll area 1 of window 1 of application process "System Preferences"
            repeat with i from 2 to (count rows)
                select row i
                delay 0.25 --   # Do not set any lower, increase if necessary!
                set theValue to (value of static text 1 of group 1 of UI element 1 of row i)
                repeat with thisApp in appNameList
                    if theValue contains thisApp then
                        --  # Use 0 with clickCheckBox() to check the check box.
                        --  # Use 1 with clickCheckBox() to uncheck the check box.
                        my clickCheckBox(1)
                    end if
                end repeat
            end repeat
        end tell
    end tell
    quit
end tell

on clickCheckBox(i as integer)
    tell application "System Events"
        tell group 1 of window 1 of application process "System Preferences"
            --  # if the value of checkbox is 0, it's unchecked.
            --  # if the value of checkbox is 1, it's checked.
            if value of checkbox "Badge app icon" is equal to i then
                click checkbox "Badge app icon"
            end if
        end tell
    end tell
end clickCheckBox

System Preferences does not need to be visible for this to work and why there is no activate command in the example AppleScript code. Additionally if System Preferences is already open, it is first closed before the rest of the code is processed. This is done for a couple of reasons, the first of which was already stated and secondly seeing the UI Events processed is a visual distraction and can be annoying.

Also note that the value of the delay commands may need to be adjusted for your system, and or additional delay commands may or may not be needed. Adjust values of and or add/remove the delay commands as appropriate.

This version acts on all applications in Notification Center in System Preferences.

Example AppleScript code:

if running of application "System Preferences" then
    quit application "System Preferences"
    delay 1
end if
tell application "System Preferences"
    set the current pane to pane id "com.apple.preference.notifications"
    delay 1
    tell application "System Events"
        tell table 1 of scroll area 1 of window 1 of application process "System Preferences"
            repeat with i from 2 to (count rows)
                select row i
                delay 0.25 --   # Do not set any lower, increase if necessary!

                --  # Use 0 with clickCheckBox() to check the check box.
                --  # Use 1 with clickCheckBox() to uncheck the check box.

                my clickCheckBox(1)

            end repeat
        end tell
    end tell
    quit
end tell

on clickCheckBox(i as integer)
    tell application "System Events"
        tell group 1 of window 1 of application process "System Preferences"
            --  # if the value of checkbox is 0, it's unchecked.
            --  # if the value of checkbox is 1, it's checked.
            if value of checkbox "Badge app icon" is equal to i then
                click checkbox "Badge app icon"
            end if
        end tell
    end tell
end clickCheckBox

For a version that acts on just one specific application in Notification Center in System Preferences, see my answer to: Disable badge for specific app with a script

Note: The example AppleScript code is just that and does not employ any other error handling then what's shown and is meant only to show one of many ways accomplish a task. The onus is always upon the User to add/use appropriate error handling as needed/wanted.


Attempting to restore iPhone 4 gives error -1 I just bought a iPhone 4 off Craigslist, and it's stuck on the iTunes screen. Whenever I try to restore it, towards the end of the process, an icon pops up and says error -1. What does this mean?

Unfortunately, according to Apple, error -1 indicates a hardware issue. Specifically:

  This may indicate a hardware issue with your device. Follow Troubleshooting security software issues, and restore your device on a different known-good computer. If the errors persist on another computer, the device may need service.


Does iCloud Drive backup hidden dot folders/files such as .git? The folders/files don't show up on www.icloud.com so I presume I would need a second machine to verify via terminal.

Can anybody test this?

--

I'm specifically trying to ensure that my local .git file is backed up as I'm keeping this project local (not pushing to GitHub). I've tried chflags nohidden .git in my repo dir but that doesn't cause it to show up.

Seems like there's no way to "unhide" "dot files" such as .git so that they appear in Finder (even if you remove their hidden flag - confirmed via ls -alO).

I also tried creating a symbolic link using ln -s .git dot_git which did not show up on iCloud.com.

I've decided that because I can see the files within my iCloud folder in Finder by unhiding all hidden files, they are also backed up.

Confirmed with colleague that .git folder persists across machines!


Windows 8 RTM Freezes on Mac Book Pro I've installed Windows 8 RTM (available to MSDN subscrbers) on my Core 2 Duo 13" Mac Book Pro.

I've been trying to install Visual Studio 2012 on my MBP and it keeps freezing up during install.  Given that I've successfully installed VS2012 through Parallels on the same box, I can't help but think it's specific to an interaction with MBP and Windows 8 through Boot camp.

What can I use to diagnose this problem and fix it? Is there a known issue with MBP and Windows 8 freezing up during installs?

As I've been using it more, it seems to freeze up after about 15-20 minutes of usage, without regard to what program is running.  I have to restart the Mac to get it to work again.

I encountered a similar issue on my MBP when I installed the Windows 8 RTM (also a Core 2 Duo 13" MBP). Reading around, I found the following discussion on the Apple forums that mentions a bcdedit fix, along with updating NVidia drivers. I followed the key "fix" steps on the second post at that link, and they have fixed the issue for me.

To summarise:

Run a command prompt as administrator and enter the following command: bcdedit /set disabledynamictick yes
(This step is only relevant if your MBP has NVidia graphics instead of the Intel HD / ATI graphics on more recent models) Download the latest NVidia graphics drivers

If you're interested, this article theorises about the dynamic ticking issue, and why turning it off should fix the freezing.


Got a iPhone/ a pc without iTunes/WiFi - Needs to transfer files from iPhone to pc. How? Like the title says
Got a iPhone/ a pc (w10) without iTunes/WiFi- need to transfer files (photos,zip,exe) from iPhone to pc. How?

Got usb cable and acces to WiFi on phone.

Would be very grateful if someone come up with something. I’ can’t find a solution

Here is how to transfer your photos to the pc. The charging cable serves both as a charging cable and a data transfer cable.  Disconnect the cable from the power adapter.  Plug the usb end into your computer.  Plug the other end into your phone. You should see the phone as a new device. It will appear as a photo card. You need to drill down until you see your photos.

Security restrictions have gotten tighter on the iPhone over time.  You can try
https://macroplant.com/iexplorer for the other file types.


My Macbook Pro often hangs up at shutdown - what should I do? My system:

  System Version: macOS 10.13.6 (17G5019)
  Kernel Version: Darwin 17.7.0
  Boot Volume: Macintosh HD
  Boot Mode: Normal
  Model Name: MacBook Pro
  Model Identifier: MacBookPro14,3
  Processor Name: Intel Core i7
  Processor Speed: 2.9 GHz
  Number of Processors: 1
  Total Number of Cores: 4
  L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB
  L3 Cache: 8 MB
  Memory: 16 GB
  Boot ROM Version: 185.0.0.0.0
  SMC Version (system): 2.45f0

With alarmingly increasing frequency, when I shutdown my Mac at the end of the work day, it hangs. This means that I have to stop it by keeping the Touch ID button pressed - with the result that when I turn my Mac on again, OSX complains about the forced shutdown. I'm worried this may compromise the stability of my system, and maybe even the life of my Mac.

This is a company machine, so probably the best thing to do would be to log a case for IT and wait for them to solve the issue. However, I'm on a long business trip and I likely won't be able to give them my laptop before the end of the month. Is there anything I can do on my side, to reduce the risk of instabilities/life reduction?

Often, hard drives that won't unmount, or network shares that can't unmount will prevent your system from shutting down completely.

Right before you shutdown, check the contents of /Volumes and see if there is anything unexpected in there.


Using Karabiner for multi key to multi key remapping I have been using Karabiner for some key remappings on a macbook pro. I have successfully (and very satisfyingly) remapped right-cmd + up arrow and right-cmd + down arrow to page up and page down.

I would like to do further remappings, such as remap shift + enter so that it will give me line breaks in messages, or cmd + anglebrackets to switch workspaces. Unfortunately the only way I know to do these things are with two key strokes in the first place (option + enter for messages new lines and control + arrow keys to switch workspaces). How can I use karabiner to make two key presses map to two other key presses?

Ok I solved my two specific problems, though I am still not sure how I would replicate multiple key presses if more than one of them were not modifier keys.

Put the following two json files in user/.config/karabiner/assets/complex_modifications

{
  "title": "Shift + Enter",
  "rules": [
    {
      "description": "Shift + Enter to Option Enter (newline in messenger)",
      "manipulators": [
        {
          "type": "basic",
          "from": {
            "key_code": "return_or_enter",
            "modifiers": {
              "mandatory": [
                "shift"
              ],
              "optional": [
                "caps_lock",
                "option"
              ]
            }
          },
          "to": [
            {
              "key_code": "return_or_enter",
              "modifiers": [
                "option"
            ]
            }
          ]
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

This one (shift enter) is really frustrating me but not because of karabiner. In messenger i need to option+enter to get a new line character, but in the browser option-enter refuses to do anything. I wish I could get a key combination that does a consistent "safe" new line character, rather than making me fear I am going to accidentally press enter to send or complete or publish or something like that.

{
  "title": "cmd + angle brackets for workspaces",
  "rules": [
    {
      "description": "Use CMD + comma  (left angle bracket key) to switch to  left workspace",
      "manipulators": [
        {
          "type": "basic",
          "from": {
            "key_code": "comma",
            "modifiers": {
              "mandatory": [
                "command"
              ],
              "optional": [
                "caps_lock",
                "option",
                "control"
              ]
            }
          },
          "to": [
            {
              "key_code": "left_arrow",
              "modifiers": [
                "control"
            ]
            }
          ]
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "description": "Use CMD + .  (right angle bracket key) to switch to  left workspace",
      "manipulators": [
        {
          "type": "basic",
          "from": {
            "key_code": "period",
            "modifiers": {
              "mandatory": [
                "command"
              ],
              "optional": [
                "caps_lock",
                "option",
                "control"
              ]
            }
          },
          "to": [
            {
              "key_code": "right_arrow",
              "modifiers": [
                "control"
            ]
            }
          ]
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

A solution to a similar question can be found here: How to bind a key to press two separate keys


iPhone update failed now stuck in Recovery Mode I am trying to update my iOS version without loosing data.
Initially, I was trying to update from iOS 10.3.x to the latest 13.4.1 (iPhone SE). Because I have not had much storage space left, I downloaded the latest iOS manually as an ipsw file and tried patching it with iTunes. All went well for a bit until I got an error message from iTunes saying something like "The iPhone could not be restored. An unexpected error occurred (14)." Now, the iPhone is in Recovery Mode. I cannot effort loosing my data and still hoping that I can somehow just update it and it magically works again. All my research just lead me to the various recovery tools e.g. EaseUS, minitool, dr.phone Toolkit that do not really help me.
I am using iTunes version 12.8.2.3 and OS X 10.11.6 El Capitan

Update 30/04
4 Days later and I have tried every single possible solution from the net without luck.

Possible solutions

USB connection (different cables, ports)
Re-download IPSW file and making sure it is not corrupted
Different computer(s)
Different iTunes versions
Tried the update over and over again (error 14 triggers every time)
Tried mounting the iPhone (see) to clear space (not possible in Recovery or DFU mode, internally everything gets encrypted to one big file once the phone enters Recovery Mode)
Tried useless third party apps: dr.fone, EaseUS, MiniTool, iPhone Backup Extractor etc. -> These "Freemium" Software cannot do more than iTunes. They are using and abusing the desperation of people to buy their overpriced products. They pay $$ to appear first in Google search results.
Tried useful third party apps: RecBoot, 3uTools (see below, very useful tool but Windows only), iFunBox,
3uTools powerful tool. Can try lots of different things, like update to beta versions, repair drivers etc. That is probably your best all-in-one solution.
Called Apple AASP (they don not have a magic tool either)
Jailbreak in DFU mode with checkra1n
Downgrade (requires either more than one IPSW-file still signed on ipsw.me or you have saved the right SHSH2 blob)

iTunes error 14 is likely to be caused (see)

Due to a bad USB cable.
Due to an error with an firmware upgrade.
Due to a lack of capacity in the iPhone.
Due to an unstable network connectivity.
Due to an outdated iTunes.

Error message from 3uTools
Flash error explanation: AMRestorePerformRestoreModeRestoreWithError failed with error: 14
If it is not a hardware error, you may consider:
1. Connect another genuine cable to the rear USB port of a fully powered case                        2. Repair drivers with the iTunes Utility in Toolbox and flash again later

Conclusion
The problem in my case is most likely a lack of capacity on the iPhone so during the update the system got corrupted/ "bricked". There is no known solution/ workaround to me to keep the data (without having a recent backup). I have to factory reset my device (wipe all data) to get it working again. So yeah, backup your files kids!

This is a tough one as once you are in recovery mode you can't backup your phone. So tell us, were you backing up to iCloud or had you been backing up to a Mac or PC using iTunes? If not you may be out of luck.

What you need to do is get it out of Recovery Mode. I can't locate the info for the older SE model but you could try these.

On iPhone 8, 7, 6, 6s, 5 and earlier, hold down Power Button to turn off your device.
On iPhone XS, XS, XR, X, press and hold the side button with either volume button.

Once the phone has powered down, power it back on normally and hope it comes up out of recovery mode.

If that happens you should back up the phone with iTunes immediately then go to

Settings > General > Reset > Erase all content and settings.

Once that is done you should be able to update your phone and then restore from the backup you just made.

If it didn't come out of Recovery Mode You may need to enlist professional help. I have also seen a lot of utilities out there that can supposedly either backup an iPhone in recovery mode or get it out of Recovery Mode. I have no experience with these utilities, I have no idea if they do the job they say they do or are just backdoors to some kind of malware. So find an iPhone expert (Apple store or otherwise) who can fix this issue.

And for heaven's sake start backing up your phone on a regular basis. Either to a computer or to iCloud.


Quick search in folder by key press I switched from PC to Mac, in pc when you're in explorer, you press a key and it highlights the first result of a file/folder that starts with the pressed key,  and when you press again  it goes to the next result

In mac, when i press a key in finder or anywhere contains files, it only shows the first result and ignores my repeated key presses that is supposed to move to the next result highlight

how to do this ?

The way it works in OS X's Finder is you can type a word and the selection will move down as filenames are matched.

The quickest way to move between files when typing only the first letter is following up with tab


Raise/lower/move/resize windows with mouse + modifier keys I'm a longtime FVWM user over on the Linux side and have developed some keyboard + mouse shortcuts that I find very helpful in managing windows. Specifically:

left click + command + shift = send to back if frontmost, otherwise raise to front
right click + command + shift = maximize window vertically (horizontal size unchanged)
left+right chord + command + shift = grab window and move it
left+right chord + command + control + shift = resize (drag pointer to side or corner and move that to resize)

For all of these, "click" means click anywhere in the window.

Is there Mac software that will let me set this up? I'm on 10.6.

Edit

To clarify, the move/resize operations should begin on mouse-down and end on mouse-up.

Easy Move+Resize is a great little tool that does exactly what it says on the tin.

  Usage

  Easy Move+Resize is based on behavior found in many X11/Linux window managers

  – Cmd + Ctrl + Left Mouse anywhere inside a window, then drag to move
  – Cmd + Ctrl + Right Mouse anywhere inside a window, then drag to resize

This thing was a breath of fresh air after spending too much time trying to figure out how to get the latest version of BetterTouchTool to do what I wanted. It's also not dependent on SIMBL, which is nice.

My only complaint is that the key bindings are not configurable. I'd prefer to use ⌘ Cmd+⌥ Opt+⌃ Ctrl+Left Click for resizing, since clicking and dragging with two fingers on a trackpad is a bit awkward. But hey, it's open source, and as always, there's an issue for that.


How to clear new Music app's cache of streaming music on iOS? I have the latest iOS on my iPad and iPhone with the new Music app. I speculate the Music app's cache of downloaded streaming songs is taking about 1.5 to 2.0 GB of space, which is causing both of my devices to now report "storage almost full." This will be an issue in the future when I want to add a new app to the device. How do I clear this cache?

Some details. I activated iCloud Music Library on both devices since I'm trying out Apple Music. My iPad previously had no local audio files, but a few days after activating iCloud Music Library, the "Audio" usage on the iTunes app on OSX reported about 1.5 GB. The Music app does not show up on the iPad's General>Usage>Storage page, as there is no explicitly stored music.

My iPhone on the other hand had locally stored songs. The phone reports Music app's usage as 3.0 GB, while the iTunes app on OSX reports 4.98 GB.

EDIT: Auto music downloads are disabled on both devices

Easiest solution I have found so far is to disable the iCloud Music Library and open the Music app so that it can delete the cached files and/or release that storage to iOS to clear when needed.

Details: This solution is an adaptation of solutions I found for the same issue with iTunes Match. The clearing and rebuilding of your music library takes time, so I hope Apple adds a simple "clear Music cache" button to the settings in the future.

Settings>Music: Turn off iCloud Music Library
Open Music app: Your library should start to clear
Settings>Music: Turn on iCloud Music Library
Open Music app: Your library will be rebuilt

The process preserved my offline copies of songs previously synced to my iPhone prior to switching to the iCloud Music Library. I am not sure if it preserves offline Apple Music copies.


launchd process using aerender exits early I'm trying to run aerender (After Effects' command-line renderer) via launchd to render a video on a timed interval.  The command works fine in Terminal.  In launchd - even when I use screen -d -m ... - it always exits early.  Here's my setup.

Skip to bottom for things I've already tried.

plist for launchd:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.home.VideoGenerator</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
      <string>/Users/home/Developer/VideoGenerator/exec/render.sh</string>
    </array>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
    <key>KeepAlive</key>
    <false/>
    <key>StartInterval</key>
    <integer>300</integer>
    <key>StandardErrorPath</key>
    <string>/var/log/com.home.VideoGenerator.err.log</string>
    <key>StandardOutPath</key>
    <string>/var/log/com.home.VideoGenerator.out.log</string>
</dict>
</plist>

render.sh script:

#!/bin/bash
/Applications/Adobe\ After\ Effects\ CC\ 2018/aerender -project /Users/home/Developer/VideoGenerator/resource/video.aep -comp ExportMe -output /Users/home/Developer/VideoGenerator/output/video.mov -OMtemplate Output

Output:

Here is what normal output looks like, when I run ./render.sh from the command line:

aerender version 15.0.1x73
PROGRESS: Launching After Effects...
PROGRESS: ...After Effects successfully launched
PROGRESS: Adding specified comp to Render Queue
PROGRESS:  4/2/18 8:41:57 AM PDT: Starting composition ExportMe.
...

This is truncated.  It also outputs composition settings and render progress, always successful.  Nothing useful for this purpose.

Here's the logged output when I run it from launchd:

aerender version 15.0.1x73
PROGRESS: Launching After Effects...
PROGRESS: ...After Effects successfully launched

And that's it.  (In reality I'm running this in a context where I can log the exit code and it's always 0.  For this purpose I have drastically simplified the project to what you see here, and it still doesn't run).

Things I've tried:

Set KeepAlive to true in the plist

This just relaunches the process after it exits

Add /dev/null as the StandardInPath in the plist (as per this post)

Still exits early

Add -i and -c to the beginning of ProgramArguments (from the same post as above)

Command doesn't run

Set AbandonProcessGroup to true in the plist

Still exits early

Append & to put the task in the background

Silences output

Launch aerender with screen -d -m ...

Using the -L flag and checking the log, the output is the same; it stops after aerender launches After Effects and then exits before rendering.

Running ps aux | grep aerender shows over 20 processes running (probably from all the times I've executed the script), most of them aerendercore.  But no output, no video.

What am I doing wrong?

(Edited/Updated)

According to this thread on StudioSysAdmins, the problem I'm running into is because of aerender's reliance upon the Window Manager.

  Aerender is a hack that wraps the entirely GUI based After Effects
  application with a basic command line render interface. The AE core
  itself still depends directly on the Window Manager.
  ...

-Robin Scher

I ended up getting around this by using AppleScript (osascript) in the property list like so:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    ...
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
      <string>/usr/bin/osascript</string>
      <string>/absolute/path/to/run.applescript</string>
    </array>
    <key>KeepAlive</key>
    <false/>
</dict>
</plist>

Here is what run.applescript looks like:

tell app "/Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app"
  set w to do script "/Users/home/Developer/VideoGenerator/exec/render.sh; exit 0"
  repeat
    delay 1
    if busy of w is false then exit repeat
  end repeat
  #display dialog "finished"
end tell

I tell launchd to use osascript to run aerender in the context of a Terminal window.  A little convoluted, but it works!


How to prevent Macbook from bluetooth reconnecting to lost connections? I have an Macbook Pro mid-2017 and a pair of Bluetooth ear-buds.
When I turn bluetooth off and on again on the Macbook, the ear-buds do not reconnect automatically, but when I just put the ear-buds in its case, so they turn off and I take them out again, they reconnect automatically.
When I get home and take the ear-buds out they still do reconnect, but when I take them out on the next morning, they don't.
It seems like there is an timeout or something for "lost Bluetooth connections".
I already tried this command:
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.Bluetooth.plist DontPageAudioDevices 1

Like I described it works, when I turn Bluetooth off and on again, but not when I only turn the ear-buds off.

For now I did an workaround with Controlplane:
Run program if connected to specific wifi?
When I leave work and my Mac does not detect the wifi it will turn off bluetooth.


Duplicates in contacts in iphone I am using icloud, but always sync my contacts using itunes. Still have a lot of duplicates. How do I get rid of the duplicates

On your Mac, open the Address Book and goto Card → Look for Duplicates.

You'll be prompted with something like this:

After merging the contacts in the Address Book you should choose to replace the contacts on the iPhone. This option can be found under the iPhone in the iTunes sidebar.


What name, format, and scheme should be chosen in order to "factory reset" a MacBook Pro? I am following What to do before you sell, give away, or trade in your Mac and during step 7 (Erase your hard drive and reinstall macOS), the fourth step is "Click Erase, then complete these items: Name .. Format .. Scheme ..".
In order to emulate a "Factory Reset" of the MacBook Pro (so I can get its state as close as possible to when it arrived from the Apple factory), what are the defaults for all 3 of these options?

If you're intending to reinstall macOS on the disk at some point (which 99% of people would be), then use these:
Name

Enter a name for the disk: 'Macintosh HD' is the default on a new Mac

Format

use APFS for formatting, and

Scheme

GUID Partition Map for scheme

Notes
This source recommends using 'Mac OS Extended (Journaled)' format. BUT if you want to be able to reinstall macOS (who doesn't?), then you must reformat to APFS, otherwise you'll get a message like

This Mac can only install macOS on APFS-formatted drives. Please use Disk Utility to reformat as APFS


Are retina graphics a burden all Macs (including non-retina) must carry? I'm in the process of downloading a rather chunky iMovie update (1.89 GB), and I'm wondering if the "Retina support" described about the update is something my non-retina MacBook must have lingering around?

I, like pretty much every other person, have a non-retina Mac and are these unused retina graphics are going to be present as inactive redundancies of all interface files/graphics in all retina supporting apps?

Yes, retina optimized apps will typically ship with both versions of graphics.

You can easily have a look at the retina graphic files yourself by viewing the package contents of the app. They should be located in AppName.app/Contents/Resources. At least for the Apple ones, the retina versions seem to have '@2x' appended to their base name, for example badge-info-N@2x.tiff is the retina version of badge-info-N.tiff.

While you probably could delete these files, it probably isn't a good idea as it will break the code signing, which in it's turns makes KeyChain access impossible without signing the code again, for example.

As to how much overhead or 'burden' the retina graphics are, I had a quick look at iPhoto.app (I don't have iMovie installed). In total, the retina graphics seems to add about 10% to the total app size (or in iPhoto's case, about 124MB). I think for a typical user, when most apps are retina-optimized (not sure when/if that will happen), this will not amount to more than 1GB in total.


Do I need two passwords? I keep getting an annoying request to enter my iTunes password, and I have never even tried to order anything from iTunes Do I need two different passwords for my iPad (first and/or second generations)? Are they two separate password protected accounts: one for my login to a device and a second one for iTunes? I keep getting an annoying popup to sign in to iTunes. I don't have or ever bought anything from iTunes. I tried to put a new pswd.in for iTunes and it changed my login Apple ID instead.
This pop-up comes up on the Ipad -1 constantly (every 60 seconds) and doesn't on my Apple 2 iPad with the on same Apple ID and password.

You don't necessarily need two passwords/accounts. Here is how it works:

You have an iCloud account, and an iTunes account. Both are accessed using your AppleID account credentials, but they are separate services. So account changes made in one service (like change of password) will be applied to the core AppleID account, and by extension the account used to log in to all other related Apple services. Most people use the same AppleID account credentials for both services, but you can use two separate accounts if you prefer (I do this for managed business devices).

iCloud accounts are generally only used to backup data and configurations (Activation Lock and Find My iPhone are also features of iCloud). You typically never get prompted for this password unless you are using a service or App that explicitly wants access to your iCloud (usually to perform or access backups). The iCloud account credentials can be set at Settings/iCloud.

iTunes Store accounts are used to purchase, download and update Apps. Depending on your settings, Apps may try to update themselves in the background, and this may require you to verify with your iTunes account password (even free Apps). This also occurs with iOS updates, but with a 1st gen device you won't have to worry about that. This is most likely what is happening to you. The credentials for this account can be changed in Settings/Store on 1st generation iPads. You can also disable automatic updates for Apps via the same location. That should stop the prompts. I have no idea what could be trying to update on a 1st gen device, but I am super curious.

Hope this helps. Apple device/account management can be unnecessarily convoluted sometimes. I wish someone would fix that.

Good luck.


How to enable the windows/linux-like "click to open/reduce windows" on the dock There is a really intuitive behavior in windows or linux systems: when I reduce a window, it vanishes to the corresponding "dock" icon. Then, when I click on the program icon, the window shows up.

On OSX, the reduced window goes to the right side of the dock. When I click on the corresponding program icon, nothing happens.

Is there any software that can enable the windows/linux reduce/show behavior ?

Edit

Additionally, is it possible to reduce the window when I click another time on the application icon ?

Sounds like you just need to check "Minimize windows into application icon" in System Preferences → Dock.

The application will then get minimized into its own Dock icon and clicking it will restore it, exactly as you suggest (although the restore behaviour should also happen even if the icon is minimized into the right hand side of the Dock).


Hazy lines around dock and windows in Mojave I’m currently experiencing this issue (refer to picture  above). It started after I upgraded to Mojave and it appears on both dark and light mode

Honestly that looks like a hardware issue. The fact that it happened after you upgraded to Mojave is merely a coincidence. You can try a few things to see if it persists.

Boot into safe mode by holding down the Shift key while booting up your Mac.
Boot into Recovery Mode by holding down Command and R while booting up your Mac.

Safe Mode will turn off any software that has been added to your Mac and leave only what is necessary and from Apple. On the off chance that some software is corrupting the display.

Recovery Mode will boot you from the recovery partition, completely eliminating macOS as installed on your Mac as the culprit. So if it still looks the same it will need to visit a repair shop.

Likely issues are a bad video card (motherboard), bad screen, or bad cables connecting the two. Take it to an Apple store or a trusted Apple Authorized service center if it is out of warranty or you are not near an Apple store.


Using the "find -name" command on OS X In the command find theres a switch called name but it doesn't exist in OS X, whats the equivalent switch for OS X?

Actually you can use the find command as in unix e.g.: find . -name "*.log"

At least on all of my mac systems works this.

see 'man find':

-name pattern
         True if the last component of the pathname being examined matches
         pattern.  Special shell pattern matching characters (``['',
         ``]'', ``*'', and ``?'') may be used as part of pattern.  These
         characters may be matched explicitly by escaping them with a
         backslash (``\'').


QuickLook doesn’t work with Chat transcript files Trying to use QuickLook for Chat transcript files isn’t working anymore on my machine.

First it takes >10 seconds to load (for files <20KB) - and then when it does finally load, it’s just an icon. I can’t actually read the chat.

Anybody else having this experience?

I’m not even quite sure what to try resetting! Deleting the QuickLook plists does not seem to have changed anything.

Might want to flush your various caches, specifically font caches - I like Cocktail and Lion Cache Cleaner for both.


Itunes Library main vs shared I recently moved by itunes library from my pc to an external hard drive and updated to itunes 11.0.  After doing this, when I click on my music I can see two separate libraries.  One is just under Library as music.  Then there is a second one listed below that says Shared Library and refers to the external hard drive.  Some of the songs from albums are missing in the main libary but are present on the Shared Library.   Do I need both of these libraries and if so is there a way to update the main library to get these missing songs from the shared library?

Okay this is what I would recommend.Follow the steps:

Clear Out your iTunes Library completely
Copy the contents from your hard disk to a place on your Computer
Add the folder from your computer to your iTunes Library and you will get back your old  arrangement of songs.

Hope this helps!


Finder doesn't show "Open With" menu, just "Fetching..." When I rightclick a file in Finder and hover over "Open With" (e.g. I have .mp3 files associated with VLC but sometimes want to open them with Audacity or iTunes, and then use "Open With"; or want to use LibreOffice for a spreadsheet file instead of Numbers), the "Open With" menu doesn't open and just shows, greyed-out: "Fetching..." and the menu with different apps doesn't appear, even when I wait for minutes. How can this be fixed?

P.S. I searched for previous posts about this problem and could only find "Fetching..." Behavior in Finder "Open With" Menu in Yosemite but that is more about Finder taking a few seconds delay for the pop-up menu to appear, while mine doesn't appear at all.

It might be time to rebuild your LaunchServices database.
You will need to reset any custom associations.

The simplest method to do this is using Onyx (freeware).

Maintenance tab/Rebuilding


broke my ipod touch sleep button? I broke my sleep button on my iPod touch so I cannot use the button to shut down and turn it back on... If I let it die, will it turn on by itself if I plug it into a charger?

Yes. Your device will boot automatically when connected to a power source (like your computer usb or a charger).

You can simulate the power button using Assistive Touch. You can find assistive touch in:
Settings -> General -> Accessibility -> AssistiveTouch
It might be obvious Assistive Touch can only be accessed when your device is on (even from the lock screen).


df -h command in Terminal shows wrong amount of disk space I recently ran df -h on my Mac using Terminal. I was surprised to find that it shows my internal volume can store 112 GB, but it can actually store 120 GB.

So I can't understand why this happens and should I worry about.

The Size column shows as 112 GB.

Apple measures gigabytes as 1,000,000,000 bytes (in the decimal system) for advertising purposes whereas dh properly uses binary, converted to decimal, which means it's actually 1,073,741,824 bytes.

If you take 120,000,000,000 (Apple's advertised capacity) and divide it by 1,073,741,824 you get 111.75 GB when properly measured in binary.

If you visit:

https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/specs/

and scroll ALL the way to the bottom of the page, you can see footnote #1:

1. 1GB = 1 billion bytes and 1TB = 1 trillion bytes; actual formatted capacity less.


Safari switching websites back and forth Sometimes, mostly in summer, Safari will start to suspiciously jump from one website to another. For example, on Google, when I click on a link of Wikipedia, it jumps to a weird "tune up my Mac" site. Then after about a minute, it switched back. Is it a virus or a settings problem?

Sounds like you installed some software that came with a PUP that acts like adware. There are many of these that try to install unwanted programs during an install. They know that people just click OK while installing so they bundle them into the installer for another program.

Read here and check out what programs you have installed over the past few weeks or months. Uninstall third party add-ones until it goes away.


Karabiner F1 to Launch Defined Applications? What is the coding to program my F1 key to launch an application that needs to be defined (like Notes) using Karabiner?

The coding is similar to your question here: Karabiner F1 to Launch Safari?
You have to add a vkopenurldef tag though.

Some apps are already defined here:

/Applications/Karabiner.app/Contents/Resources/vkopenurldef.xml

After an update or an upgrade the file may be overwritten so customize your private.xml and add:

    <vkopenurldef>
        <name>KeyCode::VK_OPEN_URL_APP_Application</name>
        <url type="file">/Path/to/application</url>
    </vkopenurldef>
    <item>
        <name>F1 Application</name>
        <identifier>f1_application</identifier>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::F1, KeyCode::VK_OPEN_URL_APP_Application</autogen>
    </item>

Example:

    <vkopenurldef>
        <name>KeyCode::VK_OPEN_URL_APP_Notes</name>
        <url type="file">/Applications/Notes.app</url>
    </vkopenurldef>
    <item>
        <name>F1 Notes</name>
        <identifier>f1_notes</identifier>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::F1, KeyCode::VK_OPEN_URL_APP_Notes</autogen>
    </item>

Then enable it in Change Key. Depending on your settings (Consumer Keys or F1-F12 for the F-keys) in System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Keyboard -> F-key behavior you may have to hit the fn-key also.


How do I find my screenshot directory (I already changed it) How do I find my screenshot directory? I already know how to change the screenshot directory, because I did it a long time ago, but now I don't know what it is, because I've done it on several different computers.

If you've changed the location, then
defaults read com.apple.screencapture location
will show you.

If you haven't changed it, i.e. it's still set to the default Desktop & has never been redirected, it will error with
The domain/default pair of (/Users/[user]/Library/Preferences/com.apple.screencapture, location) does not exist


Migrating Linux/cyrrus IMAP into Lion server dovecot We changing our internal infrastructure and replacing old Linux server with an OS X Lion server. One crucial thing is email - need migrate it without interruption.
Currently we have Linux/Cyrrus, with zilion of stored emails for tens of local users.

Here: How setup Mail.app IMAP to migrate Mail Server is recommennded doing it via local mail client, what is ok for external imap-server for one user, but not practical for the full server-migrate.

What is the recommended way migrate the whole mail-handling from Linux cyrrus/postfix into OS X Lion dovecot? Know anyone some scripts (preferable perl) what can help with the migrating?

My current idea:

setup DNS, Users, and email handling on the Lion server
stop the mailserver on the Linux
migrate all emails (with some script)
change MX record from Linux to Lion
start using Lion

Any guides, caveats and/or any helpful comments?

There's a Cyrus2Dovecot migration tool developed by Freie Universität Berlin.

  Cyrus2Dovecot is a full-featured command line tool for converting the e-mails of one or more users from Cyrus format to Dovecot Maildir++ folders. It allows for performing a server transition which is fully transparent to both POP and IMAP users.

And other migration solutions in the Dovecot wiki.


Has Catalina broken the logging into external machines? So I've been trying to login to servers and MySQL databases recently and it seems that they all come back with either no error or no connection available errors, and I'm wondering how exactly one would go about fixing this.
I'm running MacOS v10.15.5 (19F101) [Catalina] on an iMac with a 3.6 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i3 processor (pc serial C02D80Y207F1.) I've attempted to login to countless servers and services away from the computer which have worked on other machines as well as try to use and login-to services including ftp, sftp, mysql which have failed on my mac but not the other machines not running Catalina.
I'm hoping to try to get some information on either why this is happening or if this is just a bug on my computer- perhaps a misconfiguration? I've done some googling and I haven't gotten a solid answer or solution on to what to do.
Commands Attempted - That didn't work for me only on a Catalina machine...
ssh (name)@(ip)
ssh (name)@(a record hostname)
ssh (name)@(cname record hostname)
mysql -u example -p pass -h (ip)

I've also tried attempting specified commands with the ports as well.
Edit: SSH -v
sh customer@{ip} -v
OpenSSH_8.1p1, LibreSSL 2.7.3
debug1: Reading configuration data /etc/ssh/ssh_config
debug1: /etc/ssh/ssh_config line 47: Applying options for *
debug1: Connecting to {ip} [{ip}] port 22.
debug1: connect to address {ip} port 22: Operation timed out
ssh: connect to host {ip} port 22: Operation timed out

(Ip being my external server's ip)
~ N.A.

No, Catalina has not broken the logging into external machines in general. The problem must be local to your machine or your network. I regularly use the commands you mention (ssh and mysql) to connect to external machines from a Mac running Catalina - so in general it works just fine.
I would start by ensuring that you have:
a) a working internet connection (you can browse web sites from the Mac)
b) not running Little Snitch or similar software that blocks outgoing connections
c) not running a firewall or similar on your router or network that blocks your external connections
Then debug by examining exactly what doesn't work:
a) can you ping the IP address of the server you want to connect to?
b) can you ping the host name of the server you want to connect to?
c) can you connect to other ports on the server (for example a web site)?
d) does the server log tell you anything when you try connect?
e) if everything fails, use tcpdump on the Mac and on the server to see network packets going back and forth
From there it should be possible to figure out what the problem with your setup is.


Scrambled screen when going out of sleep With my 2011 MBP, when connected to my external screen I always encounter an issue when waking up from sleep mode, if the lid was closed (and only if lid is closed from what my tests show).
To summarize:

MBP + External screen + Lid closed
Wake-up with scrambled external screen and black MBP screen. MBP frozen.
MBP + External screen + Lid not closed
Wake-up normally from sleep mode.
MBP without external screen (lid closed or not)
Wake-up normally from sleep mode.

Do you have any idea of what could cause this and how I could fix the issue?

Here is how my external screen looks like after a wake-up in the first case:

I've seen this issue but it's for older version of MBP and my system is up to date regarding the Software Update option.

Edit: Last EFI update installed yesterday seems to have fixed the issue!

Last update:

Several years without any issue and then, recently, having really serious issues appearing (MBP freezing or rebooting (console showing gpuRestart crash logs)), I went to the Apple Store.

They changed the GPU (hence the full motherboard). This was free because of an extended repair program for this very specific problem. See details here. Program ends in Feb 2016, so hurry up in case you have the same issue!

Although it's likely a hardware issue, you could try a few things if you don't want to get hardware help from Apple yet.

See if this happens when booting in Safe Mode.
Install a clean OS on an external drive to be sure it's not some extension or conflict.
Look in the console logs - see if you can see any obvious errors.
Try with other monitors and cables - it could be a bad cable or display. An EFI or firmware update might be needed to make the mac handle this situation better (it should never freeze) - and a report to Apple with details how to reproduce this might help get a fix sooner unless others have reported this specific combination.
If you have alternate RAM - do try swapping that in for testing. The newest macs use RAM heavily for display buffering - and wake from sleep is a time when you first can see issues with RAM going bad.

I'm lucky to have stores close by and would head there for a diagnostic checkup - so keep that in mind - it could just be a hardware failure / bad RAM, but anything you can do to narrow down the cause or rule out software / accessories by disconnecting everything but the bare minimum could save you a trip to the shop.


Where macOS keeps VPN Network configuration? I've re-installed the system and I'd like to find the location where macOS keeps the VPN configuration (in which file), the one configured in Network, System Preferences, so I am able to restore it manually from the backup files.

I've checked under ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.networkConnect.<UUID>.plist (as per this post), but it looks like it's something else.

When I've manually created new VPN, I've checked the content by:

plutil -convert xml1 com.apple.networkConnect.*.plist -o -

but the VPN configuration is not there.

When using the Default profile with Configuration: for the VPN and modifying its settings, the /Library/Preferences/com.apple.networkextension.plist file, the one starting in the root of the e.g. Macintosh HD, not your Home folder, will contain the VPN settings.

Also note that if you select Add Configuration... with Configuration: for the VPN, then some information is also stored in the ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.networkConnect.<UUID>.plist file for the VPN as well.

By the way, you can use the defaults command e.g. defaults read /Library/Preferences/com.apple.networkextension.plist, to read this and other .plist files, you do not necessarily need to use plutil to convert to XML in order to read them.


Convert Mac OS Extended (Journaled) Time Machine contents to APFS Clicking on any of the dates on the right hand side, as shown in the picture, doesn't do anything. What might be the issue here?

I can access Applications perfectly fine though. The others are greyed out.
I think it's because the old computer was Mac OS Extended (Journaled) whereas the new computer is APFS. Is there a way to convert the contents of the time machine to APFS?

If clicking the date doesn't move to that date, it's because there is no backup for that selected location. It doesn't mean there's no backup at all.
See this image…

I have backups only for my boot drive. Other drives have been removed from Time Machine's backup prefs. If I start from 'Now' then all the drives show in the list on the left. As soon as I scroll back, then the other drives grey out, because there's no data [Acronis is an NTFS volume & Time Machine doesn't know what to do with that].
So, to see what's really there, start from your boot volume & go backwards from there. At each step some locations may grey out, but the boot drive itself should have data going back in time.


How to Sync Messages from iPhone to Other Devices (iOS 11.4, macOS 10.13.5)? With the arrival of iOS 11.4 and macOS 10.13.5, I am looking forward to having messages up-to-date across all my Apple devices. The master set of messages lies on my iPhone which I have had the longest. My Mac only has messages from a certain point, and also has many messages shown in mixed up order.

I want to be able to use my iPhone message history as the 'master ' message history that will be downloaded to my mac. I fear that if iCloud tries to reconcile my iPhone and mac message history some data will be messed up. There are no messages that are on my mac that is not on my iPhone. So, what are the exact steps I can take for this?

(I am in the process of updating iPhone and Mac.)

My goodness!  200GB!?  Unless you have chosen to put a gargantuan amount of data in your iCloud account, I'd recommend paying $.99 a month for 50GB and seeing if that isn't sufficient.  I have 50GB and have used only 13.4GB so far:  photos & videos, Mail, documents, backups, and Messages.


How to ssh to remote web server without using a password I'm new to OS X.

As per title, I'm having trouble connecting to my web server through SSH.
My server accepts keys and we don't use passwords.
I've come from windows, and on windows I used PuTTY to connect to my server using a .ppk file generated using PuTTYGen.

On the Mac, I've generated using ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 2048 and made a key.ppk file in ~/.ssh and pasted the contents of my Windows .ppk file into it.

I also made a config file with the following contents...

Host domain.com
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/key.ppk
  User username

When I try to connect, Terminal prompts me for a password (why?) then when I enter nothing and press ok it fails with message

Permission denied (publickey,gssapi-keyex,gssapi-with-mic).

Any help on what I'm doing wrong will be great!
Thanks for reading and thanks in advance for any tips.

On Reusing Your Windows key.ppk File

The PPK file is a PuTTY-specific private key. It's not a portable private key that works with any ssh-based application. It just works with PuTTY. You need to convert it first. I've found some instructions for converting it to a proper public/private key pair here. You'll need to do this from your Windows machine.

That will give you a private key, key.ssh, that will work with ssh on your Mac. Put the key.ssh file in your ~/.ssh/ directory. Make sure the permissions are correct:

% chmod 400 ~/.ssh/key.ssh

And then you can use it with your ~/.ssh/config file like so:

Host domain.com
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/key.ssh
  User username

If you no longer have access to your Windows machine you'll need to generate a fresh public/private key pair to use with your web server.

On Generating a Fresh Keypair To Use With Your Mac

Honestly, this is the best way to go here.

Password-less authentication with shared keys requires that both machines have a piece of the shared/public key pieces. Here's a complete recipe for setting up a shared key authentication scheme with two servers. It's not really OS X-specific. It's ssh-specific.

These instructions assume host1 is your Mac and host2 is your web server.

Generate a shared key on host1 (the shared key will be /Users/you/.ssh/webserver.pub and the private key will be /Users/you/.ssh/webserver):

% ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 2048 -f ~/.ssh/webserver
Generating public/private rsa key pair.
Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase):
Enter same passphrase again:
Your identification has been saved in webserver.
Your public key has been saved in webserver.pub.
The key fingerprint is:
98:b7:fa:0f:0d:e7:7f:50:cc:9b:b4:57:db:8d:b4:03 ian@Ian-Chesals-iMac.local
The key's randomart image is:
+--[ RSA 2048]----+
|                 |
|                 |
|             o   |
|       o    E * .|
|      o S .  = *=|
|       . *  . B.+|
|        o o  . o |
|       . . .  .  |
|      ..... ..   |
+-----------------+

Note: I didn't enter a password for the key because I don't want to have to use a password when I use the use.

Now you need to append the ~/.ssh/webserver.pub public key to the ~user/.ssh/authorized_keys file on host2, your webserver.

% ssh user@host2 'mkdir ~/.ssh;echo '`cat ~/.ssh/webserver.pub`' >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys'

For this to work you will need password access to the remote host. If you don't have this you can give ~/.ssh/webserver.pub to someone who does have access to the box and ask them to append it to the authorized_keys file for you perhaps. Or do it from your windows machine where you still have access.

Now make sure your private key is safe on your Mac:

% chmod 400 ~/.ssh/webserver*

ssh can get complain-y if your private/public keypairs are world readable or writeable.

Finally, you can add the following to your ~/.ssh/config file to invoke the right key combination when you try to ssh in to your web server:

Host domain.com
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/webserver
  User username

This will get you the password-less, keypair-based authentication you desire.


Mac OS battery cycle count Im under Yosemite OS X I got a new battery for my mac model a1398 mid 2012 retina, I charged the battery first time to 100% and drained it till it went to sleep mode to calibrate the battery, now I never let it go under 80% and plug the charger, most of time I use the charger but the thing is, I saw that my cycle count is 3 and it was 1 before, I don't understand how this happened? any idea?

From Apple's support note on battery cycles:

  A charge cycle means using all of the battery’s power, but that doesn’t necessarily mean a single charge. For instance, you could use your notebook for an hour or more one day, using half its charge, and then recharge it fully. If you did the same thing the next day, it would count as one charge cycle, not two, so it may take several days to complete a cycle.

So essentially, as long as you ever run the laptop unplugged at all, your cycle count will slowly increase.