can't get into encrypted .dmg files even though I could the day before and I am 100% certain the password is correct I needed to encrypt a few folders on my MacBook (one of the first of the 'just MacBooks', running High Sierra now, though the problem started under the previous OS). I followed the instructions on https://www.hongkiat.com/blog/encrypt-mac-folder/, basically using Disk Utility to create a .dmg. Right after I created it, I unmounted it and then re-opened it to make sure the process worked as advertised. It did, so I deleted the original, unencrypted folder (which is the whole point of the encryption exercise). The next day, I tried to access this .dmg. It asked me for the password, just as it had the day before. The password is absolutely, positively correct, but it wouldn't accept it. I also tried every way I could conceivably have made a mistake. It just gives me an authentication error, as if the password is wrong, which it 100% is not. I've looked through everything I can find for answers, but they're all either talking about external hard drives (with answers involving wiping them completely or unplugging them), or talking about versions of Disk Utility that offer far more options than mine does (many answers involve sparse bundles, which wasn't an option for me). I desperately need these files - and, as a separate problem, my Time Machine has been acting up for ages, so I don't have a recent enough backup to restore from. Please help!

Without backups, all you can do is try variations on your password.  The encryption system would be useless if it had a backdoor to circumvent your password.

  The password is absolutely, positively correct

I suspect that when you setup the DMG what you actually typed in the password field was not exactly what you thought you typed - and you repeated the error. It is possible to consistently type the wrong password - were you typing very quickly, or were you tired, for example?

Try opening TextEdit and typing in your password many times, see what kind of errors you make when typing quickly,  pressing/not pressing shift, variations with Caps Lock set, accidentally pressing two keys instead of one, vary how you were sitting with respect to the keyboard, etc. You can then copy each password variant from TextEdit into the DMG dialog password field to try to open the DMG. Good luck.


How to upgrade Homebrew itself (not softwares/formulas installed by it) on macOS 10.12.3? I have homebrew installed long before the OS is upgraded a few times to 10.12.3. Now that

$ brew --version
Homebrew 0.9.9 (git revision 080c; last commit 2016-08-11)
Homebrew/homebrew-core (git revision b163b; last commit 2016-08-10)

How to properly upgrade to newer version, say 1.1?

$ brew upgrade

didn't work.

To update homebrew itself, use:
brew update

To upgrade all packages installed using homebrew, then you have to use brew upgrade. You can check this FAQ from brew website for more details.


How to view facebook messages on Safari iOS / iPhone? Without using the Messenger app for Facebook. How can I view Facebook messages on iOS Safari?

iOS13+

Tap on AA icon on the top left and tap Request Desktop Website. Now go to the messages section and read your messages

iOS 12

Tap and hold the refresh button untill the below options come. Select the Request Desktop Site and boom just tap on messages button and check your messages.


Repairing Time Machine volume taking forever Over 18 hours and counting, currently in the "Checking multi-linked directories" phase, but it's been there all night long.

I see disk I/O, not a lot, but some. I assume its from the TM drive as the machine is nominally idle (as idle as these machines get, anyway).

What prompted me was that I kept glancing up and see it backing up. It was stuck doing a backup for a long time, so I simply stopped the backup, and tried again. Later, it was still taking forever and nothing happening. So I shut down TM, unmounted the drive, unplugged it, replugged it in. Then I decide to run Repair.

The basic question is if this repair time is "normal", or is the drive bad. I'm debating simply erasing the drive and starting over, but if the drive is bad, then it's not trustworthy.

Advice appreciated.

The structure of a Time Machine disk is very complex.

Hundreds Gigabytes with hard links everywhere need a long time to check.

18 hours is not surprising.


Is it really not possible to run an earlier version of OS X than what the machine shipped with? Just got a 2019 iMac, shipped with Mojave installed obviously. It never even occurred to me that it may not be able to run an earlier version of OS X, but after wasting tons of time trying to create a bootable USB installer of High Sierra only to find that the new iMac can't boot off of it, I got off of the phone with Apple Support who basically informed me that there's nothing that can be done to get this 2019 machine running an earlier version of OS X. Virtually none of the software I use for work is supported on Mojave yet. Is there ANY way that this machine can run High Sierra? Is it physically possible?

This is usually the case with new Apple hardware. AirPods version 2 require the latest version of all of Apple's OSs to work. From the fine print at the bottom of Apple's official AirPods page

  Requires an iCloud account and macOS 10.14.4, iOS 12.2, or watchOS 5.2.

This is especially true for new Macs, since the the new hardware requires updated drivers to work. Updating these drivers is non-trivial. Consider the case of Touch ID. That is a whole new subsystem that never existed before and updates to that system (i.e. the T2 chip) also require changes to the OS that Apple does not back-port to older versions of the OS.

One way to run an older version of the os is to use a virtual machine on your new iMac. I'm not sure what the state of VMs is currently, but there used to be Parallels and another that could run older versions of macOS in a virtual machine. This is not ideal, but may help.

Apple does have a 14 day return for any reason policy in the US, so you could return it and reconsider your options.

Sorry for the bad news, but this is how Apple keeps pushing things forward.


Will upgrade of iOS delete any of my videos or photos? I wanna upgrade to the latest iOS 5 and wonder if my existing photos and videos at Camera Roll will be still on device. Is that right? Or I have to backup them before upgrading? If so, how would I do that - iTunes doesn't seem to backup those things at sync.

The photos and videos in Camera Roll are not synced with iTunes - they are, instead, the "raw" photos meant to be synced to the photo-organization tool you use - whether that's a set of folders in your filesystem, or iPhoto.

In other words, when your iPhone is mounted as a "USB camera" (on Windows) or when iPhoto opens (when plugging it into your Mac), the contents of the Camera Roll are what you see.

That being said, iOS 5 will delete all of this data during the upgrade, so you absolutely should back them up before going forward! Assuming you're using a Mac, plug in the phone, open iPhoto, and import everything before doing the upgrade.

(And I recommend making a backup of your phone, transferring purchases, and then syncing everything you can with iTunes before going forward... the iOS 5 upgrade appears to be a very destructive procedure.)


Mac OSX Server - AFP Firewalling Is it possible to write an ipfw rule to:

1 - block a specific AFP Share by the Shares Name?

2 - block that AFP Share from access by anyone but the local network, i.e: no external IPs.

And if so could I have an example please based on my AFP Share name of 'CLOUD'
Thx.

MacPro OSX Server 10.7.latest

Netgear SRX5308

Unfortunately, no... the relevant ipfw rules are all IP/portnumber based and are completely ignorant of protocol specific info like share names.... this means you can either allow all or nothing for the AFP service on the server.

Obviously, if you have 2 servers, just kill outside access for that one server, but then you probably wouldn't be asking the question.

A workaround hack would be to fire up a VM on the server that gets a totally different IP address and then use ipfw to allow/deny as appropriate.  Is that an option for you?


rMBP - El Capitan - External monitor blurry I hope someone can help as this is driving me crazy...

At the weekend I got a new Macbook Pro Retina (Early 2015 model). Before connecting it to an external monitor, I upgraded to El Capitan and the device on its own is functioning perfectly.

When I connect it to my external monitor, a Dell U2412M, certain parts of the display are blurry. Some research indicated that it may be using the wrong colour space and using the well known script I generated and installed a new profile to force RGB. There may have been a slight improvement, hard to tell...

I then read about setting 'AppleFontSmoothing' and tried all available settings, again, there may have been a slight improvement. I'd pretty much decided to live with it. Until I previewed a jpg in finder and it looked like image (1) below.

I then dragged the finder window back to the built in retina display, and it looked like image (2) below.

Much smoother, but a higher resolution - no great surprise. Now, without changing anything at all, I dragged the finder window back to the Dell monitor and I was shocked to see that the smooth image was retained.

For information, the effect is not visibly different using either a mini-displayport to DVI-D or mdp to display-port cable.

Just to be clear, images 1 and 3 above are screenshot of the same window, on the same monitor connected the same way to the same machine. The only difference is that between these screenshots the window had a short visit to the built in screen.

There's a Ruby script here:

https://gist.github.com/bastibense/6549835

#!/usr/bin/ruby
# Create display override file to force Mac OS X to use RGB mode for Display
# see http://embdev.net/topic/284710
#
# Update 2013-06-24: added -w0 option to prevent truncated lines

require 'base64'

data=`ioreg -l -w0 -d0 -r -c AppleDisplay`

edid_hex=data.match(/IODisplayEDID.*?<([a-z0-9]+)>/i)[1]
vendorid=data.match(/DisplayVendorID.*?([0-9]+)/i)[1].to_i
productid=data.match(/DisplayProductID.*?([0-9]+)/i)[1].to_i

puts "found display: vendorid #{vendorid}, productid #{productid}, EDID:\n#{edid_hex}"

bytes=edid_hex.scan(/../).map{|x|Integer("0x#{x}")}.flatten

puts "Setting color support to RGB 4:4:4 only"
bytes[24] &= ~(0b11000)

puts "Number of extension blocks: #{bytes[126]}"
puts "removing extension block"
bytes = bytes[0..127]
bytes[126] = 0

bytes[127] = (0x100-(bytes[0..126].reduce(:+) % 256)) % 256
puts
puts "Recalculated checksum: 0x%x" % bytes[127]
puts "new EDID:\n#{bytes.map{|b|"%02X"%b}.join}"

Dir.mkdir("DisplayVendorID-%x" % vendorid) rescue nil
f = File.open("DisplayVendorID-%x/DisplayProductID-%x" % [vendorid, productid], 'w')
f.write '<?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">'
f.write "
<dict>
  <key>DisplayProductName</key>
  <string>Display with forced RGB mode (EDID override)</string>
  <key>IODisplayEDID</key>
  <data>#{Base64.encode64(bytes.pack('C*'))}</data>
  <key>DisplayVendorID</key>
  <integer>#{vendorid}</integer>
  <key>DisplayProductID</key>
  <integer>#{productid}</integer>
</dict>
</plist>"
f.close

You'll have to run it in El Capitan's rootless mode for it to work.


2008 MacBook Pro Blinking Folder icon I have a friend with a ~2008 MBPro which has seemingly hit the hay. I'm not 100% it's 2008, but I think so. It has magnetic power cord--the square one.

Anyway, as soon as it turns on, there is the blinking folder icon with question mark. Safe-boot, single user... nothing will boot except the installation CD.

Heres what I've tried:

Reset NVRAM/PRAM;
Booted with CD;

-- Repair Permissions: OK; repairs made

-- Verified permissions: OK

-- Repair disk: OK; repairs made

-- Verify disk: OK
Tried to select startup disk: HD not available for selection
Reset NVRAM; reboot
Tried to select startup disk: HD not available for selection
Fired up terminal; HD is there, mounted, browsable, and all the files appear to be there. However, permissions seem strange (even after repair)--lots of 501's.

Questions

Is there some way to determine if it is reparable with an HD swap? i.e. is there some way for me to determine it is not some other hardware issue?

I had recently (a few weeks ago) added in some more RAM. But, since then, until a few days ago, everything was working fine. When strolling through some logs, I did see a reference to a missing NVRAM variable--but might have been the result of hot-swapping USB... Could an issue with RAM keep the startup disk from working?

Thanks

The blinking folder icon indicates that the computer can't find a valid startup disk. Based on the tests you've performed, it may that one or more critical files was removed from the drive, but the screwed up permissions are indicative that something is screwy.  I would reinstall the operating system.

If there are files on the disk you want to save, copy them off of the drive onto an alternative volume before installing the OS.


At the apple store, will they change the color of the front display from white to black? I have a new iphone 7 plus, in rose gold, which I realized had a white front display only when I got home. Will apple change the front display to black if I bring it in?

iPhone in Rose Gold only comes with a white front panel. There is no way to change it to a black front panel, at the Apple store or otherwise.

The only colors that come with a black front panel are Black and Jet Black.


Adjust “home” address in Apple Maps without affecting Autofill, etc When I ask Siri to “direct me home,” I really mean that I want her to take me to my parking spot, which is about a block away from what Maps considers to be the location of my building. Due to one-way streets this can actually make a significant difference to the resulting navigation directions.
I considered updating my contact card “home” address to the address of my lot, so I am able to continue to ask Siri to “direct me home,” use the “Home” button on CarPlay, etc. But I still want any non-maps-related services (such as Safari AutoFill) to know my real residential address.
Is there a way iOS can distinguish these two concepts?

There’s an easy way to do this from your iPhone :

Open the Maps app
Tap on ⓘ to open the settings
Select “Report an issue” and “Home”
You can then move the pin on the map without changing your address.

Dont click on “Report to Apple” and select “Save on my device”. It won’t work otherwise.


Problems Setting up an OS X Radius Server I have a Mavericks server running OS X server 3.1.2, and three AirPort Extreme APs.  My server is running Open Directory, and we would like to get the Radius service up and running.  I've been running through many other posts with similar problems, but have not found a solution yet.

One of the biggest issues I seem to be encountering is that (almost) every article I find says something like:

  You turn on RADIUS for OS X Server by selecting your Apple wireless device in the Server app's sidebar and selecting “Require user name and password login over Wi-Fi.”

My server does not show anything like that in the sidebar.  I have tried numerous configurations, with no luck.  Any thoughts?

What logs or additional data might help, at this point?

Reviewing more articles, I realized that the AP was not set to Enterprise. Upon turning that on, and setting it up on the AP, the server was receiving the auth requests (and showing that they were authenticating), but not returning them to the AP.


Running an AS droplet from Terminal I have an Applescript Droplet application that I need to run from terminal. I can use osascript or even just open to open the AS App, but that will run its on run handler, not the on open droplet handler I need to be run. I tried passing the "dropped" file in (osascript /Path/To/App.app /Path/To/Droppings.txt), but it still runs the on run handler. Is there a way to do this? And if not with bash, is it possible from another AppleScript? Thanks.

You can use another AppleScript that tells Finder to open files with the droplet application.

For example save this script as /Applications/droplet.app in AppleScript Editor:

on open a
    repeat with f in a
        say POSIX path of f
    end repeat
end open

Then run:

osascript -e 'on run {f}' -e 'tell app "Finder" to open POSIX file f as alias using POSIX file "/Applications/droplet.app"' -e end /bin/test

To open multiple files, convert the list of arguments to a list of file objects:

osascript -e 'on run a
set l to {}
repeat with f in a
set l to l & POSIX file f
end
tell app "Finder" to open l using (POSIX file "/Applications/droplet.app")
end' ~/*

Alternatively, create the droplet application with Automator instead of AppleScript Editor:

Then run open -a droplet2 /bin/test.

The run handler is also used for files dropped on the application. A handler named open does not have any special meaning.

One drawback of using Automator applications is that there is a relatively long delay before they are run.


Restoring a Time Machine backup to a machine with a password on the drive I've inherited an older Retina Macbook Pro from a deceased relative. I don't know the password for their user account, and I would like to make the machine usable.

I have a Time Machine backup from my own MBP, however when attempting to restore it, I'm asked for the disk's password:

I also can't mount the disk using Disk Utilities, as it again asks me for a password to unlock the disk.

I don't mind losing data, I just want the machine to be usable again. What are my next steps?

Go back to the screen that lets you see the initial screen if there isn't a Utilities menu where you can access Disk Utility.

At that point, you want to fire up Disk Utility and eject the backup disk (or start over without the backup drive connected) and erase the target drive.

https://support.apple.com/kb/PH22241

This will wipe all data and the OS off that drive but it won't ask for the password since you aren't reading the data - just making a new blank filesystem on top of the old one.

Then you can proceed to boot and choose the blank drive to restore.

A full guide is available from Apple on how to erase and install an OS.

https://support.apple.com/kb/PH25649

Just remember to not erase your only copy of bootable macOS or have a plan to make a bootable drive if you need one.


How can I use an Apple remote control with customized actions without having the button actions happen? I want to use a white plastic Apple remote with BetterTouchTool to control Safari, but while it works, the default button actions (e.g. skip, volume up) still happen. How can I prevent this?

I've been looking for a solution to this for a long time everywhere. That is discussions.apple.com, various popular technology websites and mac forums. The only real solution that I've seen is a piece of software by Twisted Melon.
Mira: Remote Control any Mac
This applications rests in the system preferences and customizes the apple remote buttons on a per-app basis. You can download and try the software from their website.


Does MBP and anti-glare MBP use the same top case? I am now using a 2011 MacBook Pro with anti-glare display.

I am going to replace the palm top case (The unibody case with palm, speaker and keyboard)

But I got noticed that the anti-glare display uses different top case from the regular glossy display, so I have to pay attention while buying the new top case, it that true?

I have contacted some eBay sellers, they seems not sure about this.

Thanks.

The single difference between the Glossy and the anti glare MBP is the presence of a glass panel on the glossy one.

So yes they use the same body.


Use USB webcam instead of built in FaceTime webcam There are some websites where you can turn on your webcam to chat with other people. On some of these sites it is possible to select which cam you want to use if you have more then just one connected. But on some other sites you can't select which cam you will use. If you visit those sites with an iMac you always get the built-in iSight cam turned on. There seems to be no way on these sites to select any other webcam that is connected via USB.

I already tried the script named "isight disabler" found here: http://techslaves.org/isight-disabler/, but this script turns off ALL cams, not just only the iSight cam.

Is there a way to selectively turn off only the built-in iSight cam, without turning off any other cams?

You could give CamTwist a try. It lets you take video inputs and remap them to virtual video sources that most apps can access.

I’ve used it to remap a Firewire video camera connected to my laptop (via a Firewire to Thunderbolt connector) as my main video chat camera when doing a google hangout. It also let me overlay graphics into the camera video before sending it out to google.


Can iOS display a text message notification icon in the status bar? My mother has just moved from an Android phone to an iPhone SE and she misses the fact that she no longer gets a text message notification icon at the top of the screen. This is a small envelope shaped icon in the same region of the screen as the WiFi connected symbol.

Is there any setting or application that will give her this functionality?

Notification icons in the status bar aren't a feature of iOS, just Android, so there's no way to get the look you're talking about.

You will, however, get a notification and a sound on the lock screen/home screen when you get a text, a badge on the Messages app icon that you can enable/disable in Settings -> Notifications -> Messages, and the notification will be accessible in Notification Center (which shows up when you swipe down from the top of the screen) until you read the message.

While iOS surely has some advantages over Android, its customisation options aren't one of them: there's just no way to get those icons you want there.

Though I haven't tested it, it may be possible to do this if you jailbreak an iPhone—see @timothymh's answer.

tl;dr: There's no way to do this with iOS.


Create schedule to turn off iOS device every night..? Is there a way to automatically turn off an iOS device every night (say from 0:00 to 6:00) to save battery WiFi bandwidth?

There's an iPad mini in our living room basically running as Spotify/Podcast player which we don't normally use in the evening and certainly not at night,
and the battery tends to be drained if we forget to turn it off.

Android has a setting for scheduled shutdown but searching through the iOS settings (11.3) didn't reveal a thing.

There is no feature for automatic turning off with no jailbreak.
However, you can:

Schedule "Do not disturb mode" and it will not turn you screen on to show useless notifications
Manually turn on "Low power mode" to stop all background processes and save your battery.
Plug it into a power source with no worries, since iOS 11.3 iPad has a new "iPad Charge Management Feature"


How to compare the performance difference between the 13" and the 15" MBP for graphics & dev work? I have a 2011 Macbook Pro (with a SSD and 16GB RAM upgrade) that I'm very happy with, but it's aging, some ports aren't working anymore, etc., so I'm in the market for a new device.

I do some amount of print design with Adobe CC, and web app/mobile app development. I seem to be pushing the 2011 MBP to the boundaries quite often: it will frequently (and annoyingly) start running its fans are when I work on complex, 500+-MB documents in Adobe CC, and when I code using Visual Studio (with npm, some linters, and usually an iPhone or Android simulator running at the same time).

My favourite new choice would be a 13" MBP (2015 or '16) but I worry about missing out on the performance edge that the 15" MBP offers with its quad-core processors and discrete graphics units (in some models).  GeekBench has a clear opinion on which device class is more powerful, but do those benchmarks really apply 100% to the type of work I do? How important is processor speed for me? Is a discrete GPU really that relevant when doing relatively run-off-the-mill print design rather than video? Does a multi-core configuration really make a difference when the main goal is avoiding the system from heating up and running the fans? (I'm happy with most of the 2011 MBP's speed - the fans are the real annoyance.)

Are there more comprehensive benchmarks out there that allow for a performance comparison that is more tailored to specific fields of work?

You have most of what you need to optimize for listed in the second paragraph:

Adobe CC - lags with larger documents
Adobe CC and Visual Studio - together with iOS/Android simulators

For these items, you'll want to fire up Activity Monitor and or the terminal to figure out what is the bottleneck. Is it RAM / virtual memory swapping to storage or is it purely CPU and thread execution waiting or is the GPU incapable of helping with some of the workload.

Two terminal windows with iostat running - one over a 60 second cycle and the other over a 1 second measurement window will let you know how bursty your IO is and whether you need IOPS or need bandwidth out of your storage. (My guess is you need iops - unless you are streaming / editing 4k video). Also, a third window with top -u -s 60 can correlate the load averages you see on iostat 60 with the CPU usage and what apps are really hitting the CPU.

Next, figure out how much RAM you really need - when you have all the apps open and the simulators - is your memory pressure in yellow or still in green. For most people in your case - money spent on more than 8 GB of RAM is usually better spent elsewhere on a faster CPU or more storage or new app upgrades or AppleCare. Even our Mac Pro / iMac 27 inch developers that run development and heavy Adobe apps are finding it hard to justify more than 16 GB of RAM when we measure actual workloads on machines that run 8 hours a shift - three shifts a day.

Once you know where your current workflow is hanging up, you can make a better judgement if you will be delighted with NVMe+PCI storage over the old and slower SATA/AHCI storage. My workload is similar to you and I have a 6 core MacPro (current model) with tons of RAM, a maxed out RAM/CPU 15 inch MacBook Pro with GPU and thunderbolt 2 ports (the last rev before the TB3 models) and a 2015 MacBook (NVMe storage and i3 / 1.1 GHz CPU and one USB C port) and I choose to do the vast majority of my work on the MacBook.

for example, compiling mongodb from source (repeat time brew reinstall mongodb --build-from-source two or three times) my MacPro gets the job done in 9m26s using 12 threads, the MacBook Pro takes 11m7s using 8 threads, the MacBook takes 41m25s to compile. The MacBook will run into thermal stress and slow down, but it's rare I have such a large full compile to run and incremental builds are the normal for me.

Yes the others can compile large software faster in benchmarks and Adobe runs a little faster on the large files, but I'm almost never waiting for the machines and I need to take my work with me and the hassle of lugging the 15 inch due to it's physical size and added weight (power brick, adapters, and the CPU/Display) are far more a downside than the few times I can do something a little faster. I'm totally going to upgrade to the 13 inch TouchBar model when the 2017 capital budget hits and decide if I even need to keep the MacBook.

I wouldn't look at any benchmark and instead just measure your actual workload and optimize for that. The truth is - any new MacBook with a touch bar is going to be better for you than anything Apple Sells unless you want to get a 27 inch iMac for max CPU/RAM. In practice, the NVMe storage makes your real life performance great and covers up for any measurable benchmark differences. I'm also not a fan of GPU in the MacBook line - the software glitches you suffer occasionally and the extra drain on the battery never seem to make me happy as a trade off for some limited faster filters in Photoshop or a 3D render that takes 5 minutes instead of 7 to 10.


How to mimic Safari 5 Activity window with Mountain Lion, to save FLV video files? With Safari 5 in Lion, I used the Activity window to save video files.

Safari 6 has no Activity window.

With Mountain Lion, what is the best way to replicate what I could do before?

The Activity Window is gone in Safari 6, but you can get most of the functionality with the Page Resources window of Web Inspector.

To enable that, go to Safari's preferences, and on the Advanced tab, check Show Develop menu in menu bar:

Then you can view the page's resources by clicking Show Page Resources… in the Develop menu, or pressing ⌥⌘A.

That will give you a window with a sidebar similar to this one (which I took from a Youtube page):

It groups things a bit differently than the old activity window, but it should display all the same things. FLV files should be in the Other folder, and you can use the search bar at the bottom to filter for certain strings.

Alternatively, you may be interested in the ClickToPlugin Safari extension, which can do HTML5 replacement of a lot of Flash web video, and in most cases gives you the option to download the file directly just by right-clicking on the video.


Java 8u45 installation unable to locate a Java runtime to invoke I've downloaded and installed Java JDK 8u45 for OS X 10.10.1 and after the installation has completed (successfully), java -version produces the following:

  Unable to locate a Java Runtime to invoke.

Is this an installation bug with this particular version, or have I forgotten to do something?

me@my-laptop$ /usr/libexec/java_home -V
Matching Java Virtual Machines (0):

Default Java Virtual Machines (1):
    1.8.0_45, x86_64:   "Java SE 8" /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_45.jdk/Contents/Home

/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_45.jdk/Contents/Home

That error means Java can't work out which runtime to use. There can be a few reasons for this.

I've had this error in the past because I had more than one copy of Java installed, and none were selected for use in Java Control Panel.

Open System Preferences and click on the Java icon this should launch the "Java Control Panel".
Then select the Java tab and click "View...", this should bring up the "Java Runtime Environment Settings" window.
My guess is that you'll find more than one instance of Java listed here. Tick the box beside the one you want to use and click OK.

This is from a much older version with a different layout but it should look something like this. Multiple copies listed with tick boxes to tell the system which you want to use.

Another way to check which runtimes you have installed is with the /usr/libexec/java_home -V command. Ideally it should return something like the following.

Matching Java Virtual Machines (1):
    1.8.0_45, x86_64:   "Java SE 8" /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_45.jdk/Contents/Home

/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_45.jdk/Contents/Home

Failing that you can check whether you have a $JAVA_HOME environment variable set with echo $JAVA_HOME. There is a lot of advice online saying you should set this variable but if you do that then I believe it ignores the settings in Java Control Panel.


"fan" on the computer start regularly On my MBP (13-inch, Mid 2012), I note that the "fan" starts regularly for very little. Could anyone be able to tell me why is it the case and what can I do to fix it?

I know if the fan starts it is because the temperature is to height, but I don't know what to do to decrease the temperature when I work on my computer.

That last picture comes from the SMCfanControl application. Is it normal?

Open Activity Monitor and check the "Energy" tab. Click on "Energy Impact" to see what is using the most energy. This is likely what is causing the heat. Close this program when not in use. You can monitor the temp with Temperature Monitor (built into OS X). Spotlight > Temperature Monitor

Also, this 3rd party program can help, SMCfanControl: https://www.eidac.de


macbook pro 2019: text garbled on Google Chrome preferences and others I got this annoying garbled text after I had updated to MacOS Big Sur (Version 11.0.1).
I came across this problem immediately I got updated and opened my chrome.
it looks like this:
I also found something interesting. all the Latin letters changed into its next letter in order. and the space " "is changed into "!". For example, the text over my avatar is "Zpv!boe!Hpphmf", but the orginal is "you and google". like "you" goes "zpv", "and" becomes "boe" . I think that's wired!
I also got another thing that I wanted to mention. when I highlight the garbled text, it will get normal.

I tried to solve this tricky problem. First, I rebooted my Mac, but it didn't work. Then I changed UTF-8 which is a default encoding to ASCII, however, it was not helpful. Finally I called the Applecare, apple's technique support. She is very kind and she tell that I should wait for next Chrome's update. I think it will be OK although the garbled text makes me inconvenient.
Now I got crazy because I browsed a webpage and it's also garbled! I'm sure I can't ignore it any more.

My question is what can cause this and how can I solve it. Thank you advanced.

This is a font issue, causing characters to be shifted by one (somehow!).
Uninstall Roboto from your system.
Source:

https://www.reddit.com/r/chrome/comments/ki7qss/strange_text_showing_in_chrome_started_after/
https://support.google.com/chrome/thread/86605680?hl=en


Is it possible to run a script every 24 hours on MacBook Pro even in sleep? I want to run a script every 24 hours, that scrapes a website and fetches data, save it to my local MySQL database, and push its DB to my remote Heroku or IBM Bluemix MySQL server (or ClearDB). I did this set of procedures in my Mac Pro in the past using launchd, but since I now have MacBook Pro only, I cannot ensure that this is always done properly, because I occasionally close the laptop.

I know how to set the launchd to execute the script once the laptop wakes up, but I still must make sure that this script is executed in the correct time, because the remote database must be set up to be updated every day to ensure that users in my iOS app always see the updated datasets.

How can I set it up so that the script is always executed in the exactly same time every day, such as 23:15, even in the laptop is being sleep? I have never shut down the laptop; I just close the tab and go into sleep.

The only thing I can think of that will wake a Mac, do maintenance, and put it immediately back to sleep is power nap. But PowerNap is not available to 3rd party developers. https://www.quora.com/OS-X-Mountain-Lion-10-8-Can-third-party-apps-take-advantage-of-Power-Nap

Why not just scrape from the server?


Correcting photo number sequence I have approximately 1100 photos on file.

At number 1291 the numbering jumped to 3300s

How can I correct the number to read the next view as 1291? And so on.

Thank you

You can change the number stored in

~/Library/Media/PhotoData/MISC/DCIM_APPLE.plist

The integer value is stored under the key DCIMLastFileNumber.

This property list is accessible from a backup, so you can backup your iPhone with iTunes, modify the backup, and then restore from backup. If your device is jailbroken, you can edit the file directly on the device.


Automatically Save Attachments in Mail.app in 10.8 Mountain Lion I am trying to automatically save all email sent to one address (let's call it test@example.com) to this folder /Users/luomat/Dropbox/Incoming/e2w/ (where /Users/luomat = $HOME).

Here is the rule that I am using in Mail.app:

I have setup a special email address for this purpose, and am fetching it via POP3 from Gmail. The message is being colored Red and marked as read, but the AppleScript does not seem to be working.

I have tried two "Save Mail" AppleScript attachments that I found online, but neither of them work.

(You can find them at  http://share.luo.ma/temp/mail-app-applescript/ if you want to see them.)

I am wondering if perhaps Sandboxing rules in Mail.app 10.8 are preventing this from working, or if I am just doing it wrong. I'm not sure how to troubleshoot AppleScript from Mail.app rules, and I don't really know AppleScript, I've just edited those two scripts I found online to fit what I want to do.

Here's what I am trying to accomplish (Ideally):

If the email is plain text, just save the message to /Users/luomat/Dropbox/Incoming/e2w/ using something like "Subject Line from email address.txt"
If the email has attachments, create a folder in "/Users/luomat/Dropbox/Incoming/e2w/" using the Subject of the email as the folder name, and then save the body of the email as text in that folder as "body.txt" and save the attachments as whatever they were originally called.

Note: after this AppleScript the /Users/luomat/Dropbox/Incoming/e2w/ will be automatically processed and files will be moved out of that folder using Hazel, so I don't really need to worry about filename collisions.

Try this.

   using terms from application "Mail"
    on perform mail action with messages theMessages for rule theRule
        -- The folder to save the attachments in (must already exist)

        -- Save in a sub-folder based on the name of the rule in Mail

        set subFolder to name of theRule
        tell application "Finder"
            set attachmentsFolder to ((path to home folder as text) & "Dropbox:Attachments") as text
            if not (exists folder subFolder of folder attachmentsFolder) then
                make new folder at attachmentsFolder with properties {name:subFolder}
            end if
        end tell
        tell application "Mail"

            repeat with eachMessage in theMessages

                set {year:y, month:m, day:d, hours:h, minutes:min} to eachMessage's date sent
                set timeStamp to ("" & y & "-" & my pad(m as integer) & "-" & my pad(d) & "-" & my pad(h) & "-" & my pad(min))

                try
                    -- Save the attachment
                    repeat with theAttachment in eachMessage's mail attachments

                        set originalName to name of theAttachment
                        set savePath to attachmentsFolder & ":" & subFolder & ":" & timeStamp & " " & originalName
                        try
                            save theAttachment in file (savePath)
                        end try
                    end repeat

                    display dialog subFolder
                end try
            end repeat

        end tell
    end perform mail action with messages
end using terms from

-- Adds leading zeros to date components
on pad(n)
    return text -2 thru -1 of ("00" & n)
end pad

I have posted a more general Automatically Save Attachments in Mail.app on my blog


system sounds coming from thunderbolt display, all else through headphones I've got my headphones connected, and I've checked system preferences to make sure they are the audio output device.  Most sound comes out through the headphones, like Spotify and YouTube.  But, system sounds come out through my thunderbolt display, like dragging a file to the trash.

Seems to only be a problem since I upgraded to Yosemite.

Under "Sound Effects" tab, change "Play sound effects through:"

Instead of automatically changing this option, when I plug in headphones this setting remains unchanged.


Wiped all disks for Ubuntu installation, but "macOS Recovery over the Internet" still knows my Wi-Fi password I wiped all disks for Ubuntu installation. The macOS Recovery partition was gone.
Decided after half of an year, to install again macOS with macOS Recovery over the Internet

If you can't start up from macOS Recovery
If your Mac can't start up from its built-in macOS Recovery system, it
might try to start up from macOS Recovery over the Internet. When that
happens, you see a spinning globe instead of an Apple logo during

I was very much surprised the this "macOS Recovery over the Internet" knows my Wi-Fi password.
He didn't ask for password and begin download stuff off the internet.
Can you explain why he remembers my Wi-Fi password?

Your Mac contains forms of storage that are persistent, but not stored on your normal disk drive - it is known as NVRAM (Non-volatile RAM) and PRAM (parameter RAM).
This persistent storage is used by the computer to remember user preferences such as which disk drive to boot from by default, audio volume settings, etc. It also contains the password for your WiFi.
The Internet Recovery mode is able to access this storage to obtain an internet connection to Apple's server for downloading the necessary software.
If you wish to clear this storage, you can do so by holding down Cmd-Opt-P-R and then turning on the Mac - hold them down for half a minute or so.
NOTE: If you have set a firmware password, you'll need to disable this before you can clear the persistent storage.


Using LaTeX and SVN on iPad I'm used to write technical documents with LaTeX and use SVN as version system.

I really would like to be able to do the same with my iPad.

The first problem is found a good App for LaTeX

I found some of them bu they are not cheap and I don't want to spend 8$ each one just for finding out the best one.  Does someone can point me to the best one from thee followings or other I don't know?

Tex Touch
TeX Writer
Texpad

A good App should have the following features:

Local compilation (there are some Apps which send data to a Server which returns the compiled PDF)
Support for documents splitted in multiple files
Support for images

The second problem is found a good SVN client

The SVN client should allow me to check out a project an do commits and updates.

Having a LaTeX Apps which allows me to open and edit the files downloaded with the SVN client would be already great.

Having a LaTeX App which integrates SVN support would be a dream.

Dis someone had the same problem? How did you solve it?

Please, go to read tweets in Twitter under #texwriter. You can find a lot of this type of questions. Anyway I recommend TexWriter. You may find my writing useful here where I mention my favourite apps and how I write LaTex in iPad -- confessing: I like to use Git instead of SVN, I use DropBox and my laptop for commiting -- I don't know yet any better way for this.

TeXWriter: Tex -app with builtin compiler

  It is the best app currently in the market although buggy but getting better. I have tested all of them and Texpad and Tex Touch are more slow/buggy -- and without the builtin compiler. TexWriter is the only app with the compiler builtin -- and you can find a growing community around it in Twitter and some here -- we want to make it better!

Use Git instead of SVN

  Most cool things appear in Git such as Git-Annex here. Instead of DropBox, this may be a promising candidate. I haven't tested it but it claimns to be some sort of replacement. For now on, you may want to use Git inside DropBox before getting Git-annex -working.


Retaining current files in Dropbox after restoring Time Machine backup My mac recently had a software problem and I need to restore a time machine backup to get the mac working again.

I do not want to restore any dropbox files to their earlier state, especially since I share many folders with work colleagues. When I restore my mac to the state it was in a week ago, I need to be sure that the Dropbox folders saved locally do not revert to their older versions, sync, and resave the whole folders as older versions.

I see things online on Dropbox support about recovering previous versions of Dropbox files, but I want to avoid the problem up-front. Trying to solve by reverting could lead to messy problems with conflicted versions if a colleague is working while I revert.

Dropbox support got back to me with this great response.

If you want to make permanent changes to your computer that do not sync back to the website you need to unlink the computer first.

Follow these steps to unlink a computer:

Click the Dropbox icon in the menu bar at the top of your screen on Mac.
Click on the gear icon in the Notifications panel and select 'Preferences' > 'Account'
Click the 'Unlink' button
Afterward, Dropbox will prompt you to re-register. Quit!

You can now safely move or delete files in the Dropbox folder and not affect anything else.

Note that the Dropbox folder itself is still there. If you relink to a different Dropbox account, the application will detect that another Dropbox folder already exists on the computer, and will give you two options: 'Choose Another Location' or 'Install'.

If you want your new Dropbox folder to be in a location different than your existing folder, click on 'Choose Another Location'.

If you want your new Dropbox folder to be in the same location as your existing one, click on 'Install'. This will rename the existing Dropbox folder to 'Dropbox (Old)' and will create a new Dropbox folder for the account you’re currently linking.

The above steps should give you the option to keep the files in an unlinked folder (Dropbox Old) or you can choose to delete that folder.

You may also want to unlink, delete the folder entirely, reinstall the Dropbox application and link the device. This will then create a new Dropbox folder and the functionality of the Dropbox application is limited to watching your Dropbox folder for changes and syncing any changes that occur across your connected devices, and will sync down your Dropbox account that shows on Dropbox.com to that device.


Searching for punctuation in Preview In Preview (v 5.3 on 10.6.8), if I search for a single letter such as k in a pdf, the program will find and highlight every instance of that letter in the pdf.

However, if I search for a punctuation mark such as ? or ;, it will report Found on 0 pages, even when the document is littered with such punctuation.

How can I get preview to search for punctuation?

The reason for this is that I wish to locate all instances of missing references (denoted as [?]) in a pdf output from LaTeX.
(Yes, I know that LaTeX will tell me where they are in the source file, but I wish to find them in the pdf.)

A year late but may help others:

For me escaping it in double bracket works so try searching ":" or "?".

Escaping in double quotes searches for whatever is between the quotes similar to the way google does their search options.


Help me determine what runs when I open a new Terminal window I noticed that when I started a Terminal window by accident and tried to close it quickly by pressing the X on the window, I got a dialog box like this:

"Closing this window will terminate the running processes: login, bash, bash, perl."

My computer was under heavy load at the time and slow. I hit cancel, and tried it again, it closed quietly.

This leads me to believe that there is a Perl script loading every-time I start up my terminal. I have been unable to re-create the issue so far. How I can check exactly what scripts are being run when I open the Terminal?

1 /etc/profile

# System-wide .profile for sh(1)

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

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

2 ~/.profile
(just user defined aliases)

3 ~/.bash_profile

    # Setting PATH for MacPython 2.5
    # The orginal version is saved in .bash_profile.pysave
    PATH="/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/Current/bin:${PATH}"
    export PATH

    test -r /sw/bin/init.sh && . /sw/bin/init.sh

    ##
    # Your previous /Users/USERNAME/.bash_profile file was backed up as /Users/USERNAME/.bash_profile.macports-saved_2010-04-04_at_17:07:45
    ##

    # MacPorts Installer addition on 2010-04-04_at_17:07:45: adding an appropriate PATH variable for use with MacPorts.
    export PATH=/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:$PATH
    # Finished adapting your PATH environment variable for use with MacPorts.

    # MacPorts Installer addition on 2010-04-04_at_17:07:45: adding an appropriate MANPATH variable for use with MacPorts.
    export MANPATH=/opt/local/share/man:$MANPATH
    # Finished adapting your MANPATH environment variable for use with MacPorts.

#Add Some Color to "ls"
    export CLICOLOR=1
    export LSCOLORS=ExFxCxDxBxegedabagacad

    ##
    # Your previous /Users/USERNAME/.bash_profile file was backed up as /Users/USERNAME/.bash_profile.macports-saved_2011-09-23_at_23:15:01
    ##

    # MacPorts Installer addition on 2011-09-23_at_23:15:01: adding an appropriate PATH variable for use with MacPorts.
    export PATH=/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:$PATH
    # Finished adapting your PATH environment variable for use with MacPorts.

    # My Aliases
    (REMOVED ALIASES)

    4 ~/.bashrc
(FILE DOESN'T EXIST)

At startup bash executes (in that order)

/etc/profile
~/.profile
~/.bash_profile
~/.bashrc

So any unexpected code should be called from one of these scripts (or a script called from one of them etc.).


Is white iPhone 3gs all white? I am seeing images of iPhone white with only white background, while the front is black (or it looks on images). I am looking to buy used iphone 3gs and many images from different sellers are like this.

So, is white iphone 3gs all white or only the back of the phone is white? Or the front is of such color that black dominates and white cannot be seen on images?

No. The white iPhone 3GS does not have a white face, just a white back cover.


How can I convert .ichat logs to text files? How do you convert the iChat transcript files that Messages creates into human-readable text files that can be opened without the Messages app?

For reference, these are the conversation files located in ~/Library/Messages/Archive.

Simply opening the .ichat files in a text editor includes a bunch of additional strings and hashes. Opening them in Messages and copy-pasting into a text editor works, but I'd prefer to automate the process if possible.

The files that Messages saves have an ichat file extension.

But from the command line you can inspect them to see they are actually binary plist files:

$ file transcript.ichat
transcript.ichat: Apple binary property list

Turns out, you can easily convert binary plist files into human-readable XML documents:

$ plutil -convert xml1 transcript.ichat

Now, when you run file again, you can see it's an XML file:

$ file transcript.ichat
transcript.ichat: XML document text

Go ahead—open it and see for yourself:

$ open transcript.ichat


Remove number from iMessage to use on non iPhone I had an iPhone and I used iMessage on it. I didn't mind getting some of the messages to my laptop. But recently I switched back to a very old phone I had that is not a smart phone. Now I am receiving some texts to my laptop and not to my phone at all! This is frustrating because I don't want to have to check my laptop and my phone for messages.

I would like to change this so that I only receive messages to my phone, not my laptop, because I don't even have an iPhone anymore.

If you are using the same number that you had on your iPhone and registered with iMessage, you need to remove it from the service to be able to receive normal SMS messages from iMessage users on your new, non-Apple phone.

Please go to Deregister iMessage and follow the steps described on the page.


Most similar Apple TV software for OS X ? I really love the way latest Apple TV front-row works. Its easy, clean and fast.
I've been trying many different Media Center applications for my Mac Mini, but none of them are just like the one Apple TV provides.

I could buy an AppleTV, but I really don't want to have yet another device at home, so I think there should be an application that replicates Apple TV menus/workflow.

Do you know of any?  Plex, XBMC or Boxee are far of what I'm looking for

I'd say go with Plex. I've been using and testing different media center apps for years, and, like you, stuck with Front Row until Lion came out, because nothing else felt quite right. Since then, Plex has won me over, especially with the huge progress made in the last year or so.

In terms of user experience, Plex is the closest thing to Snow Leopard's Front Row. I always disliked the visual clutter of XBMC and Boxee, and even earlier Plex versions. But the current Plex version has a VERY clean interface and works great with the Apple Remote.

It can handle almost any file format (without installing extra codecs), unlike Front Row, and you can have it watch any folder on your machine (or network), not just the ~/Movies, ~/Videos and iTunes.

It automatically downloads artwork and metadata for movies and TV shows in your library based on their filenames, and there are many high-quality channels (plugins for streaming content) that you can install right inside the client.

The channels have to present their data in the same layout as the native Plex library, so the interface is consistent. Plex integrates with iPhoto and iTunes as well, showing them as available channels.

Finally, since Plex is really a two-part setup (client and server, both of which can easily run on the same machine), it's expandable. Once you set up the server, you can use it with the client on that machine, and you can also view your library on other Macs, PCs, iOS devices, Android devices, Google TV, Roku, LG Smart TVs, and DLNA TVs. I think they even released a WebOS client too.

Most of the client apps work with absolutely zero configuration. As long as you're on the same network, all available Plex servers and their libraries just show up. Start playing something, and the server will even transcode the video or audio (in realtime) if the client device doesn't have the necessary codecs to handle it.

Plex isn't perfect, but it's under very active development, and constantly improving. And the UI finally looks and feels natural.

Also, it's everywhere. Practically every screen in my house has access to my Plex library. Some of the apps (iOS, Android etc.) cost money, which is good for the long-term survival of Plex as a platform, but the Linux (server only), Mac (client + server), Win (client + server) are all free.


Determining The Complete Size Of A Folder & Its Sub-Folders in Finder? Simply how do I see the complete size of a folder within Finder ?

(AFAIK there is no default setting to automatically turn this feature on - correct me if i'm wrong)

In Finder:

Either:

Option + click a folder.
Or: Click the gear icon in the header.
Or: Select the View menu, and then "Show View Options".
Or: Command + J

Select "Show View Options"
In the 4th subset of options select the box "Calculate all sizes".

If a folder is empty it will only show "--" like all the folders previously did.


netstat: n: unknown or uninstrumented protocol I always use netstat on ubuntu to check which processes are listening on specific ports. I use the following switches with netstat that work fine on ubuntu but on mac fail:

sudo netstat -tulpn
netstat: n: unknown or uninstrumented protocol

Linux's netstat command options and OS X(/BSD)'s have almost nothing to do with each other. Of the options you're invoking, only -n means the same on both, and some of the others (-l and -p) have no equivalent on OS X's netstat. What I habitually use on OS X is netstat -an | grep LISTEN, but that doesn't show UDP or the program involved. I suppose you could use netstat -an | egrep '^udp|LISTEN' to include UDP, but that's rather verbose (and you'll also see quite a bit of nonsense UDP stuff, since there isn't really a concept of UDP listening vs. other states).  If you need to know the program, you need to go to the lsof (list open files) command, and that requires root access to check processes you don't own. Try something like sudo lsof -nPi -sTCP:LISTEN

Edit: as @loic.jaouen pointed out in another answer, while OS X's netstat doesn't have a direct equivalent to the Linux's -p option, the -v (verbose) display does include the PID of the process, and you can get the program name from that with ps.


Mail 5.1 - Mark as unread bug? If I am currently on email "A" and I right click on another email within the same account (email "B"), and "Mark as unread," the message shows it is marked as unread for a split second, then marks as read once the reading pane switched to that email (not my intention, this just happens - the switching that is).

In Snow Leopard, I was able to click on any email in the message list, and mark as whatever, while not having to switch to that email in order for the mark as unread to stick.

Yes, that looks like a bug. Just use the menu (Message > Signal As... > Unread), the keyboard (⇧⌘U) or add the read/unread buttons to the toolbar


Purchase song on iTunes using iTunes credit How to purchase a song/album using iTunes store credit? I tried to purchase a song but iTunes Store is asking my credit card while in fact I just redeemed a $15 gift card. Please help.

If it's an itunes gift card, it could be asking for your information just to verify that you live in the country you live in. ITunes will always use any remaining iTunes credit before charging a credit card. If all fails, contact Apple for a refund.


Is it hard to transfer contacts from one iPhone to another iPhone? I just bought a new iPhone 6s, and want to move all the contacts from the old one to the new one. Can iTunes or iCloud help me do this, or are there any other ways?

Yes either iCloud or iTunes can do this.

The overview is that you take a backup from the old iPhone and restore during setup on the new iPhone.

Apple has a support page for this: Transfer content from your previous iOS device to your new iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch


How to enable / troubleshoot split view? I have just installed El Capitan on my MacBook Pro 13 mid 2012

I can't get split view to work either via the mission control method or the green button one.

Does anybody know this is supposed to work?

This was driving me crazy as well. Go to System Preferences -> Mission Control and make sure that ‘Displays have separate Spaces’ is checked. You’ll have to log out and log back in for the change to take affect. That fixed it for me.


How can I make my Mac shutdown a Windows PC when my UPS signals power loss? I have an APC UPS connected to my iMac that's set to shutdown after 1 minute of running on UPS power. I also have a Windows 10 PC plugged into the UPS that I'd like shut down as well. Is there a way to send a shutdown command from my Mac to the Windows 10 PC telling it to shut down as well when a power loss is detected?

Take a look at this SuperUser question How can I shutdown a Windows machine remotely from OS X?. It recommends installing and using the net command:

net rpc shutdown -I xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx -U username%password

You can then use a tool like Power Manager to trigger the net command when your UPS detects the power failure.

I work on Power Manager, so feel free to ask technical questions.


How can my wife use my iPod touch with her Facebook account? My wife ruined her 4th-generation iPod touch in the pouring rain at Farm Aid this weekend. I have a 3rd-generation iPod touch that I don't use often because I have an iPhone.

How can I get her Facebook account to work on that iPod and remove my account? I can use my account on my iPhone instead.

Depending on the iOS levels, you might have to do the following:

Sign out of Facebook / remove the account from the settings app
Sign out of the Facebook app

At that point, your wife's account would be free to sign in to either the Facebook app or the system wide Facebook account slot for general sharing.


How do I get com.apple.servermgrd to use a non-self-signed SSL certificate? I have received a valid SSL certificate for my Mountain Lion Server (10.8.2 Build 12C3104) and have installed that cert for use by all services (and SSL and other services do not pop up the "Verify Certificate" dialog - only Server seems to be still using a self-signed cert.

Each time I connect remotely using Server App 2.2.1 (169) as follows:

Did I miss a step where I need to install a different cert for com.apple.servermgrd to use or do I need a second configuration step past making the current certificate selected in Server app and rebooting the server? I'd rather use a valid certificate to authenticate rather than have to "always trust" this self-signed cert when connecting to manage my server.

Apple KB article HT3930 explains how to configure SSL for servermgrd, the Server Admin web interface.

It applies to Mac OS X Server 10.6 so until Apple updates this article part of the steps are confusing / obsolete.

Luckily, on Mountain Lion Server (10.8) servermgrd's certificate is stored in the same location as on Mac OS X Server Snow Leopard: in the System keychain of Aplications>Utilities>Keychain Access.

Here is what is needed on Mountain Lion (taken from the article)

  While logged into the OS X where Server is set up to run services, open Keychain Access.
  Select the System keychain.
  Double click the com.apple.servermgrd identity preference (credit: picture borrowed from here):

  Select your valid SSL certificate. You will have to import your SSL certificate first as explained in KB article PH7297.
  Authenticate as an administrator if prompted.
  As root, restart servermgrd for the changes in Keychain Access to take effect with this Terminal command:  sudo killall servermgrd
  (authenticate with your administrator password if prompted).


External Apple USB keyboard, Shift+Tab and Command+Shift+Tab doesn't work I have an aluminum Apple USB keyboard plugged into my MacBook Pro (Late 2011). Command+Tab works fine to switch applications. But Command+Shift+Tab doesn’t! The same shift key works to capitalize letters, so what on earth is going on?

This is the case with both the left and right side, and combinations of the two. Command+Shift+Tab results in no action--it's not that the shift is being ignored, it kills the combo (i.e. Command+Shift+Tab does not bring up the application switcher, and pressing it while the application switcher is up results in no movement, not movement to the right). Furthermore, Command+Shift+Tab works fine on the built-in keyboard!

And while I was typing this I remembered something else: Shift+Tab doesn’t work either (e.g. to move to the previous form field) But it works fine on the MBP built-in keyboard!

What am I missing?

Sounds like a hardware problem based on the comments. Until you can try a new one, you could get the same action by using use Cmd+Tab (holding down Cmd but just tapping Tab) to bring up the switcher, and then use the arrow keys to go back and forward.

Or possibly the Karabiner keyboard customizing app will let you remap the left shift to something else.


Cannot call a specific cell number When my wife upgraded her iPhone she gave me her 5S and I installed my SIM card.  After using the phone for about a year every time I tried calling my wife's cell number it goes straight to voice mail and she doesn't receive my text messages.

She can call and text me but I can't call or text her.  I checked.  The Apple and iCloud emails on my phone are mine.  I even tried putting my SIM card back on my original 5C and it still has the same problems.

Sounds like you may be blocked on her phone.

If you turn your "Show caller ID" to off and try ringing that will tell you.
If the call goes through, your number must be blocked(and can be unblocked from her iPhone) or if the call still fails, you may have a bigger issue.


Removing iCloud from my PC I keep getting a message on my PC that my iCloud is almost full.
I moved the photos on my phone to my computer by cable and store it in my photos.

Can I remove iCloud from my PC, and still keep it on my iPhone and iPad?

If I remove it from my computer, will I still be able to keep iCloud on my iPhone5 and my iPad2?

I want the photos to work between my iPhone and iPad2 only.

I can email my photos I take with my phone to my computer or I can connect it to a cable and just download it directly right?

Yes, you can remove iCloud from your PC if you don't want it there anymore.  You won't be able to access any of your iCloud files or photos directly on your PC anymore.  If you need any file/photo from iCloud on your PC, you can go to iCloud.com in your browser.  From there you can access everything in iCloud just like it was on your computer.


At what point do iPads stop displaying "not charging" when connected to power? I am curious if anyone has measured directly or found an authoritative reference that documents at which point the various iPad will display charging and not "not charging" in the menu bar while operating. Apple publishes great information on how it's Computers and Displays will over supply power to select Apple devices well past the normal USB standard, but I can't find iPad specific information.

I presumes this notification is based purely on a set amount of current being detected and not simply a net power surplus (since the load of an iPad can vary based on CPU/GPU, brightness and radio power consumption) calculation.

The iPad manual (page 136) and other Apple documentation (see bottom) are not very specific in this regard meaning...

...they do not state specific minimum currents required for charging.
...they only distinguish between:

charging while the iPad is awake (USB hubs with 1100 mA; newer Macs/displays)
charging while the iPad is in sleep mode (USB hubs with 500 mA; standard USB/old Macs)

  Low-battery image or “Not Charging” message appears

   or

  When charging, make sure you’re using the 10W USB power adapter that came with iPad or the USB port on a recent Mac. The fastest way to charge is to use the power adapter.
  For faster charging, turn iPad off.
  iPad may not charge when connected to the USB port on an older Mac, a PC, a keyboard, or to a USB hub.
  If your Mac or PC doesn’t provide enough power to charge iPad, a Not Charging message appears in the status bar. To charge iPad, disconnect it from your computer and connect it to a power outlet using the included Dock Connector to USB Cable and 10W USB power adapter.

Also see the following documents:

iPad: Charging the battery
Batteries: iPad


Changed User ID Whilst Logged In (Still Logged in Now) I was changing some settings when I came across the user id in the accounts section. For some inexplicable reason I thought it meant my network User ID, ie what I would identify to a router with. No idea why I thought this. Anyway.

I changed my User ID.
I am still logged in.
I cannot open any programs, including terminal, to try and change it back.

Currently open  programs include: Finder (downloads folder), Firefox, Sublime and Outlook.

Currently I'm afraid to reboot. However I do have access to several other Windows/Linux machines and lots of flash drives if I need to download/install/prep a live boot/etc.

I need to figure out how to change my User ID back.

Solution I'm currently trying to work:
I have a file explorer open. I have sublime open.

If I can find where OS X stores the User ID, I might be able to navigate to it and change it back to whatever it's supposed to be (501 I think?).

If anyone else has any ideas or solutions, I am all ears. In any case, I will post an update when it's solved one way or the other.

Edit: Update (since I said I would). The problem has been solved, Klanomath's solution below worked perfectly first time through. Thank you!

Reboot your Mac to Single User Mode (cmdS while booting) and enter at the prompt:

/sbin/fsck -fy
/sbin/mount -uw /

Launch opendirectoryd:

launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.opendirectoryd.plist

You will get some error messages - repeatedly.

Then enter (replacing username with your real user name):

dscl . -read /Users/username UniqueID

You should get something like 272 (if you changed it to 272 accidentally)

Now change it back to 501 again and check the result:

dscl . -change /Users/username UniqueID 272 501
dscl . -read /Users/username UniqueID

which should yield the original 501.

Then enter exit and boot to your GUI or better: reboot your Mac immediately with shutdown -r now to avoid errors based on the premature launch of opendirectoryd. I got some kextunload errors trying to shut down/reboot after booting directly to the GUI.


macbook pro making repetitive clicking noise My macbook pro has started making a repetitive clicking noise every 4 seconds. It kind of sounds like a woodpecker or something, not a scraping noise.. does anyone know what could be wrong?

As previously mentioned, it's either the hard drive,but it sounds to me like something might be impeding one of your fans. I used to hear something similar with an older MBP I had and it was the fan on the GPU. Might be worth taking it into a qualified Apple dealer/service point.


I only see the "Other" account option on log in screen So i start up my macbook air after about 3 months of not using it, and i don't see any accounts on the log in screen, except for "Other," and I try to type in my old information, that doesn't work, and there's no option to create an account, so how can i create a new account?

Starting with 10.10 you can use the sysadminctl command to create users, assuming you're able to ssh in or something:

sudo sysadminctl -addUser username -fullName "User Name" -password - -admin


How to click the mouse buttons with a keyboard shortcut? I have an application without keyboard shortcuts where I have to do a recursive work, in practice I have to insert fields with keyboard and click the mouse button over the OKbutton so I have to switch between keyboard and mouse very often only to click without moving the mouse. I know that in System Preference->Acessibility I can enable mouse keys but if I have to press altfive times before I can use the mouse and then I can't no more type with the keyboard until I disable the mouse keys I lose more time then the first solution.

Put the mouse in the floor and press the button with the foot's finger is an alternative but other users may not approve it. How can I set a quick short-cut for clicking with mouse pointer from keyboard in mac Mountain Lion?

You can use a private.xml like this with KeyRemap4MacBook:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
  <item>
    <name>test</name>
    <identifier>test</identifier>
    <autogen>__KeyToPointingButton__ KeyCode::F1, PointingButton::LEFT</autogen>
  </item>
</root>


Can I customize the iPad 2 HDMI output or has it just a mirror function? Can someone tell me if I can customize the HDMI output of the iPad2? I mean that the view on the big screen is not just a mirror of the iPad view.

The answer is, it depends on the app that you are using.

Apps can choose to present different content on the external display if they want. For example Keynote can display the slides on the external display and the presenters notes on the built-in display.


MacOS Sierra, Mail can't create smart mailbox based on another mailbox My mid-2011 iMac was running OS X Mavericks for years, and I decided over the weekend that it was time to see about upgrading to Sierra (not High Sierra).  So I cloned my boot drive to another partition, and upgraded to Sierra on it.  For the most part everything is fine, but there's an issue with Mail.app that is really frustrating me.

In Mail I have rules, based on the send address from different people/places, that move those emails into specific folders (mailboxes, in Mail terminology).  For instance emails from my bank go into my "Finance" mailbox.

Then I have a separate smart mailbox labeled "Finance" with a single rule - "Messages is in mailbox 'Finance'".  This allows me to organize all my different frequently used mailboxes into one area "Smart Mailboxes" which I can move to the top of the sidebar for ease of access.

In Mavericks, this works great and I have a couple of mailboxes set up this same way.  But in Sierra, this doesn't work at all.  The rules work fine for moving the emails into the separate folder/mailbox, but the smart mailbox rule fails to save.  I can set it as desired, but on subsequent editing it will always read "Message is in mailbox 'No mailbox selected'" and therefore will show me all emails in my inbox, rather than just those in the Finance mailbox.

The issue appears to only be with using mailboxes that are in my iCloud account.  I can select a folder in a Gmail or self-hosted mailbox for example, and the Smart Mailbox rule works fine.

Why does this work fine in Mavericks but not Sierra, and how can I get it to work once more?  I have already tried a Rebuild but it did nothing.

OK, I can't explain why this happened, but this issue appears to be fixed.  I was trying to resolve a different issue (Gmail emails going to Recovered Messages for unknown reasons), so I deleted my Gmail account from the Internet Accounts in System Preferences.  Then I quit & relaunched Mail, and in Mail Prefs I added the GMail account back again.

Suddenly, both the Gmail problem I was trying to solve, AND this Smart Mailboxes issue, were fixed!  I don't know what the actual problem was, but for whatever reason this appears to have solved it.  I'll accept the answer after I've lived with this a day or two and it stays fixed.  So weird...


When my husband opens his Mac my account appears How can My husband stop my account appearing when he opens his Mac instead of his own appearing without having to change the user

You can disable Automatic Login quite easily:

Open System Preferences (accessible from the  menu).
Click Users & Groups.

Click the padlock in the bottom-left corner and enter your password.

Click “Login Options”.

Set “Automatic login:” to “Off”.


Embedded YouTube videos on mobile Safari - has something changed? Up until recently, embedded YouTube videos on Safari pages on my first-gen iPad (iOS 5) worked as you'd expect, with the video duration and draggable time bar shown at the bottom, and the ability to send the video to my AppleTV via AirPlay.

Today I tried for the first time in a couple of weeks, and while the videos still play fine, the duration is shown as '--', the draggable time bar is disabled, and although the AirPlay icon still appears, I can now only send the audio to my AppleTV. This appears to be the case on any embedded videos I could find, such as those on my own homepage and this scrapbooking page (which my wife frequents!)

Have YouTube just changed something about the way they deliver embedded videos to iOS devices to cripple them in this way, or have I inadvertently changed something on my iPad that could have caused this?

(I have at least discovered a workaround, that I suspect might only work on iOS 5 older: tapping the title at the top of the video opens it in the original YouTube app. And from there, AirPlay works fine, as it does in the Google YouTube app.)

(This info is in response to a slightly different question on this forum)

I don't know what the actual answer is, but I am having the same issue. The page https://developer.apple.com/library/safari/documentation/AudioVideo/Conceptual/Using_HTML5_Audio_Video/AudioandVideoTagBasics/AudioandVideoTagBasics.html

has some good info. And the page https://developer.apple.com/library/safari/documentation/AudioVideo/Conceptual/Using_HTML5_Audio_Video/Device-SpecificConsiderations/Device-SpecificConsiderations.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40009523-CH5-SW1

states

"Optimization for Small Screens

Currently, Safari optimizes video presentation for the smaller screen on iPhone or iPod touch by playing video using the full screen—video controls appear when the screen is touched, and the video is scaled to fit the screen in portrait or landscape mode. Video is not presented within the webpage. The height and width attributes affect only the space allotted on the webpage, and the controls attribute is ignored. This is true only for Safari on devices with small screens. On Mac OS X, Windows, and iPad, Safari plays video inline, embedded in the webpage." -

Which, I believe, means on the iPad, that the video plays at the resolution of the initial window (determined by the programmer), and does not naturally play on the YoutTube player, or at a higher res if you enlarge the video.

This seems to be the "problem" that we're encountering - that its a "feature" specific to Safari on the iPad. Why they do this, I dunno. In my case, the video plays at a higher res (and better) on my smaller iPhone than does on my iPad mini with Retna. Go figure.

I came upon this post, hoping to find the answer and a work around. If you get the Youtube app, and find the video through that, it will play at the highest resolution, but not through Safari. So far as I can tell.

Enjoy


Volume on MacBook Pro low after disconnecting from Bluetooth speakers As the title suggests, I am having issue with the volume of the internal speakers from my MBP after I disconnect from the Bluetooth speaker. This doesn't happen always, but it seems to happen with both my headphones and with the speaker, so it is not one device specific.

Currently, my volume is at maximum levels, but it is very quiet, probably around 50% of maximum value. I have tried killing all coreaudiod processes, trying to unload and load /System/Library/Extensions/AppleHDA.kext, checked all the levels everywhere, tried turning off Bluetooth, but nothing seems to help.

Any suggestions what might be causing this? I am running the latest MacOS version, 10.12.6.

I had the same problem, I solved resetting the NVRAM


How to set transparent color in figure in Keynote? In Office 2019 Powerpoint, you can click a figure and define a specific color as transparent. You'd go to Picture Format > Color > Set Transparent Color.

How do I do this in Keynote?

Below is a screenshot from what I do in Powerpoint. I have made the blue transparent.

Thanks in advance

Have you tried selecting the item and clicking the format icon top right?
See image below:

And using Opacity...


How to Quit by default X11 when shutting down When I shutdown my computer I am having followin pop-up for X11, by default I want to always Quit instead of manually clicking.

[Q] How to accept by defualt Quit for X11 when it is closed?

Adding the following to the X11 preferences removes the popup-
defaults write org.macosforge.xquartz.X11 no_quit_alert true


Send/receive SMS (text messages) and place/receive calls from an iPad I'm looking for a solution to receive/place calls and SMS over the cellular network.
For now, my best solution would be Skype, but i can't receive SMS with it. Is there an equivalent ?

Thanks.

Edit: it might be important : I'm in France, not in the US.

Google Hangouts would do it. You'd have to get a Google account, and a Google Voice number, and then you can send/receive calls and texts with it.

If you had an iPhone i think you could also use the iPad to place/receive calls using the iPhone cell connection.  I don't think this is what you mean though


Use Mail app for mailto links but not receive? I use the Outlook email app but because Apple doesn't allow changing associated apps for things like mailto links, whenever I click on "Send feedback" in an app or an email address on a website, I'm presented with "Please configure an email account".

Is there any way to configure the Mail app for send only? I don't want to have two copies of my inbox. (This is for a GMail account)

CLARIFICATION - This is on an iPhone not a Mac

Use RCDefaultApp to configure your default Mailer.
It installs as a Control Panel.


Time zone set to Pacific while in Eastern, settings grayed out Every tutorial says go to Date and Time select Time Zone. That is all I can do as everything is grayed out, both checkbox and map. I only use eastern time zone daylight savings time. OSX=Sierra 10.12

I just bought a second hand Macbook Pro, and I'm learning to use the OS again since I haven't use a Mac in 10 years. Quite discouraged when I couldn't even adjust the time.

Your Mac probably is locked to the Time and Date setting because of the domain it's connected to. To change that you may need administrative access to your Mac. Do you happen to have administrative access? Is your Mac connected to a work or school domain? Was it ever on one?


Is there a terminal command to keep apps from quitting? In macOS Terminal.app how can I issue a command similar to caffeinate that keeps all running applications from quitting?

In my System Preferences I have Energy Saver to: computer sleep-never and Display sleep-never, I even have caffeinate issued in the terminal.

After a while of no keyboard or mouse activity the screen will go to login mode. All apps like Excel and Mail have quit except those that required a save.

Even Terminal is asking if I really want to quit. I want all to be as if I were touching my keyboard every few minutes so not even the login screen shows and Excel never quits.

You can use the screen terminal window manager and its detach feature. This command is installed by default on OS X.

Example scenario.

Open a terminal
Run screen
Run a program of your choice e.g. htop.
Suspend this program (Ctrl+z) and run it in background bg
Detach your current session (Ctrl+a d)
Exit your session and exit the terminal
Open the terminal again
List running session with screen -ls
Go back to your session with screen -r <session id>
Use your program again with fg


Time Machine sparsebundle mounting problems Problem

I have a Time Machine backup which contains a lot of valuable information and I'm trying to access it. What's the problem? I'm trying to mount it and nothing1 happens.

Nothing happens? So I tried to eject the network disk containing the sparsebundle and I got an error saying:

  "The disk backups couldn't be ejected because finder it using it"

What??? My guess is DiskImageMounter is mounting but is ridiculously slow?

Notes / Updates

  Note: installd is eating up my CPU usage, is this in anyway related to DiskImageMounter

  Note 2: If I go to "Browse Other Backup Disks" it finds the sparsebundle but none of the backups show.

  Update: Seems like mds is going crazy on the backup drive. I'll try to disable spotlight and see what I can do

There must surely be a better way to browse a Time Machine backup on a network disk

If not, how can my problem be fixed?

It's not Time Machine, or anything

It's Spotlight. How?

Spotlight

Spotlight indexes everything. Even on an external disk. My backup .sparsebundle was > 2 TB. My computer can't handle this. Spotlight would index everything before it showed in finder.

Debugging

First, to see what was using the disk. Run:

sudo lsof | grep /Volumes/<Volume Name>

I got something like:

diskimage 519           vihan    4r      mds

and about 4 of those. That meant Spotlight was going haywire.

Disabling

Disabling spotlight is simple. RUN THIS BEFORE TOUCHING THE .SPARSEBUNDLE

sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.metadata.mds.plist

That should disable Spotlight. Now you can double click the .sparsebundle and continue as from this answer


Can you use Sidecar with 5G only to connect Macbook Pro to iPad Pro M1 devices reliably for work I am using the 13" Macbook Pro M1 and considering getting a iPad Pro 12.9" M1 to establish a portable dual screen for work. So I would add the Tmobile 5G plan on the iPad and do not want to connect to wifi on the road.
Can I use the 5G from my iPad for both devices and get dual screen sidecar working reliably for work?

Sidecar uses a wired or direct wireless connection. When using wireless there is a restriction against creating a mobile hotspot, but this restriction would not apply to a wired Sidecar configuration.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210380
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204023


Accessing Gmail via IMAP using Lion's Mail client I've been using POP to access my Gmail account pretty much since Google offered it. I've been meaning to migrate to IMAP access for a while now, and initial attempts to switch yesterday caused quite a bit of pain. I had problems ranging from 55000 messages trying to download, to being locked out of my account with the error message 'Account exceeded command or bandwidth limits.'

I've found a useful looking reference, http://tidbits.com/article/10253, but it was written back in 2009, so I'm not sure how much of the information has been superseded in subsequent Mail upgrades. Does anyone else have experience and/or links to resources about using Gmail IMAP and Mail in Lion effectively?

Firstly, if you're using Gmails two-factor authentication, you'll need to setup a one-time password for Mail.app to use.  From the look of it, you are not using this feature but you probably should and so should everybody else so I'll include the steps for completeness.  You can create a new one-time password by going to your Google Account settings (not Gmail settings).  You'll see a section like the one in the image below.

Click on the 'Edit' beside 'Authorising applications & sites' and enter your google account password when prompted.  You'll be brought to a page where near the bottom you can name the app you're creating a one-time password for and then click create password.  See image below.

Your password will be generated, spaces in it don't matter so you can just select it and copy to the clipboard.  Then open the Mail.app and if you don't get the dialog for adding an account, you can bring it up by clicking Mail > Preferences and you can click the '+' symbol at the bottom-left to add a new account.  Put your gmail address, including 'gmail.com' in the 'Email Address' field and you newly generated one-time password in the 'Password' field and hit Enter.
Mail will connect to the server and validate then setup your account.
Click 'Create' when prompted and you're ready to go.

Now, to manage the mail that your Mac will download and store locally you go to the Advanced tab for the account.  There is a dropdown (pictured below) which allows you to select what Mail will download.

If you don't want to download all mail and attachments, change the default to one of the other options shown below.

If you select 'All messages and their attachments' this will download every email you've ever sent/received which still exists in your online gmail account.  This is the default and probably the reason you exceeded your limit.  This should be a one-off problem though if you downloaded them all and this is what you want.
If you select 'All messages but omit attachments', it will still download every mail you've ever sent as above, just without the additional bulk of attachments.
If you select 'Only messages I've read' then Mail won't download unread messages, leaving you to read your unread mail on gmail in your web browser.
If you select 'Don't keep copies of any messages' then you will only ever see mail in your Mail app when you are online.  Essentially this will function as if you're using your web-based email account on gmail.com but through the Mail app.  This means you don't use lots of storage on your Mac, but it also means you need to have an internet connection to use your account.

I hope that clarifies your choices and helps you choose the best option which suits your needs.  Also, if you're going to use IMAP, which you probably should, you should stop using POP.

In GMail settings, you can also limit the number of mails which can be held in an IMAP folder to various limits between 1000 and 10000


Unable to launch automations via NFC tags on iPhone 11 I’m trying to create a shortcut through the shortcuts app that triggers whenever I tag a specific NFC tag.
I created the shortcut and when it asked to tag the NFC tag, it recognized it properly. However, when I tried to exit the shortcuts app and tag it from the home screen, it doesn’t launch my shortcut. It’s as though the NFC chip is not enabled in the background.
I tried on other iPhones and it worked properly. Is this an iPhone 11 issue?

Turns out I was in Airplane mode, and the NFC chip is not enabled in the background when in Airplane mode.
The reason other NFC functions work (e.g. write, Apple Pay, etc) is because there is an explicit NFC foreground UI present, which turns on the chip even when in airplane mode.
Unfortunately, this means you cannot have an NFC tag turn off airplane mode, for example.


Is there an easier way to compare iOS to Android apps than manually checking each app? Next year, I'm getting myself a new phone, and it'll either be a Nexus or an iPhone. I'm currently using a Samsung Galaxy S4, but I'm fed up with how slow security updates occur and how often Samsung installs random crapware on my phone that I didn't ask for. In addition, the S4 is at the end of its lifecycle and might not get a full version of Android 6.0.

I'm currently verifying whether switching to iOS won't lock me out of any of my apps. I have spent barely any money on in-game app purchases for Android, so that's not holding me back. However, I have a number of apps that I use weekly, often even daily, and I want to make sure I still have access to those, or at least something similar.

I could manually check each app on the itunes store, but that's a long and manual process that I would prefer to keep as a last resort. Is there an easier way to check what Android apps are available on iOS or at least have something similar?

Borrow an old iPhone and run the Apple migration tool by following the setup directions on iOS 9 or you could use the Relo tool to attempt a dry-run on the Android side.

That way, you can actually use the new OS for a bit and if it's unlocked, you could swap SIM cards between the two devices. If you don't mind the cash outlay, you could also buy a new phone outright and educate yourself on the return policy if you're mostly sure the change will be for good.


2020 macbook air ethernet disconnection problem I have been struggling with an ethernet disconnection problem on my Intel MacBook Air 2020 for several months now. The ethernet connection (through a wired USB-C lan connection) turns off after I have the camera on during a video conference for around 10 minutes. Turning to wifi works fine though. It happens with a variety of videoconferencing applications as skype, webex, zoom, GotoMeeting but strangely not with FaceTime. I thought it was an adaptor problem but I have changed four adaptors: Satechi Multiport (tried 3 different ones) and Belkin USB-C multimedia hub.
After updating to Big Sur the problem got even worse as it not only freezes my ethernet, but forces my home VDSL modem to disconnect from the Internet and I need to reboot it to get connected again.
I also posted it at the Apple community forum and it appears others have this problem as well. When I was returning the Satechi adaptors to the Apple dealer they were testing on their MacBooks before giving me a replacement and they were also experiencing the same issue.
Apple Support has given me a list of things to try like resetting SMC, NVRAM, PRAM, which I tried with no result. They also suggested to wipe my disk and do a clean installation of the OS which I have not tried yet as it will take me days of work to reinstall everything.
Does anyone have any idea of what the cause could be, or what else I could try? Has anyone managed to solve the problem?
UPDATE: following Apple support advice I also installed a clean version of the OS on an external disk and booted from this, but the problem persists

I am having a similar issue with the Thunderbolt 3 Dock from Belkin, when i am using it, then it is ok, but when i send my laptop to sleep, or turn it off then the whole network collapses. i opted for disconnecting the cable from the dock every time i send the laptop to sleep or turn it off. i know it is not the best solution, but probably in the meantime you find a solution you don't have to suffer the interruption of your home network.


Error: unable to open database in macOS Mojave sqlite3 ~/Library/Mail/V6/MailData/Envelope\ Index vacuum;
Error: unable to open database "/Users/Me/Library/Mail/V6/MailData/Envelope Index":
unable to open database file

This happened after upgrading to Mojave.

I was having this issue and solved it before posting the question. I was also having other quirky permissions issues within Terminal after upgrading to Mojave.

I stumbled upon this and thought I would share here, since I don't normally consult the more casual Mac user pages: Fix Terminal “Operation not permitted” Error in MacOS Mojave

Basically, you need to add Terminal.app to have Full Disk Access within System Preferences -> Security & Privacy -> Privacy tab.


Why do I have to format external disk twice? (First time will always fail) I have to always format external disks twice on my laptop (Macbook Pro, macOS Sierra). The first time I try to format an external disk it always fails. This happens with any disk, any format type, and regardless of whether I'm using Disk Utility or Terminal.

I would like to know what might cause this issue?

The first time you try to format the disk it 'fails' to unmount the volume then unmounts it and returns an error. The second time the drive is already unmounted, so the erase usually succeeds. Since I've seen this on new macs and new installations, I think it is a Disk Utility bug.

An easy workaround is to unmount the volume you want to erase before erasing.

Using the diskutil command in terminal doesn't give the same error.


Problem with iCloud Drive "Desktop and Documents folder" check box not sticking I have a problem very similar to What could cause iCloud Drive to refuse to sync Desktop & Documents?. I can't get the Preferences -> Apple ID -> iCloud Drive , Options ... -> "Desktop and Documents Folders" check box to stick. I check it and there is a spinning wheel and the text "Setting up" and then I press done. But when I go back again it is still not checked.
I have a new MacBook Air M1 and with the latests 11.1 OSX. I have just started it and enabled iCloud.
When I look in the console and filter on bird, I get the following error messages:
default 16:46:30.160768+0100    bird    DSMoveSyncedDocumentsAndDesktopToHomeDirectory_V1 <private> -> (null),<private> (0)
error   16:46:30.160867+0100    kernel  Sandbox: bird(969) deny(1) file-write-create /Users/oskar/.DS_BarrierSync
default 16:46:30.168781+0100    bird    "The connection to ACDAccountStore was invalidated."
fault   16:46:30.195447+0100    bird    [CRIT] Failed to move synced Documents to Home Directory: Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=66 UserInfo={NSFilePath=<private>}
error   16:46:30.198179+0100    bird    [ERROR] Failed to apply sync policy: -1 for folder type: 2, error: Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=66 UserInfo={NSFilePath=<private>}
fault   16:46:30.219949+0100    bird    [CRIT] UNREACHABLE: there are still XPC clients around: <private>

I have tried removing the Documents folder that seems to help for some but I made no difference. Any ideas?

Later today I actually solved it. Mostly by chance. What I did was that I changed the computer name via Preferences -> Sharing -> Computer name:
I did anyway want to change it and after I changed it and checked the terminal I noticed some folder name change in my home directory.
So after this I again tried to check the Preferences -> Apple ID -> iCloud Drive , Options ... -> "Desktop and Documents Folders" box, and this time it took longer for the spinning wheel and it worked. After allowing it to sync for 10 min and then a quick reboot I not have the desktop and documents folders under the iCloud Drive section in Finder and it is synced with all my precious documents and devices.


As of Mountain Lion, Google Chrome has asked for permission to view my contacts. Does this mean that it has likely had unrestricted access before? I'm not sure why Chrome wants this access, but since prior to Mountain Lion there wasn't a prompt for this, it makes me think that it must have been looking at them this whole time. Right?

To turn this off and eliminate the error messages, you can do the following:

Click the Chrome menu  on the browser toolbar. Select Settings.
Click Show advanced settings and find the "Passwords and forms" section.
Click "Manage Autofill Settings"
Deselect the "Include addresses from my Address Book card" checkbox.


How can I set a scaled display resolution from the command-line in macOS Catalina? I am trying to automate the setup of a Mac running macOS Catalina (10.15.1).

I found this question: How can I set the display settings using command line
. But none of the answers really explain how I can set this "slightly larger text" setting. I would like to know how to automatically set the configuration in the below screenshot:

Is there a way to do this using the defaults command?

I’m not aware of any way to do this via defaults write (although it seems like it should be possible). I even checked MacPilot which is usually my go-to for hidden defaults.

My suggestion would be to use display_manager.py which is the best command-line tool that I know of which is being actively developed. It is free, but will require you to figure out the proper settings for your computer.

There’s also SwitchResX which is a commercial app ($16, I think) but if all you want it for is the initial setup, that might be overkill.

Last but not least, there’s Display Menu which is free, but with a $2 in-app purchase will add AppleScript support, which means you can use it from the command line.


Can applications purchased through the App Store be used after deauthorization? If I deauthorize a computer from the account used to purchase a certain app, will that app continue to work as usual?

The Mac App Store does not currently have the concept of an "authorized" or "deauthorized" computer. If you download an app legitimately from the Mac App Store, it is DRM free (at least with regard to execution), and completely functional on your computer.

The immediate answer to your question is actually that you cannot deauthorize your computer in the Mac App Store :).