Junos Pulse not installing correctly on Yosemite I'm trying to set up Junos Pulse so I can connect to a VPN. I got a dmg with the JuniperSetupClientInstaller.mpkg from the Pulse server site, but when I run the installer, it doesn't seem to have any effect. It shows a "Successful Install" message at the end, but nothing seems to have changed. No further windows/dialogs appear, and searching Juniper or Junos doesn't turn up anything new.

I also tried grabbing the installed application from my old computer (running Mavericks), but I get "Failed to connect to the Juniper Unified Network Service." whenever I try to connect to the VPN.

Does anyone have any guidance for either of these approaches? I'm happy to give more information if it would help.

The way Juniper does this is a little confusing. Installing the JuniperSetupClientInstaller.mpkg installer from a Junos Pulse VPN server essentially sets up your machine so that the VPN server can then proceed to install Pulse using a Java applet. Here's how the install process works for my shop's Junos Pulse VPN server.

Open Firefox
Go to the following site:

https://vpn.server.goes.here

Log in with your VPN credentials.
If prompted by Firefox, allow the Java applet from the VPN site to run.
If this is the first time that Junos Pulse has been installed on this Mac, you may be prompted to install the Juniper setup client. If you are not prompted, go to step 6.

Click on the Please click here to install setup client link.
The Juniper setup client will be downloaded in a disk image file.
Double-click on the downloaded disk image file to get access to the Juniper setup client installer.
Double-click on the Juniper setup client installer and follow the prompts to run the installation process.
Once installation of the Juniper setup client has been completed, click on the Once the setup client is installed, please click here to continue link.

When prompted to install Junos Pulse, click the Always button.
The Junos Pulse installer will download to your Mac.
Once Junos Pulse has downloaded, the Junos Pulse VPN client will be installed on your Mac.
Once installation is finished, the Junos Pulse client will automatically connect to the VPN.

Everything in step #5, where the directions are having you install the Juniper setup client, is where the JuniperSetupClientInstaller.mpkg installer comes in. It's not the actual VPN installer; it's an installer that preps the machine for the later VPN client installation in steps 6 through 9.

By itself, the JuniperSetupClientInstaller.mpkg installer will not install the Junos Pulse VPN client.


Create Windows 10 installer USB without bootcamp I have recently wiped my hard drive and partitioned my hard drive like this:

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *251.0 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            143.4 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
   4:       Microsoft Basic Data WINDOWS                 40.0 GB    disk0s4
   5:       Microsoft Basic Data Linux Boot              999.3 MB   disk0s5
   6:       Microsoft Basic Data Linux Swap              17.0 GB    disk0s6
   7:       Microsoft Basic Data Linux                   48.8 GB    disk0s7

As you can see partition 1 is the EFI partition (default when choosing GUID)
Partition 2 is my El Capitan partition
Partition 3 the El Capitan recovery partition
Partition 4 is where I would like to install Windows
Partition 5 is where I am going to be able to boot Linux from (tutorial here)
Partition 6 is going to be the Swap partition for Linux
And finally partition 7 is going to be where the Linux (mint) OS is going to be installed.

Due to having this layout (created by doing diskutil partitionDisk /dev/disk0 GPT JHFS+ First 10g JHFS+ Second 10g JHFS+ Third 10g JHFS+ Fourth 10g with different file formats then the ones shown above), I now get this error when clicking continue from bootcamp:

The startup disk cannot be partitioned or restored to a single partition

The startup disk must be formatted as a single Mac OS Extended Journaled volume or already partitioned by Boot Camp Assistant for installing Windows.

I cannot seem to get past this step. Does anyone know how I can install Windows 10 without BootCamp due to this error? I already have the Windows 10 ISO file.

I do not want to have to reformat my computer again (I know that is the easy way around this issue). I want to work my way through this issue.

You can simply click past the error, but when you try to install windows, you'll get an error that it's in the wrong partition style. You can create the bootable USB drive, it's just telling you that you won't be able to install windows unless you decide to do that.


Force quit on a MacBook that uses a touchbar I have a 2018 MacBook Pro with a Touchbar. Sometimes it will freeze up and I cannot access the Apple menu to run Force quit. Normally, you would be able to use Command+Option+Esc.

However, the Command+Option+Esc method is not working for me. I'm thinking it may be because the Esc key is not a real key. I have no idea whether it is being registered.

Is there any other way to issue a Force Quit without rebooting my system?

PS. Making the Esc key a software-based key is not the smartest thing Apple could have done.

Update

In response to questions, one application that I am noticing this with the most is Audacity. I am processing a few hundred audio files using a macro. The macro is very simple: trim areas of silence, normalize, save as mp3. The script works perfectly on a Windows machine.

Symptoms: Things just slow to a halt. I can move the mouse easily. But if I try to interact with anything on the Mac Desktop (through keyboard or mouse) things are very slow to respond. For example, just to open up Spotlight (Command-space) and type "terminal" takes about 10-15 minutes. Trying to open the Apple Menu it does not seem to respond (or maybe I'm just not waiting long enough).

You can use Karabiner to customize shortcut on your keyboard as you please, give it a try !

You can remap the Esc key to another key or combination or just add another force quit rule than Command+Option+Esc (like Command+Option+Q).

From Karabiner Manual :

Change a key to another key

You can change a key to another key in Simple Modifications tab.

Step 1 : Choose target device, then press Add item button.

Step 2 : Select From key and To key.

Step 3 : Confirm the result in Karabiner-EventViewer.

Use more complex rules

Step 1 : Open Complex Modifications tab and press Add rule button, then press Import more rules from the internet button.

Step 2 : A web browser is opened. Press Import button in the page. A confirmation dialog is shown. Press Allow button.

Step 3 : Karabiner-Elements is shown again. Press Import button, then new rules are imported. Press Enable button.

Step 4 : New rule is enabled. Confirm the result in Karabiner-EventViewer.


Target Display Mode for Mid 2011 iMac and 2018 MacBook Pro Is it possible to use a Mid 2011 iMac as a second monitor for a 2018 MacBook Pro?  I've been unable to get the Target Display mode to work on the iMac when the two are connected via a Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) to Thunderbolt 2 adapter and a thunderbolt cable.

With a qualified iMac yes it should work, I was told this by Apple support. However there is a problem with the 2018 MBP and it does not. There is a large thread on this in the Apple forums:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8485517

Someone there recently figured out a workaround by daisychaining their iMac but we shouldn't have to buy more expensive devices to get it to work. Please report your issue to Apple support and make sure they escalate it to an engineer. Only by everyone reporting do we have a chance of getting this fixed.


How can I update and jailbreak/unlock my iPhone 3Gs from 4.1 to 6.1.3? I have an iPhone 3Gs running iOS 4.1 (baseband 06.15.00, serial number: 8704244TEDG).

I want to update it to iOS 6.1.3 instead of iOS 7. How can I update it, and unlock it using Ultrasn0w after updating?

The first thing you should note is that Ultrasn0w hasn't been supported for a very long time. You should find yourself a "grey-market" unlock (on eBay or various other sites) or contact the phone's original carrier (probably AT&T).

Once you have your phone factory unlocked, plug your phone into your computer and hold down the Home and Power buttons for about 10 seconds. Let go of the Power button but keep the Home button held down. This places the phone in DFU (Device Firmware Upgrade) mode. iTunes will tell you that your phone needs to be factory reset, and you should go through the normal process. Since iOS 6.1.3 is the latest version available for the 3GS, you don't need to do any tricks here.

From that point, you can jailbreak with whichever tool you like.


When using Private Browsing within Mobile Safari, is any data saved to the iOS filesystem? In previous desktop-based browsers that I've used, when activating their built-in Private Browsing mode I'm used to the fact that as soon as the Private Browsing window is closed, all of the tabs that were open during that session are immediately closed and cannot be re-opened. In iOS, however, the behaviour of Private Browsing in Safari seems slightly different in that even if Safari.app is killed from within the App Switcher and even after a full device reboot, the tabs previously opened within Private Browsing are still there.

So - my question. Is any data entered/saved during a Private Browsing session from within Safari saved to the iOS filesystem? Examples of data that I was thinking of would include form history, saved cookies, and visited links. Is this data then cleared when toggling Private Browsing off and then back on?

Safari on iOS uses Private Browsing per tab, meaning the "Private" button just shows you the mode. When you open a new tab your browser will create a session isolated from the non-private mode (containing cookies, history...).

This session is temporary and will be deleted when you close the tab - not when you click on "Private".


How to use the keyboard to drag and drop? My trackpad is broken so I can tap-to-click but i cannot drag and drop. This is really a problem when it comes to doing certain things.

Does anyone know how to program a sticky key to turn a click into a click-select that can then be dragged about?

I can't resize my browser or open window and I can't drag applications into the folder when installing etc.

free solutions only please.

A mid 2009 macbook-pro 13". 2.53 Ghz Intel Core 2 Due.

Running os lion (grudgingly).

Daniel Lawson provides a really useful and widely applicable solution in a comment above. It deserves its own "answer".

  Can you three-finger-drag for drag and drop? What hardware do you
  have? What version of the operating system? –  Daniel Lawson♦ Oct 3
  '12 at 17:35

I just used three-finger drag to select that text and then used the Cmd-C and Cmd-V for copying and pasting. That's all you're likely to need except in situations where an app requires you to move a switch or drag a visual object.


How to convert and adapt from a "Save As" person to a "Version" person? I am so used to "Save As" on the PC, so that for example, if I remember I removed a line two months ago on my resume (also called CV) and now is April 2012, I can go back to

Resume 2012-01-23 revision 02.doc

and then get those text back, and paste it back to my current resume.

Lion's version feature is nice, but how will I go about doing that, without "undoing" to earlier versions?  I also like to email a simple version of a Numbers document to a friend (because now it is much more complicated), so how can that be done too?  I guess I am just too used to having multiple files so I feel a bit un-eased at the situation of this transition.

Saving versions

The first thing to know about Versions is that ⌘ Command+S now means "Save a Version". While you're editing the document, your work is automatically saved — but these snapshots are only created when a new version is created. So, rather than Save As, you can Save a Version.

Of course, versions will be automatically created as well — every hour, I believe, as well as when you open or rename the document — but you can also explicitly save a version whenever you want.

(You should be cautious about how long these versions stay around, too. I'm finding some information which says that the automatically-saved versions will be pruned to save space, but it's not clear whether the versions you save manually might also be pruned. If anyone finds more information about this, please add it in a comment or edit this post!)

Using content from old versions

When you enter the Versions browser, you can see every version of your file that you've saved:

The great thing is that these past versions are live, so you can easily copy & paste text between a past version and the current version of your document. From Apple's page about Auto Save & Versions:

  Click the timeline to see how your work looked at any given time in previous versions. Click a version to see it in its entirety. Copy and paste between versions or revert to an earlier version of the document.

Sending old versions

If you want to send someone an old version without destroying your current work, you can hold down the ⌥ Option key, and the "Restore" button becomes a "Restore a Copy" button:

Clicking this will give you a new document with a copy of your old version.

Or, depending on the type of file and the program you're using, you can do other things directly in the Versions browser — for example, in TextEdit you can use File > Export on an old version without first restoring a copy.


AirPods no longer connect to my Mac I have a Mid-2012 15" Retina Macbook Pro running 10.13.5 which I have been using my AirPods with successfully since I got them over a year ago.

For some reason, today, when I try to connect them, nothing happens.  I've tried rebooting.  Un-pairing and re-pairing them.  They still work with my iPhone.

I noticed this in the Console when I try to connect:

default 14:21:52.245048 -0600   bluetoothd  ***** Temporarily stopping all scans *****
default 14:21:52.331071 -0600   SystemUIServer  [openConnection] self=0x6080002e3c00 EXPANSION.authenticationRequired=0
default 14:21:52.331518 -0600   SystemUIServer  [openConnection] self=0x6080002e3c00 target=0x60c000279ec0 return=0x00000000
default 14:22:02.659245 -0600   bluetoothd  Create connection failed (0x4) for device: 7C-04-D0-A6-1D-CB
default 14:22:02.659318 -0600   bluetoothd  DaemonHCIEventNotificationHandler_ConnectionComplete - 04
default 14:22:02.661284 -0600   SystemUIServer  Failed to connect to the device: 0x4
default 14:22:04.246890 -0600   bluetoothd  ***** Starting after temporarily stopping all scans *****

Is there some other place I can look to see what may be causing this?

Having stumbled upon this article, I tried unchecking "Allow Handoff between this Mac and your iCloud devices" and that seemed to work.  Even when I checked it back on the connection seems to be holding.  I fail to see what Handoff has to do with Bluetooth but at least it works, for now.


How to free disk space consumed by incompletely downloaded apps? I recently tried to download a huge app (1.7 gigabytes) on an iPhone running iOS 9. The download failed several times for whatsoever reason. However, the incomplete downloads filled over 5 gigabytes of disk space. How can I clear this space again? Restarting, doing an iTunes backup - nothing solved my problem so far.

Thank you!

Have you tried with a cleaning application like "Checker"? Those kind of applications are used to delete useless data. If you can´t delete it with that kind of applications, try to make a backup on itunes, erase it and restore the iphone.


How to replace Microsoft Small Business Server 2003 with Mac Mini Server (Mountain Lion) Our SBS2003 is basically only managing user IDs (aka Active Directory). Files shares are on a NAS and mail is to soon be on Google Apps.

Can I replace SBS2003 with a MountainLion Mac Mini Server to manage Windows XP desktop logins?

Yes, in OSX 10.8 Server the alternative to AD is called Open Directory.  There's a fantastic resource here;

https://help.apple.com/advancedserveradmin/mac/10.8/

You'll want to read up on the Manage Users section, but in short you can import all of your data from AD into Open Directory so that both Macs and PCs can authenticate against your OSX Server.  As you already have a NAS you can also store all user directories there too (home folders / my documents).

Its an involved task to do this, so its probably too long to answer here, but that resource from Apple gives you everything you need to know.


How do I take apart an Apple iPod Connector? The cable, not the part on the actual iPod.

Joke: it's easy to take it apart. Do you need it to be usable afterwards?

Thomas' suggestion is a good bet, but the pliers will likely damage the connector (the gray plastic).

But if you only care about the connector and not the housing (the white plastic), then you could cut the housing open without touching the connector itself.

It depends on what you want to do after you've taken it apart, but you don't mention that.


Apple Mail doesn't show when a mail is encrypted (using S/MIME) I have recently started using S/MIME since we got a certificate from our school and are advised to use it when possible. I am using El Capitan 10.11.4.

The encryption and decryption process ITSELF works fine, i.e. I can send and receive encrypted and/or signed mails and decrypt them correctly when I have the corresponding certificate.

However, if I receive mails that are encrypted or signed and encrypted, it doesn't show in the security header. It's just not there.
If I receive mails that are only signed using S/MIME, it will show correctly however (Signed (John Doe))

Again, I can read the mail just fine, it just doesn't give me any indication that it's encrypted or signed.

On my iPhone it works fine, i.e. it will show the little lock and the "signed symbol".

What could be causing this?

PS: The "security header" I'm talking about should be this:

It is most certainly a bug that needs to be addressed in future versions of OS X.

I have the same problem and have found out the following curiosities:

When I added a rule to change the color of encrypted emails to give at least a visual indication in the list view, it worked fine, so there's really no reason not to show the lock icon.
The moment I added the rule and applied it to existing mails, both the signed and encrypted indications showed properly on the conversation
Upon restarting Apple Mail however, the signed indicator stopped working again on mails that were both signed and encrypted
Furthermore, both indicators stopped working on mails which I have sent
Based on a rough guess, about 50-60% of the encrypted mails now have the proper visual indicator, but only those I've received and not those I have sent.

All in all it's very weird, non-deterministic behavior that I can't explain other than being a bug. It persists in 10.11.5. Mails that are only signed always show properly unless they're also encrypted.

Furthermore, my iPhone seems to have no problem at all, tagging all signed and/or encrypted conversations properly.

I suggest filing a bug report with Apple (which I am about to do now).


Where to find the keychain stored by KeychainSwift I use KeychainSwift to store my user's keychain data using my created iOS app.

The question is:
Where can I see the data it stored?

I already tried going to

  Settings -> Password & Accounts -> Website and App passwords

but I can't find my application there.
I'm use an iPhone 6 as my device.

There's no user interface for this part of the keychain what what is included in the app (or apps) created by that specific developer.

The keychain area that is accessed by the iOS app is specific to that app (or group of apps by the same developer, if specified). It cannot be accessed by other apps, so no App Store app will allow you to show the contents of the keychains of other apps. Nor are the app specific keychains areas viewable through the Settings app or any other first party app.

As a developer, you can add such user interface to your own app - or for debugging purposes simply use the Xcode debugger or add prints to the console with information from the keychain.

The Keychain can in general be synchronized over iCloud with other devices - including macOS devices. This does however not happen automatically for third party apps. The app would need to explicitly asks for iCloud syncing using the kSecAttrSynchronizable attribute.

Even then, the macOS Keychain Access app does not allow you to view all the data stored in the keychain by a third party iOS app.


How to uninstall USB to VGA Adapter's drivers? About a year ago I bought a USB to VGA Adapter from Insignia (https://www.insigniaproducts.com/pdp/NS-PUV308/6138366). I no longer use this Adapter and would like to remove the drivers because sometimes the drivers can use up to 70% of CPU, but can't find a way to remove the drivers.

Usually drivers come with an uninstaller. Redownload the installation package/dmg of the driver if necessary and use the uninstaller included there.

In the specific case, the driver can be redownloaded from the web site linked in the question.

It contains both an installer and an uninstaller. From looking at it, the following files get removed

/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/HAL/MCTT6Audio.driver
/Library/Extensions/MCTTrigger2.kext
/Library/Extensions/MCTTrigger6USB.kext
/Library/Extensions/MCTTriggerGraphics.plugin
/Library/Extensions/Trigger5Core.kext
/Library/LaunchAgents/com.mct.USBVGASync.plist
/Library/LaunchDaemons/tw.com.mct.TriggerDriver.plist
/System/Library/Extensions/MCTTrigger2.kext
/System/Library/Extensions/MCTTrigger6USB.kext
/System/Library/Extensions/MCTTriggerGraphics.plugin
/System/Library/Extensions/Trigger5Core.kext
/System/Library/Services/USBVGASync
/usr/local/libexec/MCTTriggerDriver
/usr/local/sbin/USBVGASync

After removing the files a restart is required.


How do I add a custom alert sound in macOS Sierra? How do I add a custom alert sound in macOS Sierra?  I've made some sounds I want to use in a variety of applications but when I try to add them to the /System/Library/Sounds folder, it says The operation can’t be completed because you don’t have the necessary permission.  I also get the same message trying to add myself to the permissions on the Get Info window.

Copy the sound file to ~/Library/Sounds, which is in your Home folder not /System/Library/Sounds in the root of the Macintosh HD. The sound file will then show in System Preferences > Sounds > Sound Effects for you to select as the alert sound.

Note: To expose the Library folder within your Home folder, click Finder > Go > press the option key and select Library.

Update to address comment:

First you need to disable System Integrity Protection.

Reboot the Mac and hold down commandR keys simultaneously after you hear the startup chime, this will boot macOS into Recovery Mode
When the macOS Utilities screen appears, click the Utilities menu, at the top of the screen instead, and choose Terminal.
Type the following command into Terminal then press enter:

csrutil disable

You’ll see a message saying that System Integrity Protection has been disabled and the Mac needs to restart for changes to take effect
Reboot the Mac.

After copying the file(s) to /System/Library/Sounds you'll need to enable System Integrity Protection using csrutil enable following the steps above.

With System Integrity Protection disabled, then to copy the sound file(s) to /System/Library/Sounds you'll needed to use sudo with cp in Terminal.

Example:

cd /System/Library/Sounds
sudo cp /path/to/custom_sound.aiff .

Note that is a . at the end of the command, so as to copy the file into the current directory. You'll be prompted for an Administrator password when using sudo and when you type the password you'll not see any response as the typing of the password is hidden.  Just type the password and press enter for the command to execute.


Disable alert e-mails from Mail / Calendar I recently got a Macbook Pro for work, and am pretty new to the platform. One of the annoying things I noticed, is that after I configured all of my Gmail accounts, I started automatically getting these "alert" e-mails for calendar appointments.

I don't want Mail or Calendar to send me alert e-mails, because I already get them directly from Google.

My question is: How can I disable these alert e-mails from occurring?

It is indeed Mac Calendar problem as author of the question suggested.

I faced the same issue and observed that I get these nasty "Alert - ..." emails only when Mac wakes up. I also did not get them before I started using my Mac.

To solve the problem on macOS 10.12.3:

Open Calendar app
Find your Google calendar on the list and right mouse click it
Select "Get Info" option from the context menu
Mark "Ignore alerts" checkbox in the popup window (see screenshot).


iPhone 4S turning off and discharging randomly My iPhone 4S (iOS 9.3.5) is randomly turning off and discharging at unexpected moments. It shows the spinning icon as if it was about to respring but turns off and the battery is dead.

When I plug it in a power source, however, within a few minutes, it goes back to the battery percentage of before dying.

Why is my iPhone doing this?

Having a trained repair person put a working battery in the device would let you know if the failure is simply due to battery / voltage or another hardware fault. Hard to tell without testing and doing the work, though.

Voltage drops is what causes the unexpected power off so corrosion or a faulty device that over draws the current that can be supplied can cause this. Also, perfectly working electronics won’t work if the battery is failing / failed.

Apple service diagnostic can usually tell if the battery is healthy, but I don’t know if they offer that service on this old of equipment anymore.


Opening a new Terminal window when it's running on another desktop I open a lot of terminal windows. I also make use good use of tabs & multiple desktops.

Normally I launch Terminal.app with Spotlight. But if Terminal is already running on another desktop, it changes to that desktop and opens it there. I hate that. I want it to open on the current desktop.

So for now, I've been doing this:

Is there a better way?

By Golly, I think I've found it this time.

Fire up Utilities/AppleScript Editor. Copy/paste the lines below. Save it and add it to your Dock. Whenever you click it you'll get a new window on your current desktop. You need to have "Enable support for assistive devices" activated in System Preferences - Universal Access.

tell application "Terminal" to activate
tell application "System Events"
    tell process "Terminal"
        click menu item "New Window" of menu "Shell" of menu bar 1
    end tell
end tell

Source: adapted from this hint regarding Safari.


Missing keyboard shortcut in El Capitan 10.11.5 to switch between windows within app I've just started running El Capitan (10.11.5) and one of my favorite keyboard shortcuts seems to have disappeared: the keyboard shortcut that let you move between windows within the same application. It used to be  Cmd ⌘   `   (tilde) but now that shortcut doesn't work and I can't figure out how to get it back.

Any ideas? Thank you in advance.

The Keyboard item in System Preferences has a Shortcuts tab. The Keyboard item in the Shortcuts tab has one item labeled Move focus to next window. The binding for that has a  `   rather than a  ~   (with the  Cmd ⌘  key; I don't know how to type a cloverleaf), but either binding has the same effect for me (that box is checked on my Mac).

It's possible you simply need to check that box; in any case, that seems like the first place to look.


How do I stop repeat by clicking away from active window or pressing a key using AppleScript? I'm attempting to write an AppleScript that keeps repeating an action until you press a key or click away from the active window. How would I go about doing that?

repeat repeatTimes times
tell application "System Events"

    keystroke firstText
    keystroke return
    delay firstDelay

    keystroke secondText
    keystroke return
    delay secondDelay

end tell
end repeat

i would prefer to modify repeat repeatTimes times to until keypress (any keypress) or until app not active or something. any ideas?

After a bit of researching, I came up with a 75% solution to your question.  The script below will repeat the actions inside the loop until one of two assertions are met:

① The window that has focus now is different to the window that had focus before;

② A modifier key out of either fn, ⌃, ⌥ and ⌘ is pressed.

I tried to find a solution that permits testing for any keydown event, but was only able to find a solution involving the modifier keys.  AppleScript alone cannot listen for key events, however AppleScript-ObjC can.  Perhaps another person will be able to provide the full solution that allows for monitoring of any key pressing.

I've added comments within the script to help guide you through what each part does.  Bear in mind, this is just an example script demonstrating one possible way of implementing these methods to achieve your objective:

    use sys : application "System Events"
    use framework "Cocoa"

    set [firstText, secondText] to ["A", "B"]
    set [firstDelay, secondDelay] to [0.2, 0.3]

    # Open up a new TextEdit document into which
    # the keystrokes can produce output
    tell application "TextEdit"
        activate

        set D to make new document
    end tell

    # Get frontmost window of the frontmost application
    set P to a reference to (the first process whose frontmost is true)
    set W to the front window of P

    # Repeat loop will break if the focussed window changes
    repeat until the front window of P is not equal to W

        tell sys to keystroke [firstText, return] as text
        if modifierKeydown() then exit repeat # Exit on keypress

        delay firstDelay

        tell sys to keystroke [secondText, return] as text
        if modifierKeydown() then exit repeat # Exit on keypress

        delay secondDelay

        if modifierKeydown() then exit repeat # Exit on keypress

    end repeat

    close D without saving # Close the TextEdit document

    # Returns true if any of
    # { function, control, option, command }
    # are depressed; false otherwise
    on modifierKeydown()

        set __m to current application's ¬
            NSEvent's modifierFlags() as any

        return (__m > 262143)

    end modifierKeydown

Note that the repeat loop checks for modifier keydown status a number of times within a single iteration.  I experimented with checking once, which necessitated holding down the modifier key for such a time until the loop was able to arrive at the checkpoint; and three times, which shortens the waiting time but at the expense of time that might be otherwise spent processing other actions within the loop (i.e. it will add to the delay times already in place between commands).

There's no right or wrong there—you'll have to play around with it and see what feels best for you.

Likewise, the check performed on window focus is only done once per iteration, which is actually very sufficient.  However, you will notice that clicking away from the window is ever so slightly obstructed by the attention given to performing the actions inside the loop.  It's not a problem at all, it just makes changing windows something done with more intent that normal.

None of that is surprising, however, given what this script is doing and how it's doing it.

Let me know how you get on, and if you have any questions or problems, leave a comment and I'll do my best to assist.


Can my messages be synced when I sign in on another iOS device? I have an iPhone and an iPod and I was using the same Apple ID on both devices but I changed my password on my iPhone. If I sign in on my iPod, will my messages from my iPhone be synced to my iPod?

If you change your Apple ID password, all instances where it was used should prompt you to update it before using it.
So after changing your password, your iPhone iMessages won't be synced to your iPod.

From the Apple Support page:

  The next time you use Apple features and services that require an Apple ID, you’ll be asked to sign in with your new Apple ID password.

And here:

  By changing your Apple ID password you can prevent anyone from accessing your iCloud data or using other services (such as iMessage or iTunes) from your missing device.

After you sign in again on your iPod, all new messages should be in sync, but in my experience it won't sync the messages in between the password change and the sign-in.


My calendar has a name? So, this is crazy and I cannot find how to solve the problem.  My calendar has a title to it and I can't get rid of it!  Instead of the date and year it shows a sushi restaurant name: 29 Heisei
How do I get that to go away?  Please!!!

Desperate in West Lafayette!
Kev

Tap Calendars at the bottom of the screen to show the list of calendars.
Tap the i icon on the right of the calendar with the name you'd like to change.
Tap the name of the calendar to edit it.
Enter a new name for the calendar, then tap Done.


Problems reconnecting to WiFi if connection is lost In the area where I live there are frequent power outages for a few seconds.  I am connected via a router, which (of course) restarts each time.  Unfortunately my Mac (2011 MB Pro) does not automatically reconnect to the WiFi after the router has restarted and I have to manually reselect the network.

Allan's answer below provided a temporary solution by simply trashing the airport preferences.  Unfortunately this solution only worked for a short time and now my Macbook won't reconnect again.  Does anyone have any further ideas?

I had assumed this was a problem of the router (and maybe it is) and therefore in the original question asked, whether it was possible to have some script or app run in the background that monitors whether WiFi is connected and when it's not it either tries to reconnect or to turn WiFi on and off or something that would ensure that I regain access.

Nonetheless, finding the root of the problem would obviously be preferred.  Any help greatly appreciated!

The WiFi on your MBP is, by design, supposed to reconnect to known networks automatically without the intervention of the user and/or an automated script.

That said, WiFi issues seem to have been an ongoing issue for Apple:  How do I connect my Mac to wifi automatically?

Now, I am assuming that this is a simple home network where you just have to select the network you want to connect to and provided you have the right passphrase or key, you get connected and away you go.

Given that you have a MacBook and it's portable, have you tried different networks - like gone over to a friends or a relatives home and see if the systems exhibit there?  If so, then the issue is limited to your MB, and not the router.

Also, does anyone else report having the issue with your router?  If not, it will again confirm that the problem is with your MBP and not the router itself.

What you can try:  Delete the Airport .plist

To  delete the plist file associated to the Airport,

Disable Airport
Delete the plist file; /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.airport.preferences.plist
Re-enable airport and select your favorite network again

This will delete ALL connections of the connections in your saved WiFi networks. You will need to save all of the passwords for all the networks that you want to connect to later.

How to get your WiFi Passwords

Before you delete the plist, you will want to make a copy of all your SSID passwords.  They are stored in your Keychain.

When you open your Keychain (CommandSpace and type "Keychain" to use Spotlight to open it) you will see a list of saved credentials from websites, to network passwords and of course the one we are interested in, Airport Passwords.

If you right click on the WiFi network you are interested in, you will have the option to "Copy the Password to the Clipboard" (how convenient is that?!?!)

You will be then asked to authenticate 2 times.  The first time because OS X will want to "make changes to your computer" and then a second time because it wants access to your "System Keychain"

This will require you to type your user name and password of an Administrator (if that's you, then your username and password).

You can now paste that password anywhere...

Or maybe in a spreadsheet for safekeeping...


How can I stop synchronization between chrome on PC and safari on iPhone? For the first time I opened iCloud on my PC. All of the bookmarks in Chrome are synchronized to Safari on my iPhone. I don't want this. And when I delete from Safari, I don't want the deletion to sync with Chrome.

How can I stop synchronization?

Another thing, how can I see how much space bookmarks, favorites take on iPhone?

Uncheck Bookmarks in the iCloud control panel.

& point 2... not much at all; wouldn't worry about it.


is it possible to write an application that can block call, disable writing text messages if you are driving is it possible to write an application that can block call, disable writing text messages if you are driving  or moving fast, regardless of any version of IOS?

No, iPhone apps do not have access to the phone or sms text systems.

There may be such apps in the jailbreak community, but nothing like it will be in the App Store.


How do I show Apple Maps turn-by-turn navigation for public transport on my lock screen and Apple Watch? I use the iOS Apple Maps app frequently for public transport directions. In the past, if I was actively navigating using public transport, Maps would display turn-by-turn directions on the lock screen and on my Apple Watch. Since upgrading to iOS 13 this doesn't happen, although I still get turn-by-turn on the lock screen and watch for driving and walking directions.

How do I get turn-by-turn back for public transport?

Open the Apple Watch app on your iPhone.

Tap My Watch, then tap Maps.

Turn on the alerts you want to receive—Driving, Driving with CarPlay, and Walking.

Turn on Transport option under Show Navigation. If it is ON already, then turn OFF and turn ON again.
It should resolve your issue.


Why does FaceTime ring on all my devices? Have tried everything! when my daughter receives a FaceTime call from one of her friends (now that I think about it it may be only this one friend), my iPhone, my husband's iPhone, and my iPad all ring.  I set up separate iCloud accounts for all of us and turned off cellular calling on my iPad. There doesn't seem to be an option to do this on the iPhone any longer. Despite these efforts,  all of our devices still ring when my daughter gets a FaceTime call from her friend. What should I do next?

It sounds like you have the same AppleID on all the devices. The default is that all devices configured with the same AppleID use the primary email address associated with that Apple ID.

You have a couple of options:

Use a different AppleID
Use a different email other than the primary one.  There's an excellent article on how to do this workaround

Basically, you go into the Facetime settings on on each device you don't want to ring and add another (different) email.


Why is launchd saying "service already loaded" but "launchctl list" doesn't show the service? I created the configuration files in  ~/Library/LaunchAgents

When I attempted to load the plist, I got the message that the service was already loaded.

launchctl load ~/LaunchAgents/hosts_Blocksites_AM.plist
/Users/bryan/LaunchAgents/hosts_Blocksites_AM.plist: service already loaded

When I attempted to find the Launchd agent nothing was returned.

$ sudo launchctl list | grep hosts_Blocksites_AM.plist

EDIT: fixed typo where I had:
    launchctl load ~/LaunchAgents/hosts_unBlocksites_AM.plist

It's possibly because you grep'ed for a different file than you tried to load (hosts_unBlocksites_AM.plist vs. hosts_Blocksites_AM.plist), but also note that root has its own list of launch agents and when you run sudo launchctl list you will see root's list, which is different from launchctl list which will show yours.

So this should work (depending on what you're trying to do in your launch agent):

launchctl list | grep Blocksites
launchctl load ~/LaunchAgents/hosts_unBlocksites_AM.plist

If needed, run both as sudo (not just one of them).


changed password but still can't access my account My original computer with my itunes account crashed and burned. I am trying to make sense of the account on my new computer. I was able to buy musice and movies but now I can't do anything. I changed my password but I keep getting a message that says my password is incorrect. its not incorrect. Anybody have any ideas how to fix that. I am totally frustrated.

https://appleid.apple.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/MyAppleId.woa/

Try signing in there. If it works, your Apple ID (and therefore iTunes account) are all working fine and there's an issue with your install of iTunes. If not, you can reset the password from there and hopefully it'll help you get it working on your iTunes.


How to use terminal to copy a file to the clipboard? I got a file on desktop, file name is ded.html. To copy the file, I click the file and press cmd+c.

Now how would I do the same thing using terminal ?

If I'm understanding the question right, what you're after is pbcopy and pbpaste.
Open a terminal and run:
cat ~/Desktop/ded.html | pbcopy

The file is now in your clipboard.
To put it somewhere else (i.e. paste it) run:
pbpaste > ~/Documents/ded.html

Now you should have a copy of ded.html sitting in ~/Documents.


Worthwhile to reformat and re-install? I had a 2 1/2 year old Macbook Pro.  It was a 2.33 Intel Core 2 Duo with 4 GB of ram, 320 GB hard drive, running Lion.

An employee of my company left and his Macbook Pro was a 2.66 Intel Core i7 with 8 GB of Ram, 500GB hard drive.

At the suggestion of a friend, he said to swap my hard drive out and take the new computer, so I did it...

I find the new computer is running slower than my old computer for pretty much all the applications (and including booting up).

Would it be worthwhile to reformat the entire hard drive and do a clean install?  Side related note: Would adding an SSD help this as well?

Thanks

Your best bet is to restore the original hard drive, it is most likely much faster than the 2.5 year old one, and then use Migration Assistant to Transfer your files to the new computer.


Does a Macbook Pro have 1 or 2 Hard Disk Controllers? If SATA channel 1 (used by the hard drive) is damaged, could it be that SATA channel 2 (used by the SuperDrive) is fine?

I would like to know if I can use a hard drive on the SuperDrive channel even though the hard disk channel is damaged.

It has two and yes, you can make the controller that connects to the SuperDrive spot the primary controller and run your MacBook Pro exclusively off a drive attached to this controller.

I'm writing this from a MacBook Pro that has an SSD installed into the SuperDrive spot using an OWC DataDoubler bracket. This is the primary drive in my machine and the mechanical drive has come and gone from the machine without any issues. The machine still booted, ran from my SSD in the SuperDrive spot.


Updating path openssl keeps using wrong path I had to downgrade openssl version for mysql. But when I ran openssl version I still got the wrong version. So I checked which openssl and I saw that it's using from anaconda:

(base) ➜  ~ which openssl
/opt/anaconda3/bin/openssl

But it needs to use:

(base) ➜  ~ ls /usr/local/Cellar/openssl
1.0.2t

So what I tried:

(base) ➜  ~ export PATH="/usr/local/Cellar/openssl/bin:$PATH"
(base) ➜  ~ source ~/.bash_profile
(base) ➜  ~ echo $PATH | tr ':' '\n'
/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.8/bin
/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.7/bin
/usr/local/Cellar/openssl/bin
/opt/anaconda3/bin
/opt/anaconda3/condabin
/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.8/bin
/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.7/bin
/usr/local/bin
/usr/bin
/bin
/usr/sbin
/sbin

So as you can see, my path is updated correctly. But when I run again which openssl it still gives me openssl from anaconda, what am I doing wrong here?

/usr/local/Cellar/openssl/bin (which currently is in your PATH) doesn't exist. If you want to use openssl from Homebrew use /usr/local/opt/openssl/bin (which will always point to the latest version installed via Homebrew).

export PATH="/usr/local/opt/openssl/bin:$PATH“


Cannot connect to wifi after resetting network settings I am currently running 8.1.2 on an iphone 6 plus. I have recently noticed that the internet became practically unusuable so i decided to reset my network settings. I tried signing back in to the same wifi I used on my other devices and it gave me the "incorrect password" error. So at first i thought of trying to forget and reconnect to the network on my iphone 5s(also running 8.1.2) to make sure i wasn't typing the weong password, but it worked. Next i tried to go into the router settings and copy the password onto my 6 plus but still could not connect. I've never gotten this problem before.

EDIT:
I will try and update to ios 9, if it still does not work. I'm going to apple to exchange and get back on how it goes

Update:
I decided to hard reset and restore my phone and the wifi started working again. The problem has been solved, i do not know how but i would appreciate anyone's answer might there be any future problems

I had that issue on an iphone 5 a bunch of times. All the other apple devices worked just fine. Very frustrating. There's a thread on one of the support forums with hundreds of replies from folks with similar issues but no real solutions. We replaced the router as well but that did not fix it. After the phone was replaced with same model it went away so I think it may have been a hardware issue. When I had the issue, a workaround I found was to use 5GHz only as the 2.4Ghz gave the issues but the 5GHz did not. HTH


iPhone EXIF/GPS Timestamp - Appears to be based on local settings? I was under the impression that the iPhone received timestamps along with GPS location data. While I can't say its not true for the internal database, it seems to be for the EXIF data attached to photos taken by the iPhone's camera.

I ran a test by turning off automatic date/time settings, ensuring my correct timezone was set.

I took a photo (IMG_1692), rolled back the time by two hours and took another (IMG_1693).

Using Phil Harvey's EXIF Editor, I retrieved this output:

$ exiftool IMG_1692.JPG | grep Time
File Modification Date/Time     : 2012:04:29 22:51:46+10:00
Exposure Time                   : 1/15
Date/Time Original              : 2012:04:29 22:51:46
GPS Time Stamp                  : 13:51:00
$ exiftool IMG_1693.JPG | grep Time
File Modification Date/Time     : 2012:04:29 20:51:32+10:00
Exposure Time                   : 1/15
Date/Time Original              : 2012:04:29 20:51:32
GPS Time Stamp                  : 11:40:50

You can clearly see the two hour difference in the file timestamp, as well as the GPS time!

Am I correct in this assertion that the GPS timestamp doesn't come from the GPS at all? Or am I missing something?

Am I correct in this assertion that the GPS timestamp doesn't come
  from the GPS at all? Or am I missing something?

Your experiment definitely makes it look like that!

This very detailed web page Exif Schema for Exif-specific Properties says:

  GPS Time Stamp: GPS tag 29 (date), 0x1D, and, and GPS tag 7 (time), 0x07. Time stamp of GPS data, in Coordinated Universal
  Time. Note: The GPSDateStamp tag is new in EXIF 2.2. The GPS
  timestamp in EXIF 2.1 does not include a date. If not present, the
  date component for the XMP should be taken from exif:DateTimeOriginal,
  or if that is also lacking from exif:DateTimeDigitized. If no date is
  available, do not write exif:GPSTimeStamp to XMP.

It looks like what's happening is the File Modification Date/Time shows the local date & time according the phone's clock, in the phone's time zone.

This is then converted to Coordinated Universal Time ("UTC"), and saved as the GPS Time Stamp.


How do you delete Dropbox from OS X Yosemite? So this seems like an obvious one, but after some searching around the web and Dropbox's bad help section I've really come unstuck with this.

I'm trying to delete the official Dropbox app from my Macbook and everytime I try and move the .app package to the trash by right clicking it says that it can't because the app is being used elsewhere.

Is there anyway I can go about deleting it? I've checked Force Quit and it's not there, so I'm curious how you get rid of this thing.

Check Activity Monitor to see if there are any Dropbox processes running. If there are, kill them, then you should be able to delete the Dropbox app. If you have used Dropbox at all, then remember that any files you synched will still be on your MacBook's HD in /Users/[your_username]/Dropbox.


What's the order of USB Cables in the male connector of Apple Keyboard with n. Keypad? The male connector end of my keyboard, Apple Keyboard with numerical keypad, got squeezed beyond repair.

I chopped off that bit and newly stripped the 4 leads: Red, Black, Green & White/Grey.

I'd like to solder these to a new connector.

I'm wondering:

Is there a "standard" for the order of USB cables globally or for Apple keyboards?
What's the right order in this product's case?

USB pinouts are universal.  So, once you have the IEEE standard used, you should be able to resolder a new connector with no problem.  In this case, the USB connector used on the Apple Keyboard is a USB v1.1 connector.

I have included the pinouts for USB 1.1/2.0 below for reference.

Short of that, I am sure you could use the continuity function on a multi-meter on a USB cable to figure out which pin goes where


How can my iPhone status change to online if it was locked when stolen My iPhone 6s was stolen a few days ago, however because I was running out of data I switched off my mobile data before that happened.

When I got home I tried to track my phone and lock it using Find My Phone, but it said my device was offline, I tried to activate Lost mode but it said it was pending and would be activated when it is connected to the internet.

My question is, if my phone was locked as per usual (i.e. requiring my thumbprint or 6 digit passcode) when the phone was stolen, and the thief doesn't know my password, how could they gain access to my Settings and connect to the internet, so the Lost mode can be activated?

The iPhone when locked will join known WiFi hotspots that it's set to join when plugged in to power.
If it's connected to iTunes, it will communicate to the server if someone tries to erase or activate it.
If a working SIM with cellular data is inserted (or you turn data back on) then the lock/tracking can engage

If none of those three items happen, the lock may sit on Apple's servers until cancelled or they shut down / purge old requests. I would turn on your data if you can to get it back or tracking remotely the quickest.

The good news is it's locked to your account, so whoever buys it or tries to sell it won't get any value/satisfaction and your data is as secure as the passcode settings are (4 digits can generally be brute forced, erase after 10 and a longer passphrase/password is generally not crackable). The bad news is without a viable data connection, you can't track it's whereabouts while the battery or device is powered.


Can log in to OS X account but can't unlock after locking Today I bought a MacBook Air with OS X 10.9.4. I have problem with account password. I can log in normally at start, when the screen turns off I get unlock screen, but I can't unlock it and I am 100% sure, that I type correct password. I also can't unlock preferences and do stuff with 'sudo' in terminal. Does anyone know how to solve this?

You should be able to reset it using one of the following methods.

Method 1:
 > system preference > users & groups

if the check box beside "allow user to reset password using Apple ID is checked, you should be able to reset it using you apple id and password (make sure you're connected to the internet)

Method 2:
else you can boot into the recovery partition by holding CMD & R, then on the top menu you should be able to navigate and find an option that says "reset password", the down side is you lose all you keychain items (your WIFI passwords, safari saved passwords, etc)


How to open TIFF file created in 2001 on Mac I have recorded CD on Mac in 2001 (TIF, EPS).

But I cannot open files from this CD on Windows.

TIF files are not in valid format (first 2 bytes neither 4D4D nor 4949). But in file I found "TIFF8BIM" at the beginging and end of file ("EPSF8BIM" for EPS).

How can I convert these files on Windows? Thanks...

Most likely, the files are compressed by DiskDоubler or its equivalent.
You can decompress it on MacOSX with The Unarchiver,
on Windows,Linux and Mac you can use unar command line utility.
You can found DiskDoubler, for example, here
I restored the 1996 year archive from Pinnacle Micro 1.3 GB Magneto Optical Disks, but could not open some files. Inside these files I found EPSF8BIM, EPSFART5, TIFF8BIM, XDOCXPR3, WXDOCXPR3 at the beginning and end, and random mess between them. I installed DiskDoubler on an old G4 MacOS 9 computer and unpacked the files, after which the files began to open without problems on Mac, Linux and Windows.
In those glorious days, disk space was worth a lot of money and people tried to solve this problem by compressing files on the fly.


Terminal command to list application defaults? I'm new to Mac from the Linux world, and I am looking for a command or file providing a list to default user applications associated with certain filetypes.  For example, on Linux:

$ cat /usr/share/applications/defaults.list

provides the application names and priority hierarchies on Linux.  I've tried something similar using defaults on the Mac, but I can't seem to find what I'm looking for.

$ defaults read | grep pdf
  name = "1309.0238.pdf";
  name = "1309.0238.pdf";

Does the Mac operating system have a simple, command-line function or accessible file to find the default applications?

Not easily. You can use the well-hidden lsregister command to dump the contents of the Launch Services database, which is what controls which file types open with which applications:

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -dump

but its output isn't well documented -- there's some info here, but it's over 10 years old so it's probably at least partially obsolete. A bit of Googling turns up some AppleScripts for further parsing, that you might be able to adopt:

https://stackoverflow.com/a/3452435/476909
https://macosx.com/threads/howto-list-your-installed-applications.26204/


Activate older iPhone without proper SIM? I recently upgraded to the iPhone 4s from my 3gs. I do not want to sell my 3gs as I would like to keep it as a 32gb iPod essentially.

When I transfered to the 4s, they swapped my regular SIM for my new micro sim. No problems here. However, once I updated my 3gs to ios5, it requests that I need a SIM for activation, one I no longer have.

I am not sure how to go about this?

Note: I really don't want to go through the process of jailbreaking/unlocking my 3gs. I am familiar with it and know how it is done but do not wish to do so on this phone.

I'm going out on a limb a bit but I think this might work.  Notice all the disclaimers.

If you have a spare GSM phone, go to an AT&T store with it, buy a pre-paid SIM card, and have them activate it.  Go home and swap the card into your 3GS.  It should work immediately for voice and text.  Data requires some extra steps but it doesn't sound like you care about that.  My local store just gave me a SIM and activated it in my phone when I purchased a $10 credit.  YMMV.

That said, I have not taken the next step of moving my card into an iPhone.  I'm planning on buying an unlocked 4S but I'm working up the courage to pull the trigger on a big purchase that might not work out as expected.

Don't take your iPhone into the AT&T store as they don't support iPhones on prepay plans and "don't support" translates into they won't sell you the SIM.

If you don't have a spare GSM phone, you could buy a cheap, used one on eBay.  You could also try buying a cheap AT&T GoPhone ($10 at Best Buy) and using the SIM from it but I've heard that the SIM card gets locked to the phone for 90 days after it's activated.  I also hear that you can take the card out before turning the phone on, put it in your iPhone, and activiate it from the AT&T web site.

In theory, "don't support" could translate into actively blocking iPhones on the prepay plan at some point but no sign of it so far and once you get activated, you don't care anyway.

If you do this, let us know how it turns out.


Show Downloads folder on the Dock as fan instead of opening immediately I am trying to get the Downloads folder on my dock in the Fan view, as seen in this picture:

However, when I click on the folder, the folder immediately opens instead.

Find the download folder you added to the dock. Right click on that folder and do get info. In the pane that opens there should be a line that says "Original" with the location of the actual downloadeds folder. Go to that downloads folder and drag it to the dock area where the other download folder is located. Remove that first download folder from the dock and place this new download folder there instead. Now you should be able to set it up as a fan.


Remove external drive from Time Machine I bought an external drive several months ago but I haven't used it heavily until now. I discovered today that I forgot to exclude it from Time Machine, and so when I started adding tons of files to it today Time Machine complained that it didn't have enough space to back up.

I excluded the external drive, and it still won't backup. When I look in the Backup.backupdb file, I can see the folder for the external drive, but I can't remove it.

How can I recover that space so it can back up my main drive again?

I got an answer from an on-line friend.

  The procedure varies with different versions of macOS but it should be
  something like this:

  There's a little gear icon you can have visible in Finder windows.
  You need this.  So if you have customised the toolbar to remove it,
  put it back in.  You also need the Time Machine icon in your menu bar,
  and to connect your backup drive if it's not already connected.

  Open a Finder window and pilot your way to a view which shows the
  volume you want to remove.

  Use the Time Machine menu bar icon --> Enter Time Machine

  In that Finder Window highlight the volume / files you want to remove.

  From the gear icon at the top of that window choose "Delete all
  backups"

I did that and now instead of 294.41GB available on my TimeMachine drive, I have 3.74TB.


macOS fails to reinstall when trying to factory reset I have a Early 2011 MacBook Pro and I've been wanting to give it away (as it is acting up) so I factory reset it. Erasing the hard disk went fine, but when I tried to reinstall the OS in the recovery mode, it keeps showing errors and not letting me restart. It says

no native mechanism to verify basesystem.dmg,
no native mechanism to verify applediagnostics.chunklist

and

failed to verify installESDDmg.pkg: xar_verify failed

in the installer log. It also remains stuck on the same screen with about a minute remaining....

How do I resolve this issue?

The pulling the RAM out before installing did the trick for me!

When I first bought my MacBook 5 years ago it only came with 4GB of RAM. About a year and a half ago I upgraded this to 8GB. For whatever reason this throws errors and won't let you reinstall Mac OS X again.

So what I did was turned the MacBook off and flipped it over and took off the bottom cover. I then removed one of the sticks of RAM (the one on top) and restarted the computer and tried installing again. This time it installed without any issues and after it was installed I put the other stick of RAM back in again.


How can I download macOS High Sierra's full installation file? I've installed the macOS Developer Beta Access Utility (.pkg file) from Apple Developer's official website. Upon completing installation, it opens the Mac App Store to the macOS High Sierra installation page automatically.

Under the 'Information' section, it's stated that the size of the installation file is 4.90 GB.

However, when I downloaded it, it didn't download the full installation file. Instead, it's only 7.8 MB large.

The installation file looks the same as a usual one.

So,

Why are some users getting the 4.90 GB file while others are getting the 7.8 MB file?
Is there any way to get the full 4.90 GB installation file?

Fyi, my Mac is currently running on macOS Sierra 10.12.3 (16D32).

Update

I appreciate the two answers that I've received and both can be reproduced. However, I'm not sure on why are some users getting the 4.90 GB file while others are getting the 7.8 MB file.

This thread from MacRumours suggests that it's something to do with the amount of disk space available on the Mac.

For what it's worth: I have encountered a similar issue: a very small download file (14,5 MB), that launched automatically after a few seconds... tried it twice (both times the installation failed giving me some error about corrupted information on the server - I'm not sure what it meant but it might have been related to the fact that I was logged onto the MAS with a different account than the one I signed up for the public beta with). Anyway I just retried again and just on a whim before clicking download I pressed alt on the keyboard... now it's downloading the full thing.
This all happened in the space of 10 minutes.


Over VNC, configure the system to not use a second monitor while it's physically connected I have two monitors set up at work, with the external one set to a portrait configuration. When I attempt to VNC in to work remotely, this results in a HUGE (something like 1600x3000) because the virtual screen is the compositing of the two (with black bars where  there is no monitor space).

As a result, the VNC connection is non-responsive.

I'd like to be able to login via ssh and disable the second monitor via some command-line command or script. What commands might accomplish this?

Again, I am remote, so disconnecting the screen is not an option, and mirroring results in a screen that is about 1440x1440 (so it will fit onto both monitors with no stretching), so that is also a non-optimal strategy.

Output from xrandr:

themachine% xrandr -q
xrandr: Failed to get size of gamma for output default
Screen 0: minimum 640 x 480, current 2970 x 1680, maximum 2970 x 1702
default connected 2970x1680+0+0 0mm x 0mm
   1920x1080      60.0
   640x480        60.0
   800x600        60.0
   1024x768       60.0
   1280x1024      60.0
   1280x720       60.0
   1344x756       60.0
   1600x900       60.0
   1680x1050      60.0
   2970x1680       1.0*
   2970x1702       2.0

Depending on what type of Apple machine you are connecting to, you can try these commands and see if they work for you. I know they are used with X11..This is the command to disable dual screens (Assuming it's a laptop).

xrandr --output VGA --off

And if you want to this is a command to enable the dual screens (but might aid you in troubleshooting getting the secondary one off). LVDS is the liquid display and VGA is the secondary monitor.

xrandr --output VGA --mode 1024x768
xrandr --output VGA --right-of LVDS


Privacy Issues. Are they able to recover my deleted files? I bring my iPhone to the apple store and they noticed that there's a hardware problem. After 3 days I receive an update from Apple Store and they said that it is already for replacement. I deleted my private files before I give to them.  I just want to ask if they will still recover my files? Like contacts, pictures, videos and memo?

Its very hard to say with certainty.

If they really wanted to, they could probably recover your files.

However, if you've followed the recommended instructions to erase all content at https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201557 and https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201274, the chances are you're probably ok.

Although Apple goes to some effort to not say that its a secure erase, as a corporation, they are not interested in the liability and legal implications of being able to access those files. They're actually motivated to NOT be able to retrieve them. The fact that this process was slow on old devices also implies that it was a secure erase.


Acer H277H monitor is not charging 2016 MacBook when plugged in via USB-C. Is this possible? My MacBook is connected to monitor via computer's USB-C to monitor's Display Port with one cable. Given that MacBook only has one USB-C port, my computer cannot charge while using the monitor. If the computer is not charging the display will shut off when the MacBook's lid is closed thus requiring me to leave the lid open, which is, in turn, draining power quickly.

Is there a way to power the computer via the monitor while plugged in?

This isn't a USB-C compliant monitor so it's not going to supply power.1  DVI, DP, and HDMI don't support power delivery.  Looking at the Tech Specs page for this monitor, it supports:

DVI
HDMI
VGA

To charge your MacBook and connect your external monitor, you need something like the Apple USB-C Multiport AV adapter.

So, you won't be able to charge your MacBook via this monitor because your monitor doesn't support power delivery, but you can have both your monitor and power adapter connected by using this adapter.

1 USB-C Power Delivery Specification.  http://www.usb.org/developers/powerdelivery/


How can I check the model of my Apple computer? Is there a way that I check the model number of my Apple computer? (For example, iMac9,1.)

System Profiler

In the left corner of the top menu, pick the apple menu and select About This Mac.

In the About This Mac panel, click the More Info... button. This starts the System Profiler.

On the first page (Hardware Overview) there is a Model Identifier, which is the name you are interested in.


How to change me in contacts In my contacts, there is a contact wrongly labeled as 'me'. What should I do so that I can label the right person as 'me'? How do I change 'me'?

I'm using iOS8.

Within the Settings application, go to ‘Mail Contacts and Calendars’ and scroll down to the Contacts section.

In later versions of iOS, there are three separate pages, one of which is ‘Contacts’.
Change the selection within My Info to the correct contact.


OS X Text Replacements sometimes not working? This is a weird problem, I write a lot of different languages on my computer, and since my keyboard doesn't have all the keys in the world, I have made certain key-combinations that replaces them with another letter.

For example, "†˛" becomes "þ" and "∂∂" becomes "ð". Now that works fine, but I have also added "œœ" that is supposed to become "ǫ", but form some reason that special replacement does not work while the others do.  EDIT: To be able to type the ǫ letter I must also press space ("œœ "), while the others work perfectly to write in a word without pressing space.

Is there any reason for this? I'm using the Yosemite 10.10.2, the same problem exists on the 10.0.3 DP.

From what I can test empirically here, the text replace function handles 'letters' differently from 'other characters'.

For instance, I can replace ## with € in the middle of a word, yet I cannot make qq do the same thing, it demands either a space, or for me to click on the confirmation box that springs up.

I'd perhaps suggest as a workaround, use a less letter-like trigger.
If it doesn't spring a confirmation box, then it will replace mid-word.
!! @@ ££ $$ etc all work just fine.


Can you please specify that how much apple paying for per app downloads Can you please specify that how much apple pays per app downloads.

I want to know that how much amount apple pays for app download/device.

I know, it's not a programming related question, but I don't know where to ask it. I posted a question on the Apple support forum, but got no reply.

Thanks in advance for your reply!

It depends on the price of your app.

For each sale, Apple charges a 30% tax on the price paid by the user.


Better Android File Transfer program I need a way to hook up my android phone to my Mac and generate preview of the files when they reside on the device.

The Android File Transfer program lacks view by icon. That is, I cannot see thumbnails of the photos on my phone that I want to drag and drop to the Desktop for example.
Same with iTunes.

Is there a better program out there?

AirDroid? It transfers data over WiFi instead USB: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sand.airdroid


Do I have to restart the Apple Store iOS app at 3:01 AM? When the Apple Store goes down for maintenance in anticipation of a preorder about to go live, if I were to have the Apple Store iOS app open during that time, would the "We'll be back" screen automatically disappear when the time comes to preorder those items, or would I need to force-restart the app for the change to take effect?

In 2016, I had to force-close and relaunch the Apple Store app for it to show the new contents. I know this because refreshing Safari showed me the updated Apple Store ordering pages, while the app was still showing, “We’ll be right back.” There is no way to force the app to refresh itself, so relaunching it is the only option if you’re in a hurry.

Maybe that’s been fixed since (I didn’t preorder right at midnight for iPhone 8/WATCH 3), but if in doubt, keep force-closing and relaunching (or refresh Safari until you know the Store is back up; however the web version of the site has occasionally come back up after the app version).

Do keep in mind that in 2016, the Apple Store came back online long (15 minutes?) after the carriers went live with preorders. In fact, AT&T (and possibly others) even started a first-come, first-served queue 5+ minutes before midnight.

Lastly, if the iPhone 8 and WATCH 3 launch is any indication, a number of phones will be reserved for local pickup. You should be able to verify that many models  that are on delivery-backorder are still available for local pickup on September 22nd. I’m guessing Apple did this to:

Draw larger launch-day crowds to the stores.
Mitigate the advantage of living farther west (and only needing to wait until midnight, as opposed to waking up at 3 a.m.).
Save on shipping?

It is already possible to select an iPhone X model and add it as a favorite in the app. If you want to maximize your chances I would advise you to do this, then set it as the item on display under Account → My Favorites. Come preorder time, tap on it, then go straight to confirm your order.


Can macbook pro (2016) support two displays on single port? I am thinking to buy new macbook pro released but without touchbar version. I already have two dell u2415 monitors which I have been using with thunderbolt cables to my old macbook pro 2015. So I would rather buy two thunderbolt adapters and connect display or use one adapter if possible to use both the screens.

As of today you Cannot.
We have a brand new Late 2016 Macbook Pro and 2 Apple/LG 21.5 USB-C 4K monitors. Daisy-chaining/MST does not work. We are using the monitors and nothing else with the original cables. Only way to get both to work is to connect each to individual USB-C ports on the MBP. Sad but true.


Microsoft RDP Crash on launch I work for a primarily Microsoft based IT support company, anyway today a Mac user asked me to setup RDP which I wouldn't normally have any issues with but I got onto the Mac and installed the latest RDP client from the app store (this was updated a couple days ago).

Anyway when I try to launch it from launchpad I get a crash every time, I tried reinstalling but it still does the exact same.

I am not experienced with Mac's at all so I am finding it hard to troubleshoot this, can anyone shed some light on this or point me in the right direction?

Process:         launchd [571]
Path:            /Applications/Microsoft Remote Desktop.app/Contents/MacOS/Microsoft Remote Desktop
Identifier:      com.microsoft.rdc.mac
Version:         ??? (???)
Code Type:       X86-64 (Native)
Parent Process:  launchd [133]

Date/Time:       2015-11-03 09:22:44.647 +0000
OS Version:      Mac OS X 10.7.5 (11G63)
Report Version:  9

Interval Since Last Report:          1197257 sec
Crashes Since Last Report:           13
Per-App Crashes Since Last Report:   12
Anonymous UUID:                      CA434F00-4590-4545-832A-B884258E0AD6

Crashed Thread:  Unknown

Exception Type:  EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV)
Exception Codes: KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS at 0x00007fff5fc01028

Backtrace not available

Unknown thread crashed with X86 Thread State (64-bit):
  rax: 0x0000000000000055  rbx: 0x0000000000000000  rcx: 0x0000000000000000  rdx: 0x0000000000000000
  rdi: 0x0000000000000000  rsi: 0x0000000000000000  rbp: 0x0000000000000000  rsp: 0x0000000000000000
   r8: 0x0000000000000000   r9: 0x0000000000000000  r10: 0x0000000000000000  r11: 0x0000000000000000
  r12: 0x0000000000000000  r13: 0x0000000000000000  r14: 0x0000000000000000  r15: 0x0000000000000000
  rip: 0x00007fff5fc01028  rfl: 0x0000000000010203  cr2: 0x00007fff5fc01028
Logical CPU: 0

Binary images description not available

External Modification Summary:
  Calls made by other processes targeting this process:
    task_for_pid: 1
    thread_create: 0
    thread_set_state: 0
  Calls made by this process:
    task_for_pid: 0
    thread_create: 0
    thread_set_state: 0
  Calls made by all processes on this machine:
    task_for_pid: 1136
    thread_create: 0
    thread_set_state: 0

Model: MacBookPro8,1, BootROM MBP81.0047.B27, 2 processors, Intel Core i5, 2.4 GHz, 4 GB, SMC 1.68f99
Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 3000, Intel HD Graphics 3000, Built-In, 384 MB
Memory Module: BANK 0/DIMM0, 2 GB, DDR3, 1333 MHz, 0x80CE, 0x4D34373142353737334448302D4348392020
Memory Module: BANK 1/DIMM0, 2 GB, DDR3, 1333 MHz, 0x80CE, 0x4D34373142353737334448302D4348392020
AirPort: spairport_wireless_card_type_airport_extreme (0x14E4, 0xD6), Broadcom BCM43xx 1.0 (5.106.198.19.22)
Bluetooth: Version 4.0.8f17, 2 service, 11 devices, 1 incoming serial ports
Network Service: Wi-Fi, AirPort, en1
Serial ATA Device: TOSHIBA MK5065GSXF, 500.11 GB
Serial ATA Device: OPTIARC DVD RW AD-5970H
USB Device: FaceTime HD Camera (Built-in), apple_vendor_id, 0x8509, 0xfa200000 / 3
USB Device: hub_device, 0x0424  (SMSC), 0x2513, 0xfa100000 / 2
USB Device: Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad, apple_vendor_id, 0x0253, 0xfa120000 / 5
USB Device: BRCM2070 Hub, 0x0a5c  (Broadcom Corp.), 0x4500, 0xfa110000 / 4
USB Device: Bluetooth USB Host Controller, apple_vendor_id, 0x821a, 0xfa113000 / 8
USB Device: hub_device, 0x0424  (SMSC), 0x2513, 0xfd100000 / 2
USB Device: IR Receiver, apple_vendor_id, 0x8242, 0xfd110000 / 3

Check the version of Mac OS X - Microsoft has dropped support for Mac OS X 10.7 and 10.8.

See this tech-net link for more info OSX 10.7 Remote Desktop crash at startup.

I believe that an Mac OS X update to 10.10 (El Capitan) is available free in the App Store.


Make folders opened by external apps open in a new finder tab rather than a window I have the setting "open folders in new tabs" (instead of new windows) in finder turned on but this does not seem to influence what my other apps do when they open a folder. Launchbar and a shell script I run from emacs still opens folders in small finder windows. How can I make folders opened from external apps all appear in one tabbed finder window?

Edit: Bmike in the comment is right that this could probably be done via an applescript. Something like this:

You have some script that gives you the path of the folder you want to open.
You pass this as a variable to an applescript.
This applescript saves the pathname as a variable
It activates finder or opens a particular folder with finder.
It sends the keystroke command + t to open a new tab (or does the same with a command to finder).
It sends the keystroke command + shift + g to finder opening the go to folder with path x menu/window.
It writes (systemevents) or pastes it (set clipboard to the variable that is the path of the folder) into this menu/window.
Click enter. The folder is opened.

I did this, not sure if it will answer it for you.

Finder Preferences > General > check "open folders in tabs instead of new windows"


"opensnoop" utility doesn't work with spaces between filenames, how to fix? I use "opensnoop"

/usr/bin/opensnoop

to show all files which are opened from different processes.

But when I want to specific a file with

sudo opensnoop -n "directory/filename"

i'm getting this error:

token too large, exceeds YYLMAX

I'm hunting around for a fix and found only this website. The author modified the opensnoop script:

  this is due to line 154 in /usr/bin/opensnoop containing
  inline string NAME  = "'$pname'";
  that produces a dtrace script with this quoting
  inline string NAME  = "foo' 'bar";
  and the first single quote ends the dtrace invocation leaving its input script incomplete.
  The quick patch is to replace line 154 with
  inline string NAME  = "'"$pname"'";

but i'm still getting this error message.

Can anybody help me? Or tell me another utility where i can show the app which is currently working with a specific file?

-n is only meant to be used with process names like sudo opensnoop -n System\ Preferences. To see what processes access a file, use sudo opensnoop -f /tmp/a\ b.txt.

The change mentioned in the blog post fixes -n but not -f. To fix both of them, edit /usr/bin/opensnoop and replace these lines:

inline string PATHNAME = "'$pathname'";
inline string NAME = "'$pname'";

With this:

inline string PATHNAME = "'"$pathname"'";
inline string NAME = "'"$pname"'";


MacBook Pro 13-inch maximum memory This Apple support article, MacBook Pro: How to remove or install memory, says that the maximum memory on a MacBook Pro 13-inch is 8 GB. Is that a hard limit? Why could I not install a 16 GB memory stick in there? Would it work, but only for the first 8 GB? Is there any way around the limit?

To pick a random 13" MBP, such as this one from mid 2012:
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook_pro/specs/macbook-pro-core-i5-2.5-13-mid-2012-unibody-usb3-specs.html
The 8Gb limit seems to be an Apple supported limit, but many people happily report getting 16Gb working fine - see the memory section in the link as well as this page for details.

The "Mid-2009" and "Mid-2010" MacBook Pro models support 1066 MHz PC3-8500 DDR3 SO-DIMMs and officially and unofficially support a maximum of 8 GB of RAM with one odd exception.
Specifically, as discovered by OWC, the 13-Inch "Mid-2010" MacBook Pro models (and only the 13-Inch models) -- the MacBook Pro "Core 2 Duo" 2.4 13" Mid-2010 and "Core 2 Duo" 2.66 13" Mid-2010 identified by MacBookPro7,1 -- can support up to 16 GB of RAM with dual 8 GB memory modules if they are running OS X 10.7.5 or higher, have been updated to use the latest EFI, and are equipped with proper specification memory modules. If running a version of Mac OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard," these models only can use 8 GB of RAM.
The "Early 2011" and "Late 2011" MacBook Pro models use faster 1333 MHz PC3-10600 DDR3 SO-DIMMs. They officially support 8 GB of RAM, but OWC has determined that they actually support 16 GB of RAM regardless of the operating system installed, although only the "Early 2011" MacBook Pro models are capable of running a version of Mac OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard."
Finally, the "Mid-2012" non-Retina Display MacBook Pro models use faster still 1600 MHz PC3-12800 DDR3 SO-DIMMs and likewise officially support 8 GB of RAM, but actually can support as much as 16 GB of RAM. These models do not run versions of OS X prior to OS X 10.7 "Lion."


What is the function of `Library/Application Support/updater_mcy/updater_mcy` file? My Avast security app has isolated the following file:

Library/Application Support/updater_mcy/updater_mcy

Since this has happened, I think it has resulted in me getting error messages on my Mac saying that some software will not be compatible in the future. Was it justified to have this file isolated by Avast or should I put it back?

Virustotal thinks it's ad-ware, based on the name alone.

You can double-check by uploading the file independently to them & see if it agrees.


How do I speed up new Terminal tab loading time? How can i speed up the terminal startup in Lion?

I'm not referring to the startup of the Terminal application, but to the startup terminal windows, like when i open a new tab.

I don't have anything in my .bash_profile file and i run rm -rf  /private/var/log/asl/*.asl every 4 hours (which clear those files that usually make terminal slow ).

Currently, when i open a new tab, it takes 3-4 seconds until i can run something.

Short Answer:

The problem is caused by a (potentially) expensive ASL system log lookup.  To see this in action, run sudo fs_usage | grep 'asl.*login' in a Terminal window, then open a new Terminal window.

To solve the problem, configure Terminal to launch a non-standard shell:

Create a symlink to your preferred shell.  E.g.: sudo ln -s /bin/bash /usr/local/bin/bash
Open Terminal Preferences and select the "General" tab.
Select "Shells open with: Command" and enter the symlink you created in step 1.  E.g. "/usr/local/bin/bash".

Note 1: You may also need to add bash and -bash to the process list at "Terminal Preferences > Profiles > Shell > Ask before closing".

Note 2: /usr/local/bin is writable in OS X 10.11 (El Capitan) Rootless mode.

To verify the fix:

Open a new Terminal window.
"Last Login:" should not be displayed at the top
Open the inspector (Command + I) and select the Info tab.
The command should read login -pfq username /usr/bin/bash or login -pfql username ...

Important: If the login command does not include the -q parameter, then you have not fixed the problem.

You can also use sudo fs_usage | grep 'asl.*login' to verify that /var/log/asl is not accessed when opening a new Terminal window.

Details:

There are a number of bugs at play here.

The actual cause of the slowness is /usr/bin/login, which by default will display the date of your last login.  To get this last login date, it searches the ASL (Apple System Log) database at /var/log/asl/.  These log files can be very heavily fragmented and it's this file fragmentation that causes the delay when opening a new window or tab.  (Bug 1)

The only way to suppress the ASL search for last login is to pass the -q parameter to /usr/bin/login.  The .hushlogin file will also suppress the "Last Login" display, but it does not suppress the expensive ASL search. (Bug 2)

Terminal always uses /usr/bin/login to launch each new window/shell.  There is no option to launch a shell directly nor is there a way to directly control the parameters passed to /usr/bin/login (Bug 3).

As it turns out, Terminal will pass the -q parameter to /usr/bin/login when it is configured to use a non-standard shell.  (Bug 4)

The -q parameter is what we need to avoid the problem, hence the symlink to /usr/local/bin/bash.


MacBook Air wifi NIC: supported channels I've had a problem with my Wi-Fi connection to a TP-Link router from MacBook Air. It has been solved by manually changing Wi-Fi channel on the router from "Automatic" to an average value.

What channel ranges do MacBook Air's Wi-Fi NICs support? Is there a way to tweak it to a required channel not visible by default?

P.S. My country is Ukraine and my router does have this value set.

The manuals for all Air are stored online at http://support.apple.com/manuals/#macbookair and it looks like the latest Air is certified under the EU and Russia - but I don't see a good way to know precisely which channels are supported from a pre-sales or reference.

You can however, open your System Information utility and select Wi-Fi. It should show you the current Locale, Country Code and supported channels for your network adapter.


Dropbox asking for permissions to wrong folder after changing account name I just got a new macbook and is now installing apps to it. After setting up Dropbox and everything else, I decided that I wanted to change the account name (which was previously "mac") to my name. Everything worked fine, until I tried to open Dropbox, it asked for permission to the wrong user folder (of the old account name) like this:

I tried unlink my computer from Dropbox account and reinstalling Dropbox, the software keeps looking for that folder's permission. What should I do to fix this? Please suggest and thanks.

EDIT:

After I type my login details, this is what I got:

The thing is the folder /Users/mac doesn't exist. I click on the link of the dialog and got this log:

  bn.BUILD_KEY: Dropbox bn.VERSION: 2.6.31 bn.DROPBOXEXT_VERSION: failed
  bn.is_frozen: True pid: 489 ppid: 233 uid: 501 user_info:
  pwd.struct_passwd(pw_name='ichigo', pw_passwd='********', pw_uid=501,
  pw_gid=20, pw_gecos='Huong Do', pw_dir='/Users/ichigo',
  pw_shell='/bin/bash') effective_user_info:
  pwd.struct_passwd(pw_name='ichigo', pw_passwd='********', pw_uid=501,
  pw_gid=20, pw_gecos='Huong Do', pw_dir='/Users/ichigo',
  pw_shell='/bin/bash') euid: 501 gid: 20 egid: 20 group_info:
  grp.struct_group(gr_name='staff', gr_passwd='', gr_gid=20,
  gr_mem=['root']) effective_group_info:
  grp.struct_group(gr_name='staff', gr_passwd='', gr_gid=20,
  gr_mem=['root']) DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH: None cwd:
  u'/Applications/Dropbox.app/Contents/Resources'
       real_path=u'/Applications/Dropbox.app/Contents/Resources'
                mode=040755 uid=501 gid=20
       parent   mode=040755 uid=501 gid=20 HOME: u'/Users/ichigo' appdata: u'/Users/mac/.dropbox'
           real_path=u'/Users/mac/.dropbox'
                    not found
           parent   not found dropbox_path: u'/Users/mac/Dropbox'
                real_path=u'/Users/mac/Dropbox'
                        not found
                parent  not found sys_executable: '/Applications/Dropbox.app/Contents/MacOS/python'
                  real_path='/Applications/Dropbox.app/Contents/MacOS/python'
                            mode=0100755    uid=501 gid=20
                  parent    mode=040755 uid=501 gid=20 trace.file: '/Applications/Dropbox.app/Contents/Resources/lib/python2.7/site-packages.zip/dropbox/boot_error.pyc'
                  real_path='/Applications/Dropbox.app/Contents/Resources/lib/python2.7/site-packages.zip/dropbox/boot_error.pyc'
                            not found
                  parent    not found tempdir: u'/var/folders/l1/f5mv9brd0s5fwx12z2lrp4s40000gn/T'
           real_path=u'/private/var/folders/l1/f5mv9brd0s5fwx12z2lrp4s40000gn/T'
                    mode=040700 uid=501 gid=20
           parent   mode=040755 uid=501 gid=20 Traceback (most recent call last):   File "dropbox/client/main.pyc", line 1818, in main_startup
  File "dropbox/client/main.pyc", line 1048, in run   File
  "dropbox/client/main.pyc", line 492, in startup_low   File
  "dropbox/client/main.pyc", line 314, in safe_makedirs   File "os.pyc",
  line 150, in makedirs   File "os.pyc", line 157, in makedirs OSError:
  [Errno 13] Permission denied: '/Users/mac'

Please note the lines I've emphasized with bold text: the wrong path to Dropbox was given. It should be /Users/ichigo instead

Funny timing, just received this back from Dropbox support and it seems to have resolved my user's problem.  Her issue similarly popped up when we migrated her to a new Mac and then changed her user account name.

Thanks for writing in. If you're having trouble running Dropbox on your Mac then please try these steps and then restart Dropbox.

1. Stop Dropbox (If needed):

Click the Dropbox icon in the menu bar at the top of your screen
Click on the gear icon in the Notifications panel and select 'Quit Dropbox'

2. Download the newest version: www.dropbox.com/install

3. Open your Terminal app (Located at /Applications/Utilities/Terminal)

4. Copy and paste the following lines into the Terminal, ONE AT A TIME, and press ENTER after each one. PLEASE make sure you copy and paste these commands (don't type them by hand), as getting them wrong could cause some harm. You'll be prompted for your computer's admin password (not your Dropbox password) after entering the first command. Keep in mind that the password field in the terminal will remain blank as you type your password. After you type it, just press ENTER.

sudo chown "$USER" "$HOME"

sudo chown -R "$USER" ~/Dropbox

sudo chmod -R u+rw ~/Dropbox

sudo mv ~/.dropbox ~/.Trash/dropbox.old

sudo mv ~/.dropbox-master ~/.Trash/dropbox-master.old

sudo chmod -N ~

sudo mv /Library/DropboxHelperTools ~/DropboxHelperTools.old

5. Open the .dmg file from step # 2 and double click the Dropbox icon to install Dropbox.

6. Restart Dropbox from the Applications folder.

Hopefully that does the trick for you as well!


Script to Update/download most recent iTunes podcast WITHOUT opening iTunes at all? I have a couple favorite podcasts that I subscribe to in iTunes.

I'm using You Control (so I don't have to open iTunes to play my music).

I'm using Keyboard Maestro.

I've made a macro that runs when logging in or on system wake. The macro should contain a script (AppleScript, Bash/Zsh/Ruby/Python, whatever) that automatically updates / downloads the most recent available podcasts in my subscriptions, in faceless mode, i.e. in the background, WITHOUT opening iTunes at all.

Is this possible and are there any scripts that does this exact thing?

Since the iTunes uses a encrypted database you (almost) won't be able to do it (without opening iTunes).


Switching to macOS from Windows/Linux I am switching to macOS by getting a new MacBook Pro in a few days. I have never used a Mac before.

Where can I look for short guide or video tutorials that teaches macOS to power users. I am a software engineer, know Windows very well, and Linux relatively well.

Most of the guides I found are targeted towards non-technical users.

As you are new to Mac and macOS, it is recommended to browse through Apple's official guides. A couple of them are linked below. They cover a lot of advance features and helpful tips for power user:

Welcome to macOS
Meet your Mac

Since you are also a software developer, it is worth mentioning that macOS is based on BSD and offers a robust UNIX platform. You can also find all the major developer tools build natively for macOS. Command-line experience from using Linux can be easily transferred over. macOS comes with all the major shells (bash, zsh, ksh, csh) preinstalled, and they are accessible via Terminal.app. Bash is the default login shell (just like most major Linux distributions).

Homebrew, a community developed package manager is widely popular among software developers. It is recommended to have it installed for managing packages. Homebrew also lets one easily install UNIX tools that Apple either don't provide in the default install, or provide an outdated version of. It is comparable to apt-get in Linux.

Homebrew Cask, an extension of Homebrew project can be used to easily manage installation of GUI applications.

A very popular and detailed guide for software developers setting up a new Mac can be found here: macOS Setup Guide

Ars Technica has had a tradition of doing a long form review of new macOS release every year. You can find it interesting as a potential power user, and can pick up a lot of new tricks. The review for macOS 10.14 Mojave (latest release of macOS as of this writing) can be found here: macOS 10.14 Mojave: The Ars Technica review

Lastly, if you are looking to build software for use with any of the various Apple products, don't forget to check out the comprehensive developer website, which has tons of resources for developing software and hardware accessories for Apple platform.


How do I subscribe to podcast in iTunes remotely? I have an iPhone 3Gs that is synchronized with my home PC (Windows Vista).

But I spend most of the day at work (unsurprisingly), I don't have iTunes on my work PC and I never connect my iPhone to it.

Often, while at work, I see a link to a podcast that I want to listen to later - but I can't subscribe to it on the spot (because I'm not near my iTunes PC)

What I want is to subscribe to the podcast on my work PC, over the web (without installing iTunes) and have the podcast waiting for me in iTunes on my home PC.

Is that possible? I can't find anything like this in iTunes and can't find any 3rd party application or service that can do this.

I don’t know of a software that can do that automatically, however you have two choices:

1) If you want the podcast to be downloaded and ready, you will have to remote control your home PC and do it normally as if you were sitting in front of your computer. (Either through VNC or Windows Remote Connection)

2) If you don’t mind doing it when you get to your home, you can use a service like Dropbox and have a text file with the URLs. Since Dropbox will sync automatically, you can open the file when you get home and the urls will be there. Or use a service like Instapaper to save the URLs that will be ready when you get home to be added to your home iTunes.


sshd regular exit code 255 I'm a novice at network things. I enabled remote-login on my home mac (OS 10.12.5) so I could git between home and office. To make it work, I had to tell the wifi to fix my Mac's IP and to redirect Port 22 to it. Works fine. My log file, however, has thousands of messages (one every few seconds) of the form:

com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.openssh.sshd._hex_[_int_]): Service exited with abnormal code: 255

Nothing in the log explicitly mentions a refused authentication, and I don't seem to have an auth.log or secure.log file (other posts suggested to look in there).

Any idea what's going on here?

That's the log entry performed when sshd denies a connection. You're probably seeing unauthorised users trying to brute force their way in by trying common usernames and passwords. There used to also be a log entry directly from sshd itself telling you the IP address and username attempted, but Apple has decided to labotomize standard UNIX logging from sshd.


Mac Mini 2011 freezes and reboots My Mac Mini (mid 2011) frequently freezes under medium to heavy graphics load (e.g., while using Citrix RDP or playing games). Until today I used to think this was caused by overheating but after a thorough cleaning at the genius bar the overheating is gone for sure but the random freeze remains. Here is a photo of the display when my computer froze.

Any clues as to what may be the issue here?

Edit: I am thinking this is to with overheating because when I place an ice pack on the mini then I can play as much as I want. If I remove the ice pack then it crashes within 15-20 minutes.

Edit2: Shutdown cause is -128 but memory checks out fine in Apple Diagnostics Test.

The image you showed are symptoms of the graphics chip on the logic board failing.

This requires a hardware repair (replacing the logic board) unless you find a place that would do component level repairs.

Given it's a 2011 the Apple Store will still be able to help but the cost of the logic board is (last I recall) usually $157.99 Plus tax plus $79 labor. You get 90 days of warranty on the replacement logic board.


Is it possible to set Magic Trackpad option via Terminal? Is it possible to set the magic trackpad options with the menu topics:

Point click,
scroll & zoom,
etc.

by using the Terminal?

You can use defaults to edit property lists. But Magic Trackpads and laptop trackpads have different settings, and they are stored in different places in different versions of OS X.

Here's some commands from the .osx file by @MathiasBynens:

# Trackpad: enable tap to click for this user and for the login screen
defaults write com.apple.driver.AppleBluetoothMultitouch.trackpad Clicking -bool true
defaults -currentHost write NSGlobalDomain com.apple.mouse.tapBehavior -int 1
defaults write NSGlobalDomain com.apple.mouse.tapBehavior -int 1

# Trackpad: map bottom right corner to right-click
defaults write com.apple.driver.AppleBluetoothMultitouch.trackpad TrackpadCornerSecondaryClick -int 2
defaults write com.apple.driver.AppleBluetoothMultitouch.trackpad TrackpadRightClick -bool true
defaults -currentHost write NSGlobalDomain com.apple.trackpad.trackpadCornerClickBehavior -int 1
defaults -currentHost write NSGlobalDomain com.apple.trackpad.enableSecondaryClick -bool true

# Trackpad: swipe between pages with three fingers
defaults write NSGlobalDomain AppleEnableSwipeNavigateWithScrolls -bool true
defaults -currentHost write NSGlobalDomain com.apple.trackpad.threeFingerHorizSwipeGesture -int 1
defaults write com.apple.driver.AppleBluetoothMultitouch.trackpad TrackpadThreeFingerHorizSwipeGesture -int 1

The first ones don't enable tap to click on the login screen in Mountain Lion. -currentHost wouldn't be needed in all cases. It modifies files in ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost/ that are specific to the current computer and have precedence over files in ~/Library/Preferences/.

You can diff the output of defaults read to find keys for preferences.

See also these questions:

How to map the bottom right Trackpad corner to right-click programmatically?
How to change tap to click using "defaults write" from command line?
Toggle Natural scrolling from command line with reload
How to apply written defaults to a Magic Mouse (com.apple.driver.AppleBluetoothMultitouch.mouse)?