iOS App Store Connect Sales and Trends show "Desktop" users We recently noticed, through our App Store Connect Sales and Trends page, that our iOS app has some confusing statistics. Our app shows that we have Desktop devices in our metrics.

Although iOS apps can now be made to run on macOS, we have explicitly declined/disabled that feature (at least we think we did...) for now both in the Xcode build and in the App Store Connect availability.

The phrasing is a little confusing to me. The checkbox mentions Silicon/M1 devices explicitly, but I thought Desktop compatibility applied to (potentially) any macOS device on Big Sur. Either way, it's unchecked!
Further, none of the App Store Connect analytics seem to show that we have Desktop device entries for our users/units. Only the "Sales and Trends" page shows any Desktop data.
This is befuddling. How could a Desktop analytic event have gotten in there? I'm willing to accept it's some weird fluke, but also want to make sure we're not missing something and a certain subset of macOS users are somehow able to run our iOS app.

It seems that your declining the macOS option is administrative only. It does not prevent people running your .ipa on their M1 Macs, so long as it's running under the correct Apple ID.
To do this you need to extract the .ipa from the phone to the Mac, using iMazing.
From The Verge, a quote from the makers of iMazing

App management has been available in iMazing since November 2017. We did not do any particular adjustments to ensure that iOS apps exported from iMazing’s library would run on Apple Silicon Macs. It turns out that when developers choose whether or not to include their mobile app on the Mac App Store, no change is made to the app itself – the setting is purely a distribution toggle.


iCloud Files refusing to upload So I’ve got 40 gigabytes a bunch of stuff on my disk that I’ve been trying to upload to iCloud so I don’t have to worry about it. Most of it is footage from my libraries in Final Cut Pro. Because it was hogging so much space, I changed some preferences in FCPX so that libraries were saved on iCloud. Immediately iCloud responded and started uploading. Then, it mysteriously got stuck. Nothing has uploaded now for around twelve hours, and the progress readout is frozen at this:

All of the folders and files in question have also acquired “waiting to upload” tags. Altering or moving the files results in them briefly appearing to start uploading again, only to revert right back to the way they were before.

Any and all help is appreciated. I’m running High Sierra on a 2014 MacBook Air, and my Internet speed should be able to handle the upload just fine. How can I get these files to upload to the cloud and offload them from my hard drive?

Thankfully, there’s an app to figure out exactly which files are uploading, which are set and which are failing / out of date with iCLoud.

Even better, it’s well described and actively being developed and I believe, free to use.

https://eclecticlightdotcom.files.wordpress.com/2018/06/cirrus11.zip

The general release blog post is:

https://eclecticlight.co/2018/05/19/cirrus-version-1-0-release-the-icloud-tool-is-ready-for-general-use/

Keep in mind that there are throttles to pause uploads after so many GB a day so your initial ingest might take a while if you just dumped a ton of data and are not leaving your Mac on and not sleeping overnight or over a period of several days. I would consider reducing the initial upload to 3 GB or so and let that catch up if you can at this point.


How do I tranfer contacts from iphone to gmail? How do I transfer my contacts from iPhone to Gmail ? I am not sure which is the correct site to ask this question, because it is a non-technical question. Can anyone guide me please?

There are a few ways to do this, but the primary way is actually built into iOS. I gathered the information from this link where there is a good comprehensive run down of all the details in setting up a Gmail account and getting the syncing going.

Set up Gmail using the Exchange trick so that contact syncing will continue in the future:

  Open the Settings application on your device's home screen.
  Open Mail, Contacts, Calendars.
  Press Add Account....
  Select Microsoft Exchange
  In the Email field, enter your full Google Account email address.
  Enter your Google Account password as the Password.
  Press Next at the top of your screen.
  Enter m.google.com in the Server field.
  Leave the Domain field blank.
  Enter the user email address as the Username.
  Press Next at the top of your screen again.
  Select the Google services (Mail, Calendar, and Contacts) you want to sync.

And then to transfer your contacts to Google it looks like you will need to transfer your current contacts to iTunes:

  If you have all your contacts on your device and want to import them into Google, you can synchronize your Google Contacts with iTunes. All Contacts and Calendars that you sync with iTunes will be put into the On My iPhone Contacts and Calendar groups on your phone. iOS currently doesn't allow you to move Contacts or Calendar events from the On My iPhone groups to the Google Sync groups.

Note that you will have to turn off iCloud contacts sync if you sync with iTunes. It won't let you transfer that to iTunes otherwise.

For another option you can use this app to transfer your contacts to Gmail, and manage syncing.

This looked like a good tutorial on setting up the sync using Exchange.


Import into macOS 10.15 Catalina's Apple Music does not work: unknown error -54; likely root cause: file access permissions Something is wrong with my version of Apple Music following an upgrade to macOS 10.15 Catalina. Importing songs fails with error "Copying files failed. An unknown error occured (-54)".

The problem goes away if I choose Preferences / Files / Copy Files to Music Media folder when adding to library: No, but resurfaces when I then choose File / Library / Organize Library / Consolidate files.

So this looks clearly like an issue in relation to file access permissions. I did't change from the defaults, and e.g. my Music/iTunes has "Read & Write" only for "Me", which seems readanable.

Is this a known issue (apparently not known to Google in this particular incarnation at this point) and how can it be remedied? I prefer a "conservative" solution in terms of granting additional access rights.

The following procedure removed the problem:

In Finder, select /Users/myaccount/Music/iTunes, the "Get Info".
Current permissions are me: Read & Write, system: Read & Write, wheel: Read only, everyone: Read only. (I apparently mad a mistake in the earlier observation that only me had Read & Write permission there.)
Select "Apply to enclosed items".


Disable notifications during a call on iPhone 5 iOS 8.3 While I am talking on the phone, I often receive messages on Telegram or WhatsApp, or other notifications. And when I receive them they arrive in bursts, which is really annoying.

Is there a way to disable this behaviour? How do I disable notifications only when I’m talking?

iPhone 5 with iOS 8.3

This is not possible (at least on a non-jailbroken phone).

You can use Do Not Disturb, but you have to set it ahead of time so that it applies even while the phone is unlocked, and then toggle it on at the start of the call, and toggle it off at the end.


Mac Mini mid 2010 drive identification I have a mid 2010 Mac Mini with 2 drives.  I need to replace 1 of them.  How do I tell physically which drive is the second drive?  With the case upside down which drive (0 or 1) is on top?

Thanks for the assistance

I've no idea of the construction of a Mini, but you could test it empirically.

Remove one drive, see if it will boot.
If yes, look at Disk Utility & see which drive remains.
If no, then you removed the only boot source.


Issues with /usr/lib/libcups.2.dylib. x86 applications will not execute I upgraded CUPS from 2.0.0 to 2.0.2 on OS X 10.10.4 Yosemite for security reasons per advisement from a Nessus scan. I committed the cardinal sin of not backing up my OS before making this change. Unfortunately, many x86 apps on my system are now displaying this fatal error:

  Exception Type:        EXC_BREAKPOINT (SIGTRAP) Exception Codes:
  0x0000000000000002, 0x0000000000000000

  Application Specific Information: dyld: launch, loading dependent
  libraries

  Dyld Error Message:   Library not loaded: /usr/lib/libcups.2.dylib
  Referenced from:
  /System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/PrintCore.framework/Versions/A/PrintCore
  Reason: no suitable image found.  Did find:   /usr/lib/libcups.2.dylib:
  mach-o, but wrong architecture    /usr/lib/libcups.2.dylib: mach-o, but
  wrong architecture

Fair enough. So I decided to run lipo -info on the affected library, and it states that its architecture is x86_64("Non-fat file: /usr/lib/libcups.2.dylib is architecture: x86_64"). I deduced that the CUPS source needed x86(i386) flags upon configuration after a bit of research on the matter. So when I ran a new configure command:

sudo ./configure CFLAGS="-arch i386 -arch x86_64" CXXFLAGS="-arch i386 -arch x86_64" LDFLAGS="-arch i386 -arch x86_64"

Which was all well and dandy, but it executed with errors. I continued anyway with my make and make install commands on good faith, but found that now the affected applications either did not initiate at all, or still returned fatal errors. What am I doing wrong here? I downloaded the source directly from CUPS.org if anyone is wondering.

From the INSTALL.txt file:
At lines 101–104:

On OS X, use the "--with-archflags" option to build with the correct set of architectures:
./configure --with-archflags="-arch i386 -arch x86_64" ...

Just type in these commands:
./configure --with-archflags="-arch i386 -arch x86_64"
make
sudo make install


Yosemite Install or post-install Boot-up Frozen The screen I'm on does not have a time remaining estimate, that was the prior screen.

This one simply shows the Apple logo and a plain status bar with no percentage or time indicator.

Perhaps it's just the boot up screen.

At any rate, it's been stuck exactly at the halfway point for about an hour.

No clue what the proper course of action here is.

It's a 15 in MacBook Pro, mid 2009, Latest version of Snow Leopard with no history of install related or hardware issues at all.

This appears to be a variation on the boot cache problem with initial upgrade installations of Yosemite.

The difficulty for solving it appears to be knowing precisely when to press and release the  Shift ⇧  key to enter Safe boot mode, which remedies the problem.

The procedure is explained in this Apple KBase article.

Shut down the computer by holding in the startup button until it powers down. Start the computer, and immediately upon hearing the startup chime (or when there’s any sign of life such as the sound of a fan, or hard drive, or lighting of the screen), press and hold  Shift ⇧ . When the gray apple appears, release  Shift ⇧ . After a few moments you will be prompted to log in, and the words “Safe boot” will appear in red letters near the top right corner of the screen.

Be sure to apply the latest OS X update before shutting down or restarting again if your version of OS X is older than 10.10.2. At the time I’m typing this, 10.10.2 is the current version. Having 10.10.2 should prevent the problem from occurring more than once.


How can I manage iCloud Backup? My iPhone as well as mini iPad give me the statement "this has not been backed up for so many weeks as there isn't enough room in icloud. I am not as savy as I wish. I plug them into my computer and today the iPad only copied over my photos. I then deleted thinking that would free up space. What am I doing that is causing them to not have enough space? I don't watch videos or movies. Anyone I ask if it comes up on their phones or pads says it doesn't.

Use icloud for contacts, not photos. Photos take up a lot of room on icloud. Do you have itunes? Assuming so - create a backup on your PC-- you will be given an option upon plug in to backup "now" ? If you aren't you can go into your settings and do a complete backup now - make sure you have ticks next to each item you want backed up. i.e. photos, apps etc.


Powerful manager of default applications? I would need a powerful way to open default applications. Not only to register them to extension/mime type (like duti), but also to be able to change default application depending on the asked resource.

For example, my default url application is Chrome. But I want to open Safari if URL link contains some specific word (e.g. related to my work or other project).

Is there any application on Mac that can help me with this? Thank you!

I don't believe there is one app to do what you want, but a combination of the following should do it.

RCDefaultApp is the old stalwart of extension/mime/creator code and many other types of mappings. In the transition days between Mac OS 9 and X, I used this extensively to deal with all of my files with Type and Creator Codes.

For more complicated file opening control try Magic Launch which can select the app to use based on currently open apps, file path, file contents, tags, etc.

This still doesn't give you control based on URL. For web addresses try Choosy, which gives a nice interface to select the browser at time of clicking on a link or via automatic rules based on strings, regex, and more.

Note: I don't currently use any of the above. For selecting which app to open a file, I use LaunchBar's ability to specify which app to open a selected file.


Can I get @me.com email address when I only have @icloud.com address? Can I still (as of 03/2013) get @me.com, as an alternative to my @icloud.com email address? I would want the two email to point to the same AppleID.

The reasons are quire prosaic, @me.com just looks better than @icloud.com.

You cannot. Apple has retired the ability to get a new @me.com email address, just like they did for the @mac.com email addresses back in 2008. Existing accounts are grandfathered in, but you are unfortunately out of luck.


Script Editor in iCloud When I open Script Editor (by opening Finder, then clicking on Applications -> Utilities -> Script Editor) the following window shows.

As can be seen both in the top panel as well as in the side panel, Script Editor is is in the iCloud. Why is it in the iCloud? Didn't it used to be on the hard drive? Is it possible to download it to my hard drive? I tried to search for Script Editor in the App Store, but it doesn't seem to be there.

macOS Sierra, Version 10.12.4

That's just the documents container in iCloud Drive, as you're looking at File Open dialog. Each iCloud-supported app has a container for documents in iCloud Drive. The application itself is still in the Applications folder as usual.


How can I change the bit rate of MP3s in iTunes 11? TL;DR I have a number of MP3 albums in iTunes that I would like to convert from 196kbps to 128kbps.

I ripped a number of CDs into iTunes at 196kbps, but have decided that I want them to be at 128kbps to conserve space - as a compilation of them will be downloaded from the internet, by others, later.

I opened iTunes preferences and changed the import settings to 128kbps, then selected File -> Create New Version -> Create MP3 Version, after selecting the files from one of the albums. This worked great and it created a lower bit rate copy of the files. In Finder it appends a "1" to the end of each track name - so I see:

  Track 01
    Track 01 1
    Track 02
    Track 02 1
     etc.

However, in iTunes it is just:

  Track 01
    Track 01
    Track 02
    Track 02
     etc.

Thus it is difficult to tell - without opening "Get Info" on every file - which one is the 128kbps.

I consulted this KB article, but the information in it didn't seem to exactly match my setup (even though I am running iTunes 11 on OSX 10.8). For example, in step #3 it says to go to File -> "Create New Version" -> "Create Format Version". The closest thing I could find is what I mentioned above, and I wasn't able to find "Create New Version". Even then it looked like it would evoke the same situation as what I have.

Also, when I open Finder and delete the original files, iTunes recognizing them even though they are in Trash. Perhaps there would be a re-index that?

How can I convert the files I have, or have iTunes display the "1" addendum in the track listing? Should I just re-rip the files, or is there another software I should turn to?

Although quality will be lost when converting the bit rate to 128kbps, one option is to use a combination of a smart playlist in iTunes and Max.

1) Either back up music library or specify a different output directory in Max, and then re-import files to iTunes.

2) In iTunes, create a smart playlist where the bit rate is greater than 128 kbps for example.

3) Select the files from the playlist and drag them to the conversion window in Max. Preferences in Max should be setup so that the output files will be stored in the same location as input files if you want the originals replaced. There is also an option checkbox to "Overwrite existing files" and "Delete source files after encoding". This will take care of the re-naming issue. There is also an option to add output files to the iTunes library under the iTunes 'tab'.

Depending on the size of your library, it may be necessary to convert the mp3 files in chunks.


How to reload autofs on Lion without restarting? I'm trying to get my host machine running Lion to automount an NFS export on my CentOS VM.

I was able to get this working on a system running Mac OS 10.5 by modifying /etc/auto_master and then restarting the autofs service per the instructions in http://alanlam.blogspot.com/2008/06/restart-autofs-in-leopard-without.html:

sudo service com.apple.autofsd stop
sudo service com.apple.autofsd start

However, in Lion, the service command appears to be missing.

How do I reload the autofs service in OS X Lion without restarting?


Unlocked 5s won't connect to new carrier (docomo) data network I recently moved to Japan and got a new SIM card, with a contract, from docomo (one of the major carriers here). I had my iPhone 5s unlocked by a third party, and inserted the new SIM card into this phone. While my new phone number works fine for phone calls and texts (sent to the number), I cannot connect to the mobile internet network.

Now, 3G appears in the top bar next to "docomo," but no apps that use the internet will load unless I'm connected to WiFi. Usually the error simply states "unable to connect to the internet," but occasionally it will appear as a PDP Authentication error. I have tried all the simple fixes (restoring the phone, resetting network settings, toggling airplane mode on and off), but none of them have any effect. I have also been to the docomo store, but the clerk there was only able to tell me that instead of 3G appearing LTE should appear, and that it was a problem with the phone-->I should talk to Apple. Again, Apple support over the phone was only able to direct me towards the simple fixes, and asked me to go to my nearest Apple store, which is pretty far from where I currently live.

I think the problem has to do with my not having the correct docomo APN settings, but don't know what might work for changing this. Again, the clerk at docomo was not helpful on this front. Any direction would be greatly appreciated.

It sounds as though the issue resides in the LTE bands supported by the device. If the iPhone is model A1533 it will not support LTE bands: 6 and 9. A1533 is the model of most American unlocked devices. On Apple's LTE site it gives a list of each unlocked device, and the supported bands that has been organized geographically. iPhone 5S model A1453 is the correct model.


How can I get more keyboard software instruments for GarageBand? I've been using GarageBand to play my MIDI keyboard for a few years, just because of its built-in software instruments for keyboards. Now I'm thinking about purchasing some jam packs only for the extra keyboard software instruments.

Which ones should I buy? Are there any more places or third-party software where I can get more keyboard instruments? I really want to have a huge selection of keyboard sounds, but don't know where or how to get them.

There are many third-party virtual keyboard instruments. Do a search at the kvraudio.com virtual instrument news site. Anything that is in Audio Unit (AU) format will work with GarageBand. Here is a search result I have prepared for you.

Popular products you might consider:

Anything by Native Instruments

Pianoteq

Buying Apple Logic Express or Logic Studio will give you all the Apple Jam Pack sounds in one purchase, with many other features besides. Apple Logic Express and Logic Studio.

Finally, read Keyboard Magazine. They provide a lot of coverage and reviews of products in this category.


How to restrict the domain of a function in Grapher? In some math software, you can restrict the domain of a function by adding a command and the conditions after the function definition. Example, for Symbolab:

x^2, x >0

But this doesn't work in Grapher. I get this yellow warning:

Grapher does it the other way around:  y = x > 0 ? x^2

See

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2786498


Reminders: Move list item to other list is it possible to move a reminder from one reminders list to another?

For example I have two lists:

Today
Tomorrow

How could I move for example "call cindy" from "Tomorrow" to "Today"?

Select the entry, right click, go to the "Move to List" menu entry, select the destination list you want.  (Or drag and drop.)

When I first tried this the difficult part was selecting the item rather than editing it...I needed to be sure to click white space off to the right of the title.


Requirements to use 'open -b "bundle.id" ' for OS X I have a post install script which opens and runs my application silently. The app was made using Automator and basically runs an Applescript which in turn runs a Bash script embedded from the app Resources folder.

The postinstall script:

#!/bin/bash

open -b "com.company.ApplicationName"

works on some machines and not others. I'm receiving an error

LSGetApplicationForInfo() failed with error -10814 while trying to determine the application with bundle identifier com.company.ApplicationName

I have not been able to determine why. I'm assuming I'm missing some kind of prerequisite software on the machines failing.

Anyone aware of the requirements to use open -b "bundleid"? Xcode, Xcode with Command Line Tools or something? I'd appreciate any insight.

My guess is that it is working on systems where the app has been present long enough for the app to be registered with the system, but fails on systems where it has not been present very long.

There is a possible solution here:

The command (all one line)

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user

The Caveat

After running this command, OS X may prompt you before letting you open some applications for the first time. I would NOT suggest running that on someone else's Mac or they are likely to get irritated with you.

Instead, I would suggest using open -a /path/to/your/app instead of open -b {bundle-id}


Export vCF on a per contact basis I am using Apple's Contacts app and I have hundreds of entries. Some are no longer valid (name change, incorrect phone, etc)

So I want to export them so I get 1 file per contact. This way, I can import them one at a time and work at each entry to make sure that it's correct. I also want to import them (one at a time) to my Microsoft Exchange account.

A simple way is to use a Automator workflow.

The Contacts Actions provide the option for you to do what you want.

Example:

Just be aware that card will not export if the Name fields have for example a forwardd slash "/".  ( as I just discovered)


Apple dev license expired - Renew(paying) or else? My paid apple dev license expired a year ago. In the meanwhile Xcode 7 came out with the option of testing locally on iOS devices without the need of a paid license.

I am now developing a Unity game that targets iOS devices. I build for iOS and open the Xcode project that returns this error:

  No code signing identities found: No valid signing identities (i.e.
  certificate and private key pair) were found.

I then suppose I would need to create certificates and related stuff, but if I access the apple dev portal I am presented with this:

What should I do at this stage to be able to test o local devices without paying?

I didn't know this one.. but it depends on the features you want to test!

For some features you are required to have an Apple ID like Apple Pay.

Supported capabilities for developing on your device


Sending messages over Facebook causes app to crash Every time I try to message a friend of mine on Facebook, the app shuts down. This does not happen with other friends.

There may be a problem with the install of your app. Did you have consistent internet access when the app was updated or installed? If so, you should uninstall and reinstall the app.


How can you limit your use of time-wasting apps on iOS? How can I limit my use of some time-wasting apps on my iPhone for a few days? Temporarily removing the apps so that I would have to first go through a reinstall to use them is not an option because I don't want to lose their data. There are some Mac applications to limit access to websites and other applications: Obtract and SelfControl for example. Is there anything similar for iOS?

No, there is nothing like that.  Your choices are simple and stark:

1: Willpower

2: Backup your iPhone and remove them from the sync list, this way yopu will not lose your data.  Reinstalling the App direct from App Store will not bring your data back, meaning you need to be at your computer to sync properly in order to get your data too, which may be handy if it's at home and you are at work/school etc.

In order to make option 1 a little more palatable, you can try any number of tricks.  For example, if the apps you want to a void are strewn all over the place, try to put them on teh last page, and simply ban yourself from visiting the last homescreen.   This may assist in not tempting you when the app you need to use is right next to the game you shouldn't be playing.  Also, you could invent some reward system to give you some motivation to not use them.  If you don't use the timewasting apps homescreen all day, you get to treat yourself to an in-app purchase, or a half hour uninteruppted game slot once your works done etc.  Whatever works for you.

Update:  Loïc Wolff reminded me of a question I answered before that has a similar answer.  In summary: "Anything you can do or install or configure in order to produce a technical block to stop you running these apps, can also be undone", so the only real answer is to work on yourself.


How can I browse the web on very old versions of Mac OS? I have computers running very old versions of Mac OS / OS X / macOS! Most of the software they run is similarly old, but I need an up-to-date web browser, for security and for compatibility with modern websites. What are my options?

This answer was last updated in February 2021, and may become outdated as time goes on. As of this writing, however, all software listed is actively maintained with security patches. On OS's which themselves have known vulnerabilities, this is particularly crucial.

Mac OS 8 and below
Attempting to browse the web on these OS's is basically a lost cause. However, you could set up Web Rendering Proxy on another (modern) machine, which will stream websites to older browsers as an interactive gif. If you squint, it's almost like the real thing! https://github.com/tenox7/wrp

Mac OS 9 – Mac OS X 10.3
Also more-or-less a lost cause, but if you want to try your luck, go with Classilla. http://www.floodgap.com/software/classilla/. You might also consider Web Rendering Proxy (see above).

Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" & 10.5 "Leopard"
Cameron Kaiser's TenFourFox is here for you! This browser was forked from a very old version of Firefox, so expect to run into broken websites on occasion. For casual browsing on a secondary computer, however, TenFourFox is perfectly sufficient.
PPC users should download builds from the official website: http://www.floodgap.com/software/tenfourfox/
Intel builds are also available at https://sourceforge.net/projects/tenfourfox/files/unstable/contrib/. These are considered "unofficial", and the author requests that Intel users do not report bugs or ask for support.

Mac OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard"
InterWeb
With support for WebRTC and an engine based on Firefox 52, Wicknix's InterWeb browser is likely to offer the best compatibility with modern websites on Snow Leopard. Make sure to download the 10.6-specific version: https://randommacstuff.blogspot.com/p/interweb-browser.html
Arctic Fox
If InterWeb runs too slowly on your old hardware, consider trying this other browser from the same developer. It's based on an older engine which won't work with as many websites, but it should be a bit more performant. https://github.com/wicknix/Arctic-Fox/wiki

Mac OS X 10.7 "Lion" & 10.8 "Mountain Lion"
This is the real deal! Blueboxd maintains Chromium Legacy, an up-to-date copy of Chromium (the open source variant of Google Chrome) modified to be compatible with Lion and Mountain Lion. It will work with every website Google Chrome does! https://github.com/blueboxd/chromium-legacy/releases
I have created a "Chromium Legacy Downloader" Preference Pane that makes it a bit easier to install updates: https://jonathanalland.com/downloads/chromium-legacy-downloader.zip

OS X 10.9 "Mavericks"
My favorite version of OS X, and personal daily driver! The best option for Mavericks is Firefox 78 ESR, which is still officially supported by Mozilla with automatic security updates! https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/switch-to-firefox-extended-support-release-esr
Alternately, if you would prefer a Chromium-based browser, Chromium Legacy (see above) is also now compatible with Mavericks.


Can the Internet sharing on proxy network be tracked? In my office I have Mac Mini that is connected to an ethernet cable for internet. They don't allow us to use the office wifi on mobile etc.

So what I am going to do now, is create hotspot out of my Mac Mini machine for my phone's use.

But I want to know if it can be tracked as the office Mac is already on a proxy network. Will the IT guys come to know about it?

Yes and yes and yes.

The ssid of the mac mini will be broadcast. Most offices have a couple of their access points listening for other ssids and trying to figure out if based on signal strength it's from within the office. They probably automatically email someone about it. Whether that person cares is another matter.

The mac being proxied has all its network traffic monitored and/or filtered. If it's NATing for your phone, that will be visible. Again, unclear on if they care. But even if they don't that proxy might be blocking several things that the only phones access, like maybe the ios app store.

IT companies lock down networks because they have resources within them that they can't effectively lock down any other way. That is sad, but if they're limiting what devices can join the wifi that's probably why.

If you can configure the sharing so that each device ends up on a vpn that can only communicate externally (like to the internet) and back, then probably you'll be keeping things secure and can make a case for doing so. EG two phones connected to your wifi point shouldn't be able to talk to each other, nor to the mac, nor to any of the internal ips that the mac probably can talk to.


Use Of Thunderbolt Between Mac Mini and Macbook Pro I have a Macbook Pro I recently purchased (13" 2015). I am now looking into desktop solutions, and think my needs make a Mac Mini my best option. I haven't used Thunderbolt before, and am wondering if I can use Thunderbolt to connect my Macbook Pro to my Mac Mini, thus making my laptop files accessible from the Mini on my external display. If that is the case, in addition to purchasing a Mac Mini, will the only other piece of equipment I need to make this connection be a Thunderbolt to Thunderbolt cable?

You can do that, but you'll have to use Target Disk Mode in order to get the Mac to recognize the other one as a hard drive.


Converting FLAC into Apple Lossless [in Windows] Like many people I have a few albums in FLAC format that I've picked up over the years. I'd like to retain their auto fidelity, but also have them in my iTunes and on my iPhone.

There's another question here that asks the same question, but it's only asking how to convert files under OSX. I'd like to do it under Windows.

Is this possible?

I found a great little script that seems to do the job:

iTunes Automation: Convert FLAC Audio Files to Apple Lossless

Although there's a tiny bug at present (v0.91) meaning it will only convert one file at a time. To fix it, just change line 275 from

fso.DeleteFile(tempWAVPath)

To

fso.DeleteFile(tempWAVPath, true)

And you're set.


Cannot move dock icons in Mountain Lion When I drag an existing icon from one place to another in Mountain Lion I cannot click to release it. It just remains 'stuck' to the mouse pointer.

Anyone know how to fix this?

Sometimes with everything running on your Mac it can get clustered and not be as responsive, Try and go to Applications->Utilities->Activity Monitor and Find Dock PID 167. Then click it and Quit process, This will close the dock and reopen it. And that should fix it.


If I buy an iPad 3 on Verizon, can I use my existing SIM? I already have a Verizon 4G LTE phone with a LTE SIM card (or whatever its called). If I purchase a Verizon iPad 3 from Craigslist, can I put my own SIM card in there and use my current data plan?

The answer is YES. I purchased a Verizon iPad 3 from someone on craigslist, I then tried cutting the sim card from my Android 4G LTE phone ... fail. I bought a new sim card and ordered a Noosy from Amazon, cut the new micro-sim and VOILA, it worked! Unlimited data on my iPad 3 :)

You can see how i did it here:
http://inboxi.us/ipad


MacBook Pro 13 resolution problem? I just bought a MacBook Pro 13.
whenever I play a game that has lower resolution than 1280-800 I get two big black rectangles on both side of the screen, instead of the screen entirely filled.

Is there any solution for this problem?

This happens because the game is not widescreen enabled (but 4:3). This usually happens with ports of old games, from the times, when 4:3 (or close to 4:3) resolutions were common (like 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, 1280x1024). Look for resolution settings in the game and change it to something closer to 16:10 and the black bars will be smaller.


How to avoid getting 'Missing File' error in Photos app? I get the following error in Photos app on my Mac.

Missing File
Photos with unavailable original files cannot be opened.
The original photo “IMG_3076.JPG” is either offline or cannot be found. Click “Find Original” to reconnect.

This is what has happened, I assumed that since the photo is in the Photo Library I could delete the file from the hard drive. Apparently not. The reason I deleted the files was to avoid duplication and save disk space. When I right click and look at the info for the photo, I see that the size and dimensions of the image are same as the original file. So I am really not precious about the file being there.
So I have the following questions.

How do I prevent Photo app from showing this error?
Will I be able to export these files and edit them as normal?

Here is screenshot of Photos app preferences

It depends whether the file was actually duplicated...
From Photos prefs

If you have that pref set, then the original becomes redundant once imported, as Photos now refers to its saved internal copy as the 'original'.
If unchecked, then the original remains where it was on your drive & if deleted can no longer be found by Photos [or indeed anything else, as it really no longer exists.]
If that option hasn't always been checked, then some files will still be externally referenced & need to be copied to the Library before they can be finally discarded from their original locations.
The way to achieve this will be to initially return all those files you discarded to the locations Photos expects them to be.
The you can use File Menu > Consolidate, which will copy all those external references into the Photos Library.
Once this is complete, then you can finally discard the external files safely.


How does finder sort folders when they contain digits and characters? I can't figure it out how to sort folders by name in Finder.

My expected results should look like this:

0629e7bc-8110-4db9-aaa9-b67b0b73743d
06a409e1-98c6-4bf4-afa4-c814f7899d82
0a3a5c12-e459-4aa0-b9cb-30b544013215
0c14581f-31d8-4961-a14f-11afc40e47f9
0fe8970c-6338-46ca-bc16-f7867b271480
129855c4-7dbe-4a9f-a100-28b1d3d02340
1522e288-8a81-4298-aefc-f334cb088a53
180d430b-76f9-401f-845a-cb395bc1eba0
1a01a936-bedf-4758-971a-d4886ee8d281
....

But instead it looks like this:

Here are my settings:

Grouping is turned off.

I think this is a bug. Grouping is turned off everywhere (grouping doesn't change anything here). I've deleted .DS_Store files.

I am running macOS Mojave 10.14.5 (18F132)

Even if I switch to another view, it does not work.

What else could I try to fix this?

I think this is alphabetical vs natural search order being used in Terminal(or wherever the code block comes from) and Finder respectively.

  Why is a folder which starts with a 2 on the bottom?

Because it is 27 which is treated as a block while sorting and is greater than other single numbers which are also being treated as blocks. Another example is in the longer screenshot. 5f comes before 06a as 5 is smaller than 06.

Numbers are smaller than alphabets in both cases.

In the code block, we have character-wise sorting where single digits are being compared. So a larger number like 062 sometimes comes before 06a as 2 is smaller than a.

  For example, in alphabetical sorting "z11" would be sorted before "z2"
  because "1" is sorted as smaller than "2", while in natural sorting
  "z2" is sorted before "z11" because "2" is sorted as smaller than
  "11".

  Alphabetical sorting:

  z11

  z2

  Natural sorting:

  z2

  z11

  Functionality to sort by natural sort order is built into many
  programming languages and libraries

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_sort_order

  Mac OS X sorting is based on the Unicode Collation Algorithm (Technical Standard UTS #10) defined by the Unicode Consortium. This standard provides a complete and unambiguous sort ordering for all Unicode characters and is available on the Unicode Consortium website (http://www.unicode.org).

There are no hints that this behaviour can be changed in Finder. It was observed in 2002-03:

http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20021002061850171
https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/375244/313842 Comments under here suggest using apps like Pathfinder.
https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/MacOSX/Conceptual/BPFileSystem/Articles/SortingRules.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/20002377-BCIJIGDE
https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/FileManagement/Conceptual/FileSystemProgrammingGuide/FileSystemDetails/FileSystemDetails.html


How do I add a new route to the PATH variable? Although this question is being answered many times, I could not find any help from previous posts, so here it is again.

I have tried to add a new route to PATH variable with no success.

I have added the following command:

export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/zend/share/ZendFramework/bin

to this files one at a time: ~/.profile, ~/.bash_profile, ~/.bashrc

After starting a new Terminal session I type

env

but the PATH variable never show the changes.

EDIT:

Seems that none of this files are being read when opening terminal, other routes where in this files and they are not being added either. On starting terminal I get this message "-bash: : command not found". If I execute

source ~/.profile

I get the route added to the PATH but it does not keep for the next Terminal session. How can I test what is happening on Terminal startup?

This are the contents of the files:

~/.profile

export PATH=/applications/MAMP/bin/php5.3/bin/:$PATH
export PATH=/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:$PATH
export MANPATH=/opt/local/share/man:$MANPATH
export PATH=/usr/local/zend/share/ZendFramework/bin:$PATH

~/.bashrc

export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/zend/bin
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:/usr/local/zend/lib

~/.bash_profile is empty

None of the routes in any of them are displayed after typing

env

in Terminal.

well first off you only really need it in  ~/.bash_profile if you have one.

Second opening a new terminal session without quitting terminal app will not source the  ~/.bash_profile file.

You can just type "source  ~/.bash_profile" in the terminal and it should pick up your new settings.

Or quit terminal.app and restart it.


My WD external drive unmounted itself and now does not work I have a strange problem. Working on an OS 10.9.5 MacBook laptop.

Last night, I was exporting a 20-something GB Aperture library from my WD 2TB drive to another hard drive. I left, and when I came back the next morning, my computer warned me that I should properly eject my hard drive. I hadn't disconnected it, and my settings are set so that the computer will NEVER go to sleep or shut down when the power supply was connected (which it was). Now, my mac won't recognize the hard drive.

Is it dead?
How can I prevent this from happening again?
How can I recover my files if I can't see the disk???

I've tried:

Powering my computer on and off
Using a different USB connector
Using a different power cord
Plugging the external drive into another mac (did not work)
Plugging the drive into a windows computer (nope)
Mounting through disk utility, or using disk utility to repair/verify the disk (got this error message: Disk utility can't repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files).
Suggestions on these sites: External drive does not mount after plug off without eject and Sometimes Mac doesn't recognise my external hard drive e.g., going through terminal to unmount OR eject OR view files in read only mode (all just say the volume timed out)
Read suggestions on this thread about drives disconnecting on their own - wasn't sure what to do, but realized the problem might have had something to do with exporting Aperture files? https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2597920?start=120&tstart=0

This is my time machine disk, and it has some other stuff on it I need. I also don't know whether to trust my machine to plug another hard drive into it. I can't update to a newer OS just yet. I'm terrified to plug in my other hard drives because what if the same thing happens to them!? Unfortunately all my Aperture libraries are stored on external disks!

Info:

Last login: Sun Mar 26 16:39:26 on ttys000
ericaneomputer2:~ erica$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *320.1 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            319.2 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
/dev/disk1
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *2.0 TB     disk1
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk1s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS NEWTON_WD               2.0 TB     disk1s2
ericaneomputer2:~ erica$ diskutil info disk1
   Device Identifier:        disk1
   Device Node:              /dev/disk1
   Part of Whole:            disk1
   Device / Media Name:      WD My Book 1140 Media

   Volume Name:              Not applicable (no file system)

   Mounted:                  Not applicable (no file system)

   File System:              None

   Content (IOContent):      GUID_partition_scheme
   OS Can Be Installed:      No
   Media Type:               Generic
   Protocol:                 USB
   SMART Status:             Not Supported

   Total Size:               2.0 TB (2000365289472 Bytes) (exactly 3906963456 512-Byte-Units)
   Volume Free Space:        Not applicable (no file system)
   Device Block Size:        512 Bytes

   Read-Only Media:          No
   Read-Only Volume:         Not applicable (no file system)
   Ejectable:                Yes

   Whole:                    Yes
   Internal:                 No
   OS 9 Drivers:             No
   Low Level Format:         Not supported

Either your WD MyBook enclosure has failed or the disk itself has failed.

I am basing this assessment on two factors:

Points 4 & 5 above - that plugging it into different computers didn't work.  If it doesn't work on different computers you have narrowed it down the the WD unit itself.  If the problem was with your Mac, it wouldn't be present on a different computer.
The correct response  provided by diskutil for disk1.  It's highly unlikely (though not impossible), that if the enclosure wasn't functioning you would at least get erroneous information back or no information at all.  The WD enclosure is reporting back that there is a drive but it has no operating system.  Chances are, it's the drive.

However, you can take it a step further and do some additional diagnostics.  The key here is to isolate the major individual components of the WD enclosure - the logic board and the drive itself.

So, to diagnose this you will need either of the following

a known working hard drive
a 3.5" HDD to USB adapter (I recommend this option for reasons that will become clear momentarily).

You will need to disassemble the MyBook.  From my research, the case appears to be held in place with "snaps" which you just pry off so it shouldn't be too difficult to get into.  There's a straightforward set of instructions on Instructables.com

Depending on the option you took above - you either need to change the drive in the MyBook  or plug the old drive into the USB to SATA adapter.

If one component works (i.e the drive), then you know for a fact that the other (i.e. the enclosure) has failed; or vice versa.

If it is your drive, the USB to SATA adapter will allow you to attempt to recover your files.  I have personally used Disk Drill with excellent results (it's free to use the diagnostic portion and to see if you can recover data).  You will be able to make an image of the drive and attempt recovery on the image lessening the chance of total failure of the drive.

If it happens to be the enclosure, the USB to SATA adapter will allow you to continue to use the disk drive while you come up with a more permanent solution (the MyBook is essentially the same thing but with a more elegant enclosure).

If you choose the "drive method" you will still be able to get the same diagnostic results, except you won't be able to transfer or rescue any data if it happens to be the MyBook enclosure that's bad.

Now, as preventing it from happening again - well, this is a spinning hard drive which means it mechanical.  It's going to fail.  The only thing you can do is mitigate data loss by having a backup


How to set Firefox as default client for ftp:// links? How can I set Firefox as the default client for ftp:// links? At the moment default client for ftp:// is Finder, which I don't like.

I found a similar question, which is 7 years old and the solutions don't work anymore.

There's a free application called RCDefault App that allows you to set the default application for different protocols, file handlers, etc.

For example, for FTP, I can set whatever application I choose to handle that protocol...

Installation is extremly easy.  Once you download and open the DMG, simply copy the file to either /Library/PreferencePanes or ~/Library/PreferencePanes (if you only want it accessible to your user profile)

After it's copied, open the application up from System Preferences and you can start customizing.

It hasn't been updated in a long time, but I just verified that it works on High Sierra.


Default settings for pmset -g? I remember changing some values to disable Deep sleep mode and hibernation a few months ago, and realised that my battery drains faster now. I just want to revert all settings to default. I changed some back such as hibernationmode 3, but not sure if I'm missing anything else.

Are these values normal for a 15" Retina Macbook Pro ?
(I'd appreciate if anyone can crosscheck with theirs if you didn't tamper with the settings in pmset -g )

On power :

Active Profiles:
Battery Power       -1
AC Power        -1*
Currently in use:
 standbydelay         7200
 standby              1
 womp                 1
 halfdim              1
 hibernatefile        /var/vm/sleepimage
 darkwakes            1
 gpuswitch            2
 networkoversleep     0
 disksleep            0
 sleep                0
 autopoweroffdelay    14400
 hibernatemode        3
 autopoweroff         1
 ttyskeepawake        1
 displaysleep         60
 acwake               0
 lidwake              1

and on battery :

Battery Power       -1*
AC Power        -1
Currently in use:
 standbydelay         7200
 standby              1
 halfdim              1
 hibernatefile        /var/vm/sleepimage
 darkwakes            0
 gpuswitch            2
 disksleep            0
 sleep                180
 autopoweroffdelay    14400
 hibernatemode        3
 autopoweroff         1
 ttyskeepawake        1
 displaysleep         5
 acwake               0
 lidwake              1

Thanks

One can use pmset restoredefaults, or in System Preferences > Energy Saver, click the Restore Defaults button.

If you want to see what changed, one can use pmset -g custom before and after restoring the defaults.

This worked for me, and is documented in man pmset, in macOS Mojave 10.14.5.


Is Xcode 4.2 available for a MacBook Pro 2.2 with a Core Duo processor? I'm trying to figure out if this computer will be able to run the new Xcode 4.2.

These are the specs:

MacBook Pro 2.2 15'' Core Duo 2.16GHz (T2600)
2 GB RAM

The full specs can be found here.

Yes.
This rather depends on the OS version than the Mac. Since this Macbook has a 32-bit processor, the latest OS you can install is Snow Leopard. The latest version of Xcode is still made available for Snow Leopard by Apple.
Xcode 4.2 for Lion (Mac App Store)
Xcode 4.2 for Snow Leopard (direct link)
Xcode 3.1.4 for Leopard (latest version that runs on Leopard)


when is the /etc/hosts file loaded? I'm trying to configure some virtual hosts and I'm quite confused as to when this file is loaded.

At what point is /private/etc/hosts loaded? When logging in? At every DNS call? When Mac OS restarts?

The hosts(5) manual page provides some insight into how /etc/hosts is used.

The file is used by mDNSResponder and, given your question, I suspect you want to see edits to /etc/hosts reflected in your DNS look-ups.

After each edit of /etc/hosts reset the mDNSResponder cache using this Apple technical note, OS X: How to reset the DNS cache:

sudo dscacheutil -flushcache

The note explains when you might need to do this:

  When you might want to do this

  OS X keeps a local cache of resolved DNS queries for a time defined by
  the DNS server, but sometimes it may be necessary to reset the cache
  immediately and re-query a DNS server. For example, you might do this
  after an entry on the server is changed or a new entry is added.


All apps wiped from jailbroken iPhone (iOS 7.0.4) after reboot from battery loss Basically I have my iPhone w/ iOS 7.0.4 jailbroken using the latest evasion software.

I recently ran out of battery, and when I had managed to recharge and get my handset back on, all of my apps (apart from the stock apps that come with the phone) are all gone. No other data is missing, e.g , music, pictures and videos.

When I go to, settings, general, and usage. I can clearly see that my memory is still being taken up by all the apps I "had" on my phone (2.1gb free) yet the apps still aren't there. I'm usually good with tech, especially Apple. But this one has me stumped.

It's a bug. Your apps aren't gone but just not visible on your Home Screen.

To restore them, reinstall a package through Cydia (either an existing one, or a new one will suffice). Then either respring (can be achieved via WinterBoard) or reboot your device (unnecessary if you reinstall a package that requires SpringBoard to restart, like ClassicDock for example).

I have unfortunately not been able to pin down the exact cause of this.


PF not forwarding incoming traffic on loopback from one port to another Scenario

I have a server listening on port 3000 on localhost. I want incoming traffic to localhost:8080 to be forwarded to that server.

My set up:

Server listens on port 3000; nothing listens on port 8080
pfctl: rdr pass log on lo0 proto tcp from any to any port 8080 -> 127.0.0.1 port 3000
watch all incoming connections to port 8080 on lo0 interface: sudo tcpdump -nn -i lo0 dst port 8080 -v

Test

curl localhost:8080

Expected

server on port 3000 gets request from curl
tcpdump returns smth like: 127.0.0.1.57330 > 127.0.0.1.3000 < more-info >

Reality

curl gets curl: (7) Failed to connect to localhost
port 8080: Connection refuse
tcpdump returns 127.0.0.1.57330 > 127.0.0.1.8080 < more-info >

=> tcpdump output means that the rule was not applied since the destination port is still 8080 and not 3000.

Question

Where did my configuration went wrong and how to make it right?

First of all, it's not pfctl (who forwards), but rather PF instead. pfctl is just a controlling utility (hence "ctl").

Now to debugging. You gave none of that info so that all is based on my own expertise and assumptions, read "guesses".

pfctl -si should show you if PF is actually enabled. Yes, rules can be loaded into it, but being disabled it won't process traffic.

pfctl -vsn should show if your NAT rules are getting any hits or they aren't.

And if you have some other PF rules applied you'd better be sure there's no set skip on lo0.


Thunderbird - quit when close When I close the windows of Thunderbird 38, it is because I have finished to work on my mails.
But Thunderbird is still running and can tell me when new mails are arrived.

For now, I have to click-right on Thunderbird to quit.

Is there a way to quit Thunderbird when I close the window?

I am using Mac OSX 10.10.

No, as on Macintosh closing Applications' windows ( by either clicking on the top-left red button or doing Command+W ) doesn't quit it.

To quit it, instead of closing all windows, you have to actively go into the menu option through [Application Name] / Quit [Application Name] or by doing Command+Q


Syncing FInder smart folder with images to iPhone I created a smart folder using Finder containing images that I would like to sync to my iPhone. When I opened iTunes and tried to select that folder to sync images into my iPhone, the folder was grey and I was unable to select it.

Does any workaround exist that makes it possible for me to accomplish this synchronization?

I wrote this python script that searches for all files with a blue label (color 4) in a directory and copies it to a regular folder instead of a smart folder.

#!/usr/bin/python
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

import os

// You can add several label searches and put them into separate "smart" directories
configuration = [
            { "color": "4", "location": "/Absolute/path/to/destination directory" }
        ]

for config in configuration:
    color = config["color"]
    location = config["location"]

    os.system("mdfind -onlyin /Absolute/path/to/search/directory -literal 'kMDItemFSLabel = 4' > /tmp/favs.txt")
    os.system("rsync -a --progress --no-relative --files-from=/tmp/favs.txt  / \""+location+"\"")
    files_list = os.listdir(location)
    for file in files_list:
        if not file in open('/tmp/favs.txt').read():
            print("Removing "+file)
            try:
                os.remove(location+file)
            except OSError:
                pass

This script only searches for labels, and not all the other functionality a smart folder can have. For something like this, I would recommend Hazel which is an app where you can make rules for e.g. copying files to a directory based on criteria.


password built in an app for restricted download? I have built an app. It's a magazine and a few brochures with rich content. I will upload it as a multi issue app. Once it's approved and available in the iTunes app store, I would like it to be available only to those who have a password to download it. But I'm not sure that it's possible to do this. I hope my question is now clearer. Thank you.

You will have a very hard time getting the app approved is my guess, but you can always try.

It's not clear why you aren't using the newsstand functionality - and that will certainly be on the reviewer's mind when they are deciding if the app store needs another app added to the pile.

Technically, you can offer apps that require payment - see HBO Go, various major league baseball apps, but they all either have a free period to explore the paid content or significant free capabilities to justify being available on the app store.

Unless you can show huge value to some people, you'll be facing a hard sell once it's time to get it past review. If you can, start by submitting a test app to the beta testing review using Test Flight. That will only cost you $100 and the time to develop the initial version of the app.

From there you will have a dialog with the review team to judge if or how they will respond to your specific app.

All the above goes out the window if you are selling the app B2B and your purchasers are only VPP businesses. Then you have a great business model and chance for success selling a custom business app.


Restore Shell configuration and packages I just formatted my Mac. I have a backup of my latest status before the format, and I want only one thing from this backup. I want my terminal to be exactly as it was. Mainly I want to have all the commands running (e.g. brew, nom, l (instead of ls), ...). furthermore, I want all the themings and terminal styling.

Is there a way to do it not by using migration assistance?

To get the styling and some other things back simply extract Backups.backupd/$COMPUTERNAME/latest/$SYSTEMVOLUME/Users/$USER/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Terminal.plist from the backup and copy it to /Users/$USER/Library/Preferences/
To get the shell config copy Backups.backupd/$COMPUTERNAME/latest/$SYSTEMVOLUME/Users/$USER/.bash_profile (and/or .profile/.bashrc) to /Users/$USER/. If you prefered another command interpreter (e.g. zsh) in the past, choose the respective files. Same with history files/folders like .bash_history and .bash_sessions.
I don't advise to copy anything from Backups.backupd/$COMPUTERNAME/latest/$SYSTEMVOLUME/usr/local/bin to get your brew packages back. Instead check Backups.backupd/$COMPUTERNAME/latest/$SYSTEMVOLUME/usr/local/var/homebrew/linked and Backups.backupd/$COMPUTERNAME/latest/$SYSTEMVOLUME/usr/local/opt and install the listed packages one by one with brew. The keg-only dependencies will be installed automatically.

Entering brew bundle dump in Terminal before formatting the drive and moving the result to a save place, would have helped to restore your old brew enviroment on your current system.
Check Backups.backupd/$COMPUTERNAME/latest/$SYSTEMVOLUME/usr/local, .../bin and .../sbin for other binaries installed independently.

with

$COMPUTERNAME: the computer name before formatting
$SYSTEMVOLUME: the name of the system drive before formatting
$USER: your user name before formatting

Almost all files and folders are invisible because they start with a dot or they are flagged invisible. So either use the AppleShowAllFiles YES feature or a decent file browser (like Path Finder).


Missing icon styles for Vanilla LibreOffice after update As title says, my installation of LibO (from "Collabora" -- the one in the Mac Appstore) is now missing several icon sets with the recent upgrade. Info:

Version: 5.2.1.1
Build ID: 4afc24bb8402fb220914e41da1503f86441578cb
CPU Threads: 4; OS Version: Mac OS X 10.10.5; UI Render: default;
Locale: en-US (en.UTF-8); Calc: group
machine is MacBook, early 2015, 10.10.5 Yosemite

What I see:

But this is what I have for my 5.2.1.2 installation on Ubuntu:

Prior to the latest upgrade, the icon sets were the same on both installations. Any help on how to get the missing icon sets?

I just got the update to this version of LibO:

Version: 5.2.1.4
Build ID: e145cf15d1b452e575867b990095d176cf53383c

At least my preferred icon styles have been restored in an "artwork" fix to this release ("Breeze" and "Sifr"). Still, the only further one this "Vanilla" AppStore version of LibO includes is the "Tango" set, unlike the larger set of options I see on my Ubuntu setup.

It would still be good to know how to add icon sets to the OSX LibO installation, but at least the icons are now bearable again.


Where are crash logs after a system freeze? When your entire macOS freezes up and restarts, are there crash logs or core dumps to diagnose the problem? I would in particular like to know which kernel module was active at the time of the crash.

Symptoms: The display "froze", the mouse cursor stopped moving, and the Force Touch trackpad stopped doing clicks. After maybe 10-20 seconds, the system restarted on its own. When it came back up I expected to see a Crash Reporter dialog, which usually has some useful details on the crash, but there was none. I also looked through logs in the Console and couldn't find anything, though maybe I missed something. Is there some place where I should expect to find crash logs?

Apple moves the logs from version to version, but I would start with sysdiagnose.

Open the terminal app and type sysdiagnose or press the keys to trigger the data collection process.

How do you get system diagnostic files from OS X?

The good thing about this is it collects both the traditional log file based logs, snapshots like recent crashes, panics, hangs as well as a recent sample stored in a potable log archive format of the system log database files (since 10.9 more and more logs are stored in the apple system logs database as opposed to flat files and panic logs).

From there, you can open the file and search for the panics and crashes.


grep syntax issue on Lion I have a text file and looking for the single line bird. Using OS X Lion and grep 2.5.1.

this works:

grep '^bird' file.txt

but this doesn't

grep '^bird$' file.txt

There is not a blank space at the end of the line. What am I doing wrong?

thx

Its usually because of a DOS formatted text file (CRLF). To clean the file you can install a tooö like dos2unix; but usually works even simpler by using the tr tool:

tr -d '\r' < testfile > output.txt


My Mac recently using RAM like hell? I have 8 GB of ram and I have only 1.25GB free memory left, not enough to run 2 tabs of gmail. for chrome keep asking me to kill the process of my Gmail which 2-3 days ago I'm always have like 2-3GB free memory after opening 2 gmail accounts and some others websites.

I also installed auto memory clean to help me get more memory back but recently when my mac start, a few minutes later memory almost dropped to 0GB so my memory cleaner app keep to clean memory after that memory consuming so fast and repeat above process again. Memory clean doesn't solve my problem in a long term.

I have closed all the apps to free memory and I see that when idle I should have more memory back but it's not.

So I looked into Activity Monitor and Memory clean app, I saw 2 things that consuming lots of memory which I don't think it's true.

I'm trying to use cleanmymac 2 to help me solve the issue specially to kick away some file cache problem, but I don't see any difference.

First of all it's probably a good idea to stop using that memory cleaner app. They aren't necessary these days; if they ever were. The memory systems on modern operating systems are perfectly capable of maintaining themselves. The way these memory cleaner application work is by claiming a huge chunk of RAM, thereby forcing everything not critical out of RAM, and then releasing the RAM they've requested. Your swapping something that has been fine tuned over years by a lot of very smart people, with some guy wielding a mallet.

This could actually be the reason you are seeing your free RAM drop to zero. It could be the memory cleaner app itself.

The idea that you need to have a large amount of RAM sitting "free" is just wrong. When you close applications the RAM isn't necessarily immediately freed. All modern operating systems keep recently used files cached in RAM so that if you (or the system) decide to reopen something recently closed the files open quicker.

If you do have a performance problem with Gmail in Chrome the problem is likely elsewhere. I highly doubt it has anything to do with the amount of free RAM on your Mac.


Is it possible to view bugs submitted by others to Apple's bug reporter? Engineering has determined that your bug report is a duplicate of another issue and will be closed.

This is a message I see quite often these days at http://bugreport.apple.com and it is frustrating for several reasons:

you submitted a bug for nothing without the possibility to check the database first
you can't check if it is truly a duplicate
there is no follow-up on your issue
you'll never know if they are fixing the bug

I can't believe that these major disadvantages are on purpose.

So: Is it possible to view bugs submitted by others to Apple's bug reporter?

It is not possible. But there is a website called OpenRadar where the community files the same bugs as in Apple's bug reporter.

It's supposed (never confirmed) that Apple analyses all bugs and solves the ones with more duplicates. In that way, people report again and again the same bugs on Apple's Bugreport in order to speed up the process.

So, if you want a bug to be solved asap, file your bug report, duplicate in open radar and then share that radar to as many people as you know.


Does "Background App Refresh" only refresh data or does it also allow the app to update in background? I do not prefer automatic updates because they can change the function of an app unexpectedly as well as use bandwidth when I am trying to do something else on the internet.

Background app refreshing is just checking for new content and updating it in the app while the app is running in the background. I've never heard of an app actually updating itself and calling it a background refresh, and if it did that would certainly be a case of the developers mistaking the meaning of 'background refresh'.

Automatic updating is usually a separate setting (either in the app's preferences or the app store, depending upon which app you are talking about).


Connect iPhone to Mac Without Charging I am developing iOS apps and I hate, that always when I connect my iPhone to my Mac to install and test an app, the iPhone gets charged. Is there any possibility to connect my iPhone to my Mac without charging the phone?

My Environment:
-  iPhone 4S (No Jailbreak)
-  MacBook Air3,2 (Late 2010)

After some Googling around, I don't believe this is possible.

Though you can disable USB ports by unloading kexts, this would disable USB port functionality altogether: it would neither supply power nor read any USB connected input device (it may still supply power, but definitely would not recognize any input).

An alternative option would be to purchase an AC powered USB hub (for example) to reduce the power being drawn from your built in USB port when a device is connected to the hub (and hub is connected directly to AC + your machine). That way, though 500 mAh would still be allocated to the port, the iPhone would be drawing power from the AC connection. Thus, you could still connect the phone to your machine and have it recognizable via the hub without drawing power exclusively from the machine's USB port.

Related:

Disable Specific USB Ports / Restrict Data Transfer from USB Ports


FaceTime added to Dock on Start Up I've encountered an interesting issue, and I am wondering if anyone else has experience with it.

Every time I restart my Mac, FaceTime is added back to the Dock. If I remove it from the Dock, it disappears. Restart, and it's back. I can remove other things just fine and they stay where they are, if I re-arrange FaceTime in the Dock it stays in its new position. Only when I remove it does something put it back.

Recent System Changes that might be causing it:

EFI Update was just installed, it seemed to start happening as soon as it rebooted from installing this.
XCode was upgrade from 4.0.1 to 4.0.2

Things I've tried:

Deleting the ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist and rebuilt my Dock from scratch. After restarting, everything was exactly where I wanted it except the FaceTime app was added back.

(Anything else I try, I will edit and post here)

Has anyone else had problems with applications getting "stuck" in the Dock? How'd you fix it? FaceTime is neat, and I use it occasionally, but it isn't worth a dedicated spot on the Dock.

Remove them from your dock, then go under the go tab in finder to your hard drive, then to library, and then in the prefences folder find com.apple.dockfixup.plist and move it to the recycle bin. Problem solved. This worked for me and I am running Lion so, hopefully it will work for you...


Cannot Sign In to enable iTunes & App Store within iOS Simulator In iPhone SE Simulator (iSO 10.3, running directly), I'm going to Settings, Apple ID/iCloud and trying to enable iTunes & App Store which is Off (I was manage already to log in to Apple ID).

When enabling, I've got the confirmation message to Set up iTunes and App Store. After Continue I'm asked for the password.
When typed password and Sign In, I've got the following error:

Could Not Sign In
There was a problem connecting to the server.

Why this happens and how to fix that? Or it isn't possible to use App Store within iOS Simulator?

I've internet access inside Simulator and date/time is set correctly.
When checked the HTTPS traffic via tcpdump, it is happening both ways to https://17.248.144.170/.

In-app purchases would be the only reason you need to sign into iTunes/App Store since you cannot download apps from the App Store in the simulator.

According to Technical Note TN2413 you cannot test in-app purchases in the simulator.

  Cannot connect to iTunes Store

  The "Cannot connect to iTunes Store" issue may be due to one or more of the following reasons:

  The sandbox may be unreachable.
  Your app does not have a bundle version (CFBundleVersion). See Setting the Version Number and Build String for more information.
  Your app is running in the Simulator, which does not support in-app purchase.
  You are attempting to purchase a product that is unavailable for sale. See Query the App Store for product information before presenting your app’s store UI for more information.


Does high sierra eject external USB drives upon logoff? I have both a USB hub that has a flash USB and an external USB drive. A family member often pulls it out without ejecting, and I'm trying to ease the effects of that. I put an AppleScript on the Desktop in hopes that they'll use it, and am now looking for auto-eject of both drives upon logoff. It's not foolproof, but better than nothing.

Does anyone have a good overall solution to this problem--and more specifically, can someone tell me if the drives are ejected upon logout?

This answer assumes by logoff/logout you're meaning the Log Out option under Apple > Log Out and not shutting down your Mac.

By default the behaviour of macOS High Sierra is to unmount all volumes except for the boot volume.

However, if more than one user is logged in, then all volumes remain  mounted so that they're still available to the other users.

NOTE: The above behaviour is the same regardless of any network file sharing that is active. That is, if a user is connected to your Mac via file sharing (e.g. SMB etc) this does not change the default behaviour above. They would still be able to access the boot volume of your Mac (even if you're logged out) but they will no longer be able to access other volumes.

Shutting down

[This edit explains what happens if you shut down your Mac instead of logging out]

In all situations of a normal1 Mac shutdown any mounted drives will be unmounted/ejected and no longer available (assuming those drives are connected to that Mac in the first place).

This means that any:

internal drives (SSD or HDD) will be unmounted upon a shutdown
external drives connected directly to the Mac via USB/Firewire/Thunderbolt etc will be unmounted/ejected upon a shutdown
external drives connected directly to the Mac via a hub (e.g. a USB hub) will be unmounted/ejected upon a shutdown
external drives not connected directly to the Mac (i.e. they're being shared on a network by another device) will be unmounted from that Mac upon shutdown but are still available on the network to other devices that also access those volumes.

It's important to note, however, that just because a volume is unmounted/ejected doesn't necessarily mean that it's powered down. If the volume is USB powered (i.e. it is powered by its USB connection, not by another power source) then it will be powered off upon a shutdown. However, if it has its own power supply and/or is connected via a powered hub, the drive may remain powered up. If this is the case it still isn't accessible and also shouldn't pose any problems  - but nevertheless it's an important distinction to make.

1. By a 'normal' shutdown I mean you have shut down the computer normally (e.g. Apple > Shut Down) and not because of a power failure or forced shutdown. In the case of a power failure or forced shutdown any  mounted drive will still be unavailable (unless it's a network drive shared by another device) but it won't have gone through the proper unmount/eject procedure. In these instances it is possible for data loss or corruption, and in very rare cases for damage to the physical drive itself.


How can I update everything installed through Homebrew after OSX upgrade? After updating to 10.8 ‘Mountain Lion’ I’m wondering how I can rebuild everything I have installed through the packaging system Homebrew (similar to MacPorts) to ensure all dependencies are installed optimally for the new system. How can it easily be achieved? The help file offers no hints as to how I can accomplish this.

Use the command brew upgrade in the terminal to update all of the packages.  As for rebuilding all of your programs for the new OS build, there is no reason to do this as the compiled binary should result as the same.  If you are noticing any issues, I would just uninstall and reinstall the packages that you are having issues with.


Has anyone successfully got 2560 x 1600 resolution with the new macbook pros (late 2016) *over dual link dvi*? So I've been using the Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter for years to connect to a DELL 3007WFP which only supports dual-link DVI input. Now I want to connect the new macbook pro (late 2016) with thunderbolt 3 to this monitor.

There is no such thing as thunderbolt 3 to dual-link dvi. Called Apple and after one hour on the phone they told me to buy a thunderbolt 3 to thunderbolt 2 adapter in order to connect to the Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter. After a trip to the Apple Store and $29 less in my wallet that's for sure did not work!

So now I'm wondering: man can go and go back from the moon, but it can't make this work? I don't want to have to buy another monitor to use with the new macbook pro :(

Has anyone successfully got that to work? Which adapters? How did you connect them?

Below the Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter I've been using for centuries:

After a lot of trial and error (I've tried pretty much every adapter on the market) I have my MacbookPro (15inch) late 2016 working with my Dell 3007WFP monitor. Running at the full 2560x1600 resolution.

Adapters used:

Official Apple Dual DVI adapter.
USB 3.1 Type C to Mini DisplayPort/Mini DP (Female) Adapter Cable Support 4K UHD
External powered USB hub.

Setup

The USB of the dual dvi adapter goes into the USB hub.
USB-C plugs into the MacbookPro, the female mini display port plugs  into the dual dvi adapter.


Thunderbolt 2 charging My 2011 Macbook Pro's MagSafe charging board died but the device still turns on. I heard that the Thunderbolt 2 which is on my Macbook can be used to charge the Mac by using a USB-C to Thunderbolt connector. Is this true?
How can I charge my MBP?

Thunderbolt 2 can not be used to charge your MacBook.
Unfortunately, the only way to charge the model you have is MagSafe – you have to replace the charging board if you want to keep using it.


Include external drive in Time Machine backup: compatible formats? I want to also back up my external drive to another Time Machine drive, but when I want to stop Time Machine from excluding it, I can't, since it's not clickable:

I know the problem is, that it has to be in another format (currently ExFAT). But which formats are compatible and which are best?

According to this article, the external drive has to be either an HFS+ drive or (since Big Sur) an APFS drive!
I tested it with an external "APFS encrypted" drive and it worked. I was able to disable the exclusion in the settings and thereby back up the external drive to Time Machine!


How to delete photos from iPhoto album (not only removed from album)? In iPhoto, select some photos in an album, delete them only remove the photos from the albums (but are not actually deleted).

How can I delete photos (move to Trash) inside iPhoto albums (like deleting photos in Library > Photos view)?

Select photos in an album, press option+command+delete.


Cant access firewall in system preferences; firewall tab is greyed out I have tried multiple things to rememdy this issue. I have tried enabling and logging in as root, tried to clone the system preferences app and accessing security and privacy from the view menu and nothing seems to work. I have repaired permissions from disk utility, repaired permissions through terminal at utility repair and still nothing. I will say that there was a previous user at my machine which I went through the best approach I could find by saving the previous home folder and creating another. My new user is set to administrator also. I am open to any suggestions here as I am fresh out of ideas.

I also made sure to authenticate via the lock icon in system preferences pane.

Im running:
-3.4ghz i7 imac
-16g ram
-osx mavericks 10.9.5
-local network

Update:
just tried running this in terminal and restarting… also to no avail
sudo rm /Library/Preferences/com.apple.alf.plist

Update:
tried toggling socketfilterfw off and then on through terminal but both times terminal output that the firewall was already in the state I was attempting to set it to.
still no solution…

Update:
Im now gearing to wipe and reinstall my os drive. I have run out of things to try and assume that it's a convoluted permissions issue. If anyone has any last-ditch ideas, I'm all ears. Thanks for everyone's help.

Final Update:
I wiped and reinstalled… never got a solution to this one.

My first assumption is that you have a app like Anti Virus that took over the control of your Firewall.

Here is a article on using the Terminal commands with Firewall.

It is for Lion, but I assume they still work with Mavericks.

For example to start it:

/usr/libexec/ApplicationFirewall/socketfilterfw --setglobalstate on

Give it a try.


How do I prevent a menu extra from appearing at login? Recently I reinstalled OS X 10.6.8 and afterwards I removed my DVD drive since it was no necessary. However, upon booting the 'eject' menu extra appears. Dragging it off does not help as it reappears during the next boot. There are no other drives removable connected.

Is there any simple solution other than deleting the menu extra file?
(Though it is a wonderful application, using Bartender is not a solution.)

Try this

  http://macs.about.com/od/macoperatingsystems/qt/ejectcdmenu.htm

or

Rename eject.menu in /System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/ to something else "eject.menu.bak"

restart mac and then rename the file back to original.

Not sure if it works but trying doesnt hurt anyone.


How to hide app store updates in macOS Sierra? I tried right clicking the updates to see if it would show me a "hide" or "ignore" option without any luck.

My OCD is not pleased. I don't want to see a number on my pretty App Store icon :p

Am I missing anything or did Apple just remove that option? If so, may Steve Job's ghost haunt them until they are all driven crazy.

To hide an update:

Open the Mac App Store and click the Updates tab.
Right click on the update(s) that you wish to hide, and click Hide Update.

Example:

To unhide an update:

Open the Mac App Store
Click the Store tab in the menu bar and select Show All Software Updates.

Example:

Why there could have been no option:

  Right-Click "Hide update" worked in Sierra through 10.12.4. Some time in the last couple of updates it stopped being an option. However: Updates you previously "hid" (in an earlier version of Sierra) are still flagged as "hidden" and still stay out of sight, you just cant add any new items to hide.


macOS Sierra Spotlight search does not find Numbers but Number My Spotlight search behaves strange and I don't know how to fix it.
Any Ideas?

When I want to open Numbers, I hit command space  and start typing "number",

but if I keep on typing the "s", essentially completing the app name Numbers, Spotlight does not know what to do anymore.

Does the index point into a wrong direction? If I search for a specific file it works.

I tried the solutions by Anil and Senseful here, but the problem does not change

UPDATE

After rebuilding the Spotlight library the problem shortly disappeared (one week). But it returned again. So maybe my question is not how to solve this problem but what is corrupting my Spotlight index?

Interestingly the Spotlight results look a bit different now and shows the App-Store Numbers version (which then automatically opens the local one).

I would start by rebuilding the Spotlight index.

From: How to rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac

  Choose Apple menu () > System Preferences, then click Spotlight.
  Click the Privacy tab.
  Drag the folder or disk that you want to index again to the list of locations that Spotlight is prevented from searching. Or click the
  Add (+) button and select the folder or disk to add.
  To add an item to the Privacy tab, you must have ownership permissions for that item. To learn about permissions, choose Help
  from the Finder menu bar, then search for “permissions.”
  From the same list of locations, select the folder or disk that you just added. Then click the Remove (–) button to remove it from the
  list.
  Quit System Preferences. Spotlight will reindex the contents of the folder or disk.

Or via Terminal:

sudo mdutil -i off /
sudo mdutil -i on /
sudo mdutil -E

See the man page for mdutil or type man mdutil in Terminal.


What is the purpose of this plastic piece inside my MacBook Air? I have a MacBook Air (13-inch, Early 2015). The model number is A1466 (EMC 2925).
I recently removed the bottom case (in order to fix my trackpad) and immediately noticed broken plastic pieces inside of a slot located near the middle of the bottom case. Below are two images showing opposite sides of the two pieces I recovered:

There is a matching slot where these pieces fit in the middle of the battery. The slot is in the shape of a rectangle with semi-circle ends. I didn't get pictures of my battery before I put everything back together, but here is an image of the same type of battery (The slot is right above the middle screw):

In my research I found this post which may be a duplicate of my question. I'm not sure though as the model is different.
Is this plastic piece intended to hold the bottom case snug with the battery/upper casing? Is this piece important?
Thank you in advance for any replies to my query!

It is a structural connector and should be repaired and replaced. The battery is part of what makes the case stiff so your device will be more susceptible to bends. Not having the bottom cover latch in could damage the batteries in a very unsafe way. Same if that piece or even a tiny screw were wedged between any part of the top case or bottom cover and the battery thereby pinching or puncturing the exposed cells.
Rather than risk a fire, I would have someone trained on Mac repairs examine your Mac and evaluate of it’s safe due to any chance a piece of plastic or screw was loose inside. The linked article you mentioned has a much less fragile battery and isn’t as susceptible to torsion due to a fundamentally different case structure design. Your battery has less armor than the older ones and safety depends entirely on zero loose parts being inside the case.
A proper fit of the bottom plate for ensured protection and structural integrity. Zero debris ensures safe operational conditions.

https://locate.apple.com/


How to configure a proxy in a new network location using Terminal.app I'm writing a bash script, which will create new network location and configure it. The question is - how to add proxy settings to specific network location using terminal or bash script?

P.S. I'm creating new location using networksetup -createlocation <location name>

Found this networksetup manual. To do this, you just need to write

networksetup -setwebproxy "Service name (e.g. Wi-Fi)" proxy.server.com port


Extract e-mail addresses from large text file Is there any way I could search through a load of text documents and extract the email addresses from it into one new document?

I have this so far in Automator:

#!/bin/bash

Report=/Users/me/Desktop/mail/cur.txt

for f in /Users/me/Desktop/mail/test/*
do
    if [ -f "$f" ] ; then
        EMAIL=$(/usr/bin/grep -E -o '^([a-zA-Z0-9_\-\.]+)@([a-zA-Z0-9_\-\.]+)\.([a-zA-Z]{2,5})$' "$f" )
        if [ "$EMAIL" != "" ] ; then
            echo "$EMAIL" >> "$Report"
        fi
    fi
done

But I am getting lots of empty lines printed to the output.

#!/bin/bash

Report=/Users/me/Desktop/mail/cur.txt

for f in /Users/me/Desktop/mail/test/*; do
  if [ -f "$f" ] ; then
    EMAIL=$(/usr/bin/grep -E -o '([a-zA-Z0-9_\.-]+)@([a-zA-Z0-9_\.-]+)\.([a-zA-Z]{2,5})' "$f" )

    if [ "$EMAIL" != "" ] ; then
      echo "$EMAIL" >> "$Report"
    fi
  fi
done


Closed laptop lid last night, today it can't boot up I fell asleep to a movie playing last night and woke up to just shut the laptop lid like I always do. To my knowledge I don't have any updates running at certain times or anything.

Today I open the laptop and it looks like it's at some type of loading screen. Next thing you know it says OSInstall.mpkg appears to be missing or damaged.

I always just shut the lid on my laptop at night so I don't know why last night was any different. Do I have to reinstall MacOS on my laptop or is there a way to repair? There are no repair options in MacOS Utilities other than just restore from backup and reinstall.

Apparently it must have been something space related. I went into recovery and cleared up 20gb of space (had 6gb previously) and rebooted. Everything was well upon reboot.


I cannot connect to (specifically) google.com with any app using cellular data All other websites work and can be quickly accessed, even youtube.com will load. google.com will simply not load at all when I try to connect to it over cellular data. It does work over Wi-Fi, however. I tried using a different browser, the Google app, restarting the iPhone, everything. Funny thing though, the Google feed loads in the Google app, yet I cannot search with google within the app.

This sounds like it may be an issue with your mobile service provider's DNS. I would try to Reset Network Settings to see if that clears out the cached DNS results.

To reset network settings:
Tap SettingsGeneral > Reset > Reset Network Settings


Bluetooth lagging on Macbook Pro 16 inch 2019 I have a Magic Mouse connected to my new Macbook Pro 2019.
The mouse is horribly lagging. I have another bluetooth device, a pair of Sony headphones, that is working horribly too.
Analysis:

Both devices work perfectly with Macbook Pro 2018 in the very same location.
I suspected interference with the Wifi(2.4 GHz) but when I turned it off the devices were still lagging
Both devices are 100% charged
The mouse's sensor is clean

I tried to reset PRAM and SMC, removed everything related to mouse from /Library/Preferences/, nothing helps.
BT signal strength on both Macbooks is the same: ~ -52 dBm.
I'd appreciate any help!
macOS version: Catalina 10.15.5

Interference in the 2.4 GHz range is very hard to measure and even harder to control.
Look to eliminate every single USB-C connection within 10 feet of either device to ensure you’re not generating the interference right next to the Bluetooth receiver on the Mac.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201163
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201542

If your display connects via Thinderbolt 3 or USB-C this testing is not ideal but necessary. I have had one person add a USB Bluetooth low energy dongle at the end of a 6 foot (2m) type cable and tape / attach it to the wall next to where they sit so they escape interference close to the Mac. Most of the time, we use another radio frequency if the interference is coming from too close to eliminate.
Also, all sorts of electronics and motors can cause the interference, check everything in 30 foot range if you can’t get an actual tool to measure the RFI.


iOS 11: iPhone freezes/shuts down since update Ever since iOS 11 came out, my iPhone 6s intermittently "freezes" or "shuts down". It's difficult to phrase it exactly, because I typically see some different behaviours:

The phone freezes and is unresponsive, but it's still active (e.g. playing music). The screen is black and lock/unlock button is unresponsive. Frequently happens after pressing the lock button once, after which it will not respond to an unlock request.
The phone suddenly "semi-shuts down". Music playing will stop suddenly and Bluetooth connections such as AirPods will be lost. The phone is either entirely black or "graphically black" with a spinning wheel for about 20–30 seconds. It does not appear to be a full shutdown, because no reboot is required (i.e. the Apple logo isn't displayed). The phone returns to the Lock Screen after the black screen or spinning wheel.

It should be noted that my phone has battery problems described here and here, which is to say that in iOS 10 the Phone would suddenly completely die at 20%. While the issue could definitely be related to the faulty battery, it does not appear to be similar, and these new shutdowns occur also at near-fully loaded battery levels.

Anecdotally, I don't have much to report other than that the Lock Button seems to trigger a freeze sometimes, but as stated above shutdowns can happen by themselves without any particular action by me (except streaming music).

Note: This problem did not occur in iOS 10 or similar versions with the very same phone.

Edit: I have not replaced any part of the iPhone, e.g. I don't use a third-party replacement screen. The iOS 11.0.3 update that was intended to address issues relating to replacement screens, did not help.

There are lots of issues right now with iOS 11, especially with the iPhone 6S. A quick look at the iFixit Answers Forum will convince you of that. Of course, these are just a tiny percentage of all iPhone owners so it's not like there is a pandemic going on. If your screen has been replaced with an aftermarket screen in the past, this may be the source of the problem.

This blog post explains:

The problem appears to be caused by the software driver of the Touch Controller IC that is embedded into the display assembly. Aftermarket screens produced with Hancai or Tianma LCD's using the Aichungjia (a Flex/IC manufacturer) "copy" driver appear to be incompatible with iOS 11. This driver is said to be unable to handle the iOS configuration and therefore shutting down and causing the lack of Touch functionality. OEM or Original grade iPhone 6S and iPhone 7 series replacement screens are not affected by this problem.

I don't believe it is battery related although you should check this Apple official website to see if you are elegible for a free battery replacement. Unfortunately, it is now too late to downgrade to iOS 10 as Apple have stopped signing those versions.


Prevent OS X from seeing a disk previously used for Time Machine as a TM disk I have a slightly flaky old disk which was once used with Time Machine on an old Mac. Since Time Machine is no longer part of my workflow, I'd like to just access this disk like any other HDD. Currently, when I try to delete files I receive the message "The operation can’t be completed because backup items can’t be modified."

Edit: I tried using tmutil associatedisk, but I don't see any old versions when I "Enter Time Machine".

There is a command named bypass that should allow you do remove Time Machine related files. This command should precede the rm command.

The path to the bypass command is given below.

/System/Library/Extensions/TMSafetyNet.kext/Contents/Helpers/bypass

An example is given below.

/System/Library/Extensions/TMSafetyNet.kext/Contents/Helpers/bypass rm -f /path/to/file/name

There also a service written by a third party that allows you do execute the bypass/rm commands from the Finder application. If interested, I could provide a link.


Stopped sync of photo's with iTunes, iPhone still claims little storage is used due to sync I recently stopped the synchronisation of photo's with iTunes on my iPhone. My iPhone removed all photo's it was still showing thanks to this synchronisation, but it still claims some storage is used due to synchronisation of photo's with iTunes.

I'm talking about 0.7 kB. I know it's not much, but nevertheless I'm wondering what it is used for.

While I am unsure of the EXACT details of what may be left in that 0.7KB I  know your phone saves information about what computer it connects to so it knows it can trust it for syncing files, updating software, backing up, and so on. Along with information about what you do and do not want to be synced on the phone. All of that information is still needed whether you sync everything or nothing but would take up a very tiny amount of space, as you can see.


Which OS X Lion features would not be available on a late 2008 MacBook model? Which OS X Lion features wouldn't work on a late 2008 MacBook?  The system in question has a 2.1GHz Core 2 Duo CPU and has been upgraded to 4GB RAM and a 500GB hard drive, so it meets the hardware requirements.  (Oh, and the MacBook is white.  ;-)

Am I right in thinking the only major thing not supported would be the lack of some multi-touch gesture functionality, assuming no external trackpad is attached?

Or, is there something else I'm missing?  Thanks.

I think your MacBook should support all of Lions features except the gestures as you mentioned. I checked using MacTracker and your MacBook doesn't support the multitouch so you will not be able to use some of the more complex three and four finger gestures.

The only other feature I questioned was Airdrop but a quick search found that Airdrop is supported.

Enjoy!


Photos app single library with Sierra and High Sierra I have two Macbooks, one is running High Sierra, and one is running Sierra. My problem is, that I cannot open my Photos library with Sierra since I've opened it with High Sierra, it says that I need to update my Photos app.

Is there a way to update this app without changing the OS?

No - you'll need to restore the photo library and associated files back to a time before the migration / upgrade happened. The database schema and many other items like face recognition databases are one way forward upgrades.

If you don't have a backup, you would need to install High Sierra on an external drive - open the Photos library and then try syncing it back to iCloud (unlikely to work, but maybe try on a small library first) or export all of the photos to the filesystem and then walk away from the library.

When you go back to Sierra you'd need to make a new library and then import the photos from the filesystem. This would be a lot of work and you might have more problems with things like memories / albums / edits than the reversion to Sierra cures.


Why does it take so long to sync photos for my iPod touch  in iTunes? When I sync my iPod touch with iTunes, it stays on

 Syncing Photos to "My iPod touch" (Step 4 of 4)
 Importing Photos . . . .

for about 10 minutes each time (even if I have synced it an hour ago and have no new photos to actually sync)

It then goes to

 Syncing Photos to "My iPod touch" (Step 4 of 4)
 Optimizing 3 of 193 . . .

Again, even if I have no new photos since last sync.

Would any know why this takes so long and it there a way to make it faster?

Find the "iPod Photo Cache" (for iPhoto, it should be listed in iPhoto Library, just right click and select the "Show package contents") and delete it (don't worry, the contents will be recreated the next time you sync).

Sometimes the data in that directory can get corrupted, causing undesirable effects to happen. Hopefully this will help alleviate your problems.

The directory stores every picture that has been synced with your devices. You can read more about the directory here and ways of deleting it: http://support.apple.com/kb/ts1314


How to set iChat status from the command line? I'm trying to sync my Last.FM last played track with my iChat status... right from the command line. I've come this far:

curl -s http://ws.audioscrobbler.com/1.0/user/Da3X/recenttracks.rss |
    grep -m 1 -E -e "         <title>(.*)</title>.*" |
    sed "s/.*<title>//" |
    sed "s/<\/title>//"

which results in the currently or last played track like

The Black Seeds – Cracks In Our Crown

Is there a way to forward this string as the iChat / Messages status now?

Just found it myself... format the output of sed as AppleScript and call osascript...

curl -s http://ws.audioscrobbler.com/1.0/user/Da3X/recenttracks.rss |
    grep -m 1 -E -e "         <title>(.*)</title>.*" |
    sed "s/.*<title>/tell application \"Messages\" to set the status message to \"♬  /" |
    sed "s/<\/title>/\"/" |
    sed "s/\&amp;/\&/" |
    osascript

That's it!