Syncing iCloud bookmarks with Opera GX? I work on a MacBook on the go, an iPhone when on the train and a Mac Mini Server for other stuff - it is actually stuffed in my parent's place. But... I also game on a Windows maschine. Now, since I am very tied to the Apple eco-system, I obviously use iCloud for managing most of my stuff. HandOff and singing into my MacBook with my Apple Watch are super convenient and great! Especially sharing tabs and bookmarks across Safari. But unfortunately, I don't seem to get this on Windows - at least not with Opera GX.

See, I don't really like Google Chrome and I use Firefox for other stuff...ahem. So Opera GX is my main browser; it has the great resource limiter which is super great, a lot of customization and somehow it even has Razer Chroma...? But what it does not have is support from iCloud. And that sucks.

So Opera GX allows you to install Google Chrome extensions - and since there is an iCloud extension, I installed it in the hope that I would be able to sync my bookmarks this way. But no, the "iCloud for Windows" does not recognize this attempt at all, unfortunately. But since Opera GX is essentially abstracting itself to run Chrome extensions and - to my knowledge, mind you - runs the Chromium web-engine, I should be able to trick iCloud into believing that my Opera GX was actually Chrome, right?

I haven't succeeded in this, unfortunately. But since Chromium enforces a specific application infrastructure - all the way from command line arguments to internal page routing for settings and alike - I would think that once iCloud thought that my Opera GX was actually Google Chrome, it should sync my bookmarks just fine. Really, I only want my bookmarks - tabs do not matter that much to me, but it would be nice to have! But I don't think Apple would even allow this feature for non-Safari browsers anyway.

So how can I make iCloud for Windows think that Opera GX is Chrome, so it syncs my bookmarks? Thanks!

If you create the NativeMessagingHosts registry entry it syncs fine without Chrome being detected.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Google\Chrome\NativeMessagingHosts\com.apple.bookmarks]
@="C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Common Files\\Apple\\Internet Services\\AppleChromeDAV_host_manifest.json"

In the UWP version of iCloud both Firefox and Chrome keys are already exposed by the AppX though you can't see them in the registry. So any browser should just work if you install the iCloud extension.


How to restore a backup to a user account? Possible Duplicate:
  How to restore from a Time Machine backup when there is already a user account set up?

We just sold my wife's MacBook Air, and we're going to try sharing my MacBook Pro for a while. So I set up a new user account for her on my MBP, and I am wondering if it is possible to restore her time machine backup onto her user account without losing all of my stuff.

Is this possible?

You have software that came with your Mac that will allow you to transfer that over.

First you need to delete the new account you created for her. Delete that via users and groups under system preferences.

Once that is done log into your account, which I hope is an admin account. Under /Applications/Utilities there is an application called Migration Assistant.

With Migration Assistant you can import her Time Machine back-up onto your computer and it'll import her entire back-up into her own user account. Which is why you needed to delete the account you created for her. You need to not have an account on the machine that matches the name of the account that is on the Time Machine backup.

When importing from her back-up you can choose which parts of the back-up to pull in, Applications, Documents etc... you can avoid redudancy if you have any of the same applications on your machine.

Here is Apple's support article about Migration Assistant.


Unable to insert disk into optical drive (MacBook early 2009 model) I have a MacBook (early 2009 model), and yesterday the SuperDrive stopped working.

On attempting to push a DVD into it, it is physically stiff and doesn't want to go in, with a lot of pushing it goes further, and the automatic mechanism tries to suck it in (or at least makes a noise), but nothing happens. On closer examination, it would appear that something is catching the disks around the middle of the entrance of the SuperDrive which is preventing them from simply gliding in as they used to. I'm unsure whether its something broken, or perhaps a locking mechanism that has somehow got stuck. I did think that something might be stuck in there, but I am not missing any DVDs and I have tried restarting holding down the mouse button to eject, and while it makes the eject noise (which sounds healthy), nothing comes out.

I have tried all the obvious things - resetting the PRAM and SMC, to no avail.

I don't imagine that anyone has a fix for this as its probably a physical problem, but I thought I'd try as I am not currently near an Apple shop and I don't particularly want to be without my computer for too long, so I'd rather attempt to find a fix myself before doing anything else.

I just had this problem with my 17" mbp early 2009.
ODD was blocked like there was disc already in, but of course there wasn't.
Tried many times SMC & PRAM reset and Force shutdown. Sometimes the drive clicked and I managed to insert one disc, which was read just fine.
But after ejecting it, the block was again there.

Then googled some more and typed "drutil eject internal" few times in terminal and all was OK again.


How to preview what Time Machine would back up? I'd like to preview what Time Machine backup would back up if it did a full backup. The UI shows that the backup will be 300 GB but I'd like to understand better what folders contribute to it.

Details:
I use Time Machine with several ignore rules that come from several "sources":

I ignore some folders manually via Time Machine preferences (the "Options..." button at the bottom of the settings dialog). Those are persisted in /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist.
I use tmignore to automatically exclude node_modules and other things I have in my .gitignore files. (Folders excluded this way can be listed via tmignore list.)
Apps can add their own exclude rules, which can be seen by running this command (I'm not 100% sure if it lists everything but that's the command I've used in the past):
sudo mdfind "com_apple_backup_excludeItem = 'com.apple.backupd'"

So I have at least some ways to list ignored files, even though it's not very pleasant that I have to combine several methods.
But even better would be to positively list the files / folder that would be backed up. Those 300 GB most likely contains something that one of the methods above forgot to ignore and I'd like to see what's the biggest contributor to this size. (I used to have a full backup around 100 GB, so there's additional 200 GB hiding somewhere.)
Solution on a terminal is fine, but if there is a GUI app that would visualize that, even better.

Open System Preferences. Tap on the Time Machine option. After having enabled Time Machine and chosen a backup disk, click Options. Click + to define an item that is not to be backed up.


How can I prevent Safari from removing first words of tabs' titles? Safari has a feature which removes duplicate first words of page titles from tabs, which is useful when sites' pages all begin with the same word or two. "Site Title | Page title 1" and "Site Title | Page title 2" show up as "Page title 1" and "Page title 2," for instance.

However, this can be annoying when two pages have the same first word, but are different, such as the two Ask Different pages, "Ask Different chat - chat.stackexchange.com" and "Ask a Question - Apple - Stack Exchange." These become "Different chat […]" and "a Question […]," which isn't very smart of Safari.

Is there any way I can control this to whatever extent possible?

According to this macworld article I don't believe that there is a fix yet (if you really want this fixed, you could try searching for terminal commands to fix or disable this feature). Otherwise you could try switching browsers...

  When you use tabs, Safari sets the tab's title to include the domain name as well as the page title. For instance, macosxhints.com - Submit a Hint. However, when you have more than one or two tabs opened on the same site, Safari drops the domain name from all the tabs, and just includes the page title: Submit a Hint


Will Apple replace the battery on an iPhone 5s? On Apple's service pricing page, it says you can replace the batteries on the following models of iPhone for £45:

iPhone SE
iPhone 6
iPhone 6 Plus
iPhone 6s
iPhone 6s Plus
iPhone 7
iPhone 7 Plus
iPhone 8
iPhone 8 Plus
and all other eligible models

Does the iPhone 5s fall under all other eligible models, or is it too old?

Although discontinued in March 2016, iPhone 5s is still supported for service and parts replacement by Apple (as of this writing).

Check with your local authorised service centre for availability.


Mouse Button 4 stuck on bind after deleting BetterTouchTool So i recently downloaded BetterTouchTool but deleted it afterwards. During the time i had it i binded the keys (Space - w) to my mouse button 4 and some other stuff to other keys. After deleting BetterTouchTool all my other bindings have disappeared except for my mouse button 4. It is still stuck on Space W.

Please help it is a pain not being able to use it. I've tried my brothers mouse and its the same thing. His mouse button 4 is still recognised as space 2. It's like my laptop somehow recognises this button as Space w now even after deleting the original app. Even when setting the button into a game it is now not recognised as mouse button 4 or 3, it is now shown as ⌘[. Is there anything that i can do such as resetting my mouse options or like how my laptop recognises this one button?

Please help Thanks you

There is a native keymapping tool within OS X itself in System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts tab.  There is a slight possibility that the change was made there, and you can change it manually.

The more-likely issue is that the software was not uninstalled completely when removed from your Applications directory.  Lots of software nowadays comes included with uninstallers that you must run to remove stuff that gets distributed all over your filesystem (which is similar, yet not nearly as bad as the whole Windows Registry/AppData situation), yet I see this type of thing becoming more complex with each new version of OS X.

There is probably a .plist file out there somewhere that is getting loaded on startup or login that is controlling this unwanted behavior.  Personally, I would go about resolving this in 1 of the following 3 ways:

Re-download the app, and see if it comes packaged with an uninstaller.  If so, run the uninstaller instead of dragging the app into the Trash.
If the offending application did not come with its own uninstaller, download and install AppZapper, which is the absolute best uninstaller for OS X that I have come across to date.  If you are familiar with Windows, it is the equivalent of RevoUninstaller for Macs.  You simply open the AppZapper application, then drag the app from /Applications into the AppZapper window.  AppZapper will automatically include all files that got installed elsewhere on your filesystem (such as ~/Library/*/*.plist, etc.) that are related to that application.  Then simply click Zap! in order to remove all traces of its previous existence.  I have absolutely no affiliation with this app, but recommend it often, because it's simply a must-have for me and has saved me much grief in the past.
You can manually search out the offending .plist file, which is probably somewhere in ~/Library/LaunchAgents or ~/Library/LaunchDaemons, etc.  Sometimes they are hard to find and oddly-named.  First I would do a search for com.[better.touch.something.or.other].plist, but many times they follow the naming convention of the company or developer, which you may also try.

If all else fails, just sudo -s, start at / and start executing find commands (or better yet, in all of your Libraries -- if you are unlike me and remember where all of them are):

$ sudo -s
# find / -type f -iname "*.better*.plist" 2>/dev/null
# find / -type f -iname "*.btt*.plist" 2>/dev/null
# find / -type f -iname "*.boastr*.plist" 2>/dev/null

or maybe a better/faster way would be...

# find / -type f -iname "*Library*.plist"

...and see if anything stands out.  If so, make a backup just in case you are mistaken, and then delete that sucker:

# rm [offending file].plist


CHM viewer with no continuous search? I am using CHMView at the moment.
The problem is that when I do a typing mistake in one word.
I have to wait for long time.
I would like to have no continuous search.
Only searching when I hit enter.

Is there any application for CHM where the search is not continuous?

xCHM should do it for you. It doesn't use "live search". If you get an error (something about wxWidget) opening it, kill the app and restart it. The error should be gone afterwards.
ichm - though using "live search" it's extremely fast. I never waited longer than 1 sec.


In iOS6: how to check Mail space usage? In iOS6, is there a way to check how much space is being used by the Mail app?

It's quite hard and you might need to delete the mail and measure the space freed since iOS isn't showing Mail usage like it does for other apps.

In theory, you should be able to Open the Settings app and presumably:

Select General.
Select Usage.

Wait for the Storage pane to calculate the current allocation and you will see sorted from most space to least, the combined application and application data usage for each app. If Mail isn't on the list, scroll the content up and tap the "show all" entry below the initial list of apps using the most storage space on iOS.

As things stand, you will not get Mail as an entry in this list (and might spend several minutes looking for a smallish blue icon among a list of hundreds of apps).

My theory is that Apple has implemented code to prune mail storage gradually as your available space becomes low. That would mean that all Mail on iOS is a temporary cache and just like Safari pages held in cache.

If all Mail storage is simply an offline cache and not something you can depend on being on the device if you download a large game or take video and otherwise use up your storage, one viewpoint might be that the correct action is to not show the size of this cache no matter how large or small since when push comes to shove, no mail will be retained on the device if space gets low.

At best, you might need to actually save a snapshot of your usage and then delete the accounts for Mail from your device and then calculate the difference by assuming all the space freed was due to Mail storage caches.


Wi-Fi on MacBook Air only works within 10 feet of router The Wi-Fi on my MacBook Air 11″ 2011 only connects within 10 feet of the router. Other Air works over 45 feet away.  Happened after upgrade to Yosemite, now 10.10.3.

Card Type:  AirPort Extreme  (0x14E4, 0xE9)
 Firmware Version:  Broadcom BCM43xx 1.0 (5.106.98.100.24)
 MAC Address:   60:c5:47:02:58:92
 Locale:    FCC
 Country Code:  US
 Supported PHY Modes:   802.11 a/b/g/n
 Supported Channels:    1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 36, 40, 44, 48, 52, 56, 60, 64, 100, 104, 108, 112, 116, 120, 124, 128, 132, 136, 140, 149, 153, 157, 161, 165
 Wake On Wireless:  Supported
 AirDrop:   Supported
 Status:    Connected

You published the hardware information which is useful, but hardly to change with upgrade to YOSEMITE.

First lets check the current condition:

Hold the Alt key and click on WiFi icon.

You get something like this:

RSSI is (Signal strength including the noise (disturbance)) this is confusing but the lower the number the better.

Transmit Rate- the higher the better (minimum 10)

MCS Index- the higher the better (minimum 5)

There are some Apple provided analytical tools to take look at your WiFi.

If you hold the alt key and click on the WiFi symbol, at the bottom of that list there is a "Open Wireless Diagnostics". Enter your log in password and continue. Let it run till it ask you what to do next. Use the "Monitor my WiFi connection". Let it run and move the MacBook around closer and further from the router. Stop it if nothing happened.

I get the "Crowded WiFi channel" on mine, to many of my devices and neighbors on same channel.

On Yosemite hold the "alt" and click on WiFi, then select the "Open Wireless Diagnostics". In menubar Window tab and select the scan.

Once you have the result sort it by Channel to see how crowded it is.

Here is what I get:

As you can see aside of my self been on channel 11, there are to many others on it as well. Go to your router setup and change the channel to less crowded one.If you have 5g WiFi then switch to it.


How to resize an iBooks' book window after switching between display? I was reading a book on my MBP when it connects to two external monitors. I have make the book window fits the screen width.

However after I disconnected the monitors and tried to read the book on the MBP screen, it is what I see

The top part of the window is outside the viewport. The window allows me to resize but  there is no way I can move the window around. I tried to move the book window to a different desktop but the window stays in the same shape and form.

Because the top menu part if obstructed, I cannot even close the book window.

No option to close the window is available even after the book window is minimized.

How can I refit the window to the screen?

Try to resize the book to its "original" size with  cmd ⌘0. Usually the window gets very small then.

You can always close an open book with cmd ⌘W.


What would happen if I put an iPad sim card in my iPhone Can I put a data only, no voice or text sim card in an iPhone.

I'm keen to get 4g but I've found the cheapest monthly plan for a nano sim is  £33 for 3GB. This included unlimited text(SMS) and unlimited voice calls.

I make almost no calls, and few text messages.

I was looking at what plans were available for the ipad mini (nano-sim too) and noticed it was half the price: £15.99 for 3GB. Pretty big difference.

Has anyone tried an iPad only sim in an iPhone?

I'd use iMessage, FaceTime & skype to get round the lack of voice and text, and keep my old iphone 4 as a backup with a PAYG sim.

Notes:

iPad mini wifi - so I intend to tether
iPhone 5s(when it arrives)
new 4g networks are coming in December so I don't se the point in locking myself into a 12 month plan, when the price is likely to drop.

I called EE and the guy said I would be unable to make calls or send text messages.

I will try this out and see how I go.


How to paste a smiley () within Pages or Keynote? Within the Character viewer, selecting the Emoji font set, I can paste a smiley here: . I can do exactly the same paste of a smiley within TextEdit.

When I try to paste the same symbol within a Pages or Keynote document, I only see an area of white space which is inserted. This invisible character is in Apple  Color  Emoji, Regular, 12 points font.

I noticed the same behaviour on Mountain Lion, Mavericks and Yosemite, on 3 different Macs. Hence I diagnose this isn't an accidental corruption of a font sets and this isn't an accidental bug within one version of MacOS X.

The problem might be within the way these characters are displayed within many versions of MacOS X.

I read this long discussion on Apple discussion groups Emoji in Pages. But this discussion, as usual, doesn't create a conclusion or a solution (Tom Gewecke's analysis is the only interesting point).

I am running MacOS X, from any version between 10.7 to 10.10.

I am running Pages 4.3, Keynote 5.3.

How may one insert a smiley in a Pages or Keynote document?

Emoji simply wasn't supported in Pages 4.3 or Keynote 5.3

Our very own fonts guru, Tom Gewecke mentions such in https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4025411?start=0&tstart=0

The 'fix' is to update, I'm afraid.
It works perfectly well in Pages 5.6.1 & Keynote 6.6.1


How to stream from mac to a DLNA Renderer? I've been wondering if theres an App for this.

Pointing that the target device does not browse DLNA servers, it just receives a targeted streaming.

In case anyone is wondering, it's a UC46 Mini Projector

It also works with Miracast, if by some miracle someone know how to use it on mac...

Thanks in advance.

There are two free options you can try:

ffmpeg
VLC

VLC offers a more friendly GUI interface though (IMO) it's much more limited.  ffmpeg is much more powerful, but it requires you to be command line savvy.

Personally, I prefer ffmpg.  They have a tutorial on how to stream point-to-point, which is what you are looking to do

  Point to point streaming

  If you want to stream "from one computer to another", you could start
  up a server on one, and then stream from FFmpeg to that server, then
  have the client connect to that server (server could either be on
  client or server side computers). Or you could do a point to point
  type stream, like:

ffmpeg -i INPUT -acodec libmp3lame -ar 11025 --f rtp rtp://host:port

  where host is the receiving IP. Then receive the stream using VLC or
  ffmpeg from that port (since rtp uses UDP, the receiver can start up
  any time).

  or

ffmpeg -i INPUT -f mpegts udp://host:port


My Launch Daemon doesn't work despite returning a 0 status For some reason, the launch daemon I created will not run successfully at system boot. I have tried it as a launch agent but that also doesn't work.

This is my plist located in /Library/LaunchDaemons:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.inetmac4.status</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/bin/sh</string>
        <string>/Users/inetmac4/script/VMSTATUS/vmstatus_startup</string>
    </array>
    <key>KeepAlive</key>
    <false/>
</dict>
</plist>

Interestingly, the script does run correctly if executed manually, just not through the daemon. And when running launchctl list after boot, the status for com.inetmac4.status is 0, but the script didn't appear to ever run.

Any help would be greatly appreciated! I've Googled but none of the solutions out there that I've found will work for me.

EDIT: It should be noted that I'm trying to run it on a Mac Pro on 10.8.5

EDIT2: And the script:

`#!/bin/bash
#cd /Users/inetmac4/
#python -m SimpleHTTPServer > ~/outfile 2> ~/errfile < /dev/null & disown
cd /Users/inetmac4/Script/VMSTATUS/
./VM.sh  > ~/outfile 2> ~/errfile < /dev/null & disown`

VM.sh:

#!/bin/sh

#  VM.sh
#
#
#  Created by INETMac4 on 9/12/13.
#
COUNTER=0

while [  1 ]; do

    perl VM_STATUS.pl
    let COUNTER=COUNTER+1
    sleep 5
done

and VM_STATUS.pl:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use Data::Dumper;

#-- the same command in list context

    my @result = `prlctl list --all`;

    shift @result;
    open (VMSTATUS, '>/Users/inetmac4/Sites/index.html');
    open (USERLOG, '</Users/inetmac4/script/username_log.txt');

    my @user_log = <USERLOG>;
    my @user_log = reverse(@user_log);
    my @user_status;

    my %hash = ();
    foreach (@user_log){

        my @values = split(/\\/), $_;

        my $computer_name = $values[1];

        if (exists($hash{ $computer_name }) == 0){
            $hash{ $computer_name } = 'true';
            push(@user_status, $_);
        }

    }

    my @user_status_formatted;
    # Replaces domain name with OS type
    foreach (@user_status){
        my @values = split(/\\/), $_;

        if ($values[1] =~ /PSSTEAM-W7VPC/){
            push(@user_status_formatted, $values[0] . '\\' . "Windows 7" . '\\' . $values[2]. '\\' . $values[3])
        }
        if ($values[1] =~ /PSSTEAM-W8VPC/){
            push(@user_status_formatted, $values[0] . '\\' . "Windows 8" . '\\' . $values[2]. '\\' . $values[3])
        }
        if ($values[1] =~ /PSSTEAM-XPVPC/){
            push(@user_status_formatted, $values[0] . '\\' . "Windows XP" . '\\'. $values[2]. '\\' . $values[3])
        }

    }
    #print Dumper %hash;

    #print @result;

    foreach (@result){

        my @columns = split(/\s+/), $_;
        my $name  = $columns[3]." ".$columns[4];
        print VMSTATUS "Virtual Machine: ". ''.$name."
\n";
        print VMSTATUS "STATUS: ". $columns[1]."
\n";
        if ($name =~ 'Windows 8.1'){
            print VMSTATUS "
\n";
        }
        foreach (@user_status_formatted){
            my @values = split(/\\/), $_;

            if ($values[0] =~ 'LOGGEDOUT' && $values[1] =~ $name){
                print VMSTATUS "User: Loggedout/ No user"."\n

";
                last;
            }
            if ($values[1] =~ $name){
                print VMSTATUS "User:   " . $values[2] . "\\" . $values[3]."\n

";
            }

        }
        print VMSTATUS "
";
    }

    close (VMSTATUS);

For those who don't want to read through the comments, it was a pretty simple fix after Mark gave me a bit of insight.

Initially, I wrote the vmstatus_startup script to call VM.sh which would then continually refresh the perl script (every 5 seconds). I was attempting to call the shell script from launchctl which just adds layers of complexity.

Instead, calling the perl script directly from the .plist and giving the keep alive key allowed it to run constantly after boot.

Finally, I had to make sure to add the perl directory to the .plist above the location of the script since launchd doens't have a PATH the same way a user does.


Is there a way to configure the behaviour of cmd + tab to not wait until they get released? To best demonstrate the behaviour I'm looking for, just see how Chrome behaves if you have multiple tabs open in the window, and press control + tab.

So it doesn't wait until you release control, it immediately switches the window. Is there a way to get the same in mac while switching between applications with command + tab?

Pressing CMD` cycles through windows of the current App immediately.

No need to release the keys to select the window.

Some of the 3rd party apps listed here might get you the same solution for App switching:
https://superuser.com/questions/193922/is-there-any-program-or-way-to-make-mac-os-xs-tab-behave-like-windows-alt-ta


Wirelessly debug Safari web app running on iOS using Safari on macOS I need to plug an iPad/iPhone into a Mac Mini so I can debug web pages running ApplePay on them using the macOS Safari developer console.

Complication: The Mac mini is in a server cupboard three rooms away (considerably further away than the hard USB 5 metre limit). It runs headless and I VNC into it via my desktop PC.

So, how to connect the Apple devices without physically moving them? Is there some sort of wireless USB bridging device out there?

Currently installed software versions:

iOS: iOS 11.4.1
macOS: macOS High Sierra 10.13.6
Desktop Safari: Safari 11.1.2

Follow the instructions below one by one:

On your iOS device, go to Settings app → Safari → Advanced and enable the switch for Web Inspector.

On macOS, launch Safari and in the Menu bar, go to Preferences → Advanced and check Show Develop menu in menu bar.

You will need to physically connect your iOS device to Mac mini using the Lightning cable once.
Once the iOS device is connected, in Safari menu on macOS, enable Develop → Your device name → Connect via Network.
Unplug the cable and check whether Develop → Your device name shows up in Safari on macOS.
Safari app needs to be running and frontmost on your iOS device for it to appear under Develop menu in Safari on macOS.

The above configuration is demonstrated on devices running macOS High Sierra 10.13.6 and iOS 11.4.1 (latest version at the time of writing).


macOS cannot connect to OpenVPN using Shimo - Kext error I am trying to connect to a VPN network using a OpenVPN profile I have imported to Shimo, but it fails showing this message.

  Shimo could not load its tun/tap kernel extensions, which are required by the used VPN protocol. Maybe you have some other VPN software running, which uses similar kernel extensions?

  Could not load kernel extension with identifier: net.sf.tuntaposx.tun

I had another vpn app installed which I removed using AppCleaner and restarted my laptop.
The .ovpn file is correct for sure because it is used by another pc and it connects successfully.
Shimo is connecting successfully to other VPN networks such as PPTP.
I have also manually created another profile using username/password instead of the stored certifications to connect to that OpenVPN and the outcome is the same.

Debugging

For debugging I run kextstat | grep -e tun -e tap before Shimo started and there are no results.
I run it again after Shimo started, again no results.
And I run it again after error message is shown and this is the result.

194    0 0xffffff7f83db6000 0x7000     0x7000     net.sf.tuntaposx.tap (1.0) 3D2DEB8A-5419-3CFC-A44F-AE197B319324 <7 5 4 1>

After that I execute sudo kextunload -b net.sf.tuntaposx.tap and the kext is unloaded successfully.
Then again when I try to connect the same error message is shown and the kext is loaded again.

I am using:

Shimo 4.1.5.1
macOS High Sierra 10.13.6

Note
I have found also some guides indicating that I should execute sudo rm -fr /Library/Extensions/tap.kext and sudo rm -fr /Library/Extensions/tun.kext and reinstall Shimo, but I fear this could cause more problems.

Any thoughts? (Thanks for your time)

UPDATE

I have now installed Tunnelblick and imported the same .ovpn file and it connects successfully.

After contacting their support they responded with the following which solved the problem.

  When this happens open the System Preferences and go to the Security & Privacy settings panel.  On the General tab, at the bottom right corner, there should be a message, saying that the use of system software was blocked with an Allow button next to it. After clicking on allow, there should be a dialogue to allow the use of software signed by Fabian Jaeger. If you don't see such a message do this alternatively:

  Go to this page: http://tuntaposx.sourceforge.net/download.xhtml and download the tun/tap kernel extensions
  Install the package, you have to quit Shimo and other VPN clients you might be using before doing so
  Go to this folder: /Library/Extensions
  There locate the tun.kext and tap.kext file and copy them
  Go to your Applications folder, find Shimo, right-click on it and select Show content package
  Go to the folder Contents/Ressources/tuntap
  Paste the previously copied files inside the tuntap folder and override the existing ones there
  Reboot your Mac and try to connect again with Shimo


How are network file system mount paths defined in Lion (apart from Directory Services)? Checking Directory Services for network file system mounts, i.e.

sudo dscl . -list /Mounts

and

sudo dscl . -readall /Mounts

returns nothing, yet the /etc/fstab file is deprecated in Lion. Why is dscl returning nothing and where are the mounts defined if they aren’t by Directory Services?

OS X uses the Autofs stack to mount network file systems. Keith Winston has a good introduction to Autofs on OS X stating that:

OS X uses an autofs code stack based on Sun's Solaris version of Unix. Many of the advanced features are not documented very well, and this can be an issue unless you are familiar with Solaris. I was not and had to do quite a bit of digging.
Autofs is often used in enterprise environments to set up network-based home directories and other network mounts for users at login. It can also dynamically mount network shares on access.

By default, Autofs mounts network files systems defined via Directory Services, those defined in /etc/fstab and NFS file systems, all accordingly to its master table, /etc/auto_master.
Your call to dscl returns nothing because no mounts have been defined in Directory Services (no surprise there). If you want to define mount points not covered by Autofs default configuration without resorting to Directory Services or the deprecated /etc/fstab, you will have to add a mapping (via a auto_* file) to auto_master. For the technical background, refer to the post linked above; there is a good “how to” add auto mounts for SMB mounts in this Mac OS X Hints post.


Macbook Pro (late 2016) suddenly stopped detecting my external monitor after a 3h hibernation Macbook Pro (late 2016) suddenly stopped detecting my external monitor after a 3h hibernation after working flawlessly for two weeks.

I've verified that my monitor works fine with my Windows PC.

I'm running MacOS High Sierra 10.13.6 which I updated to August 18th.

I'm using a USB-C to DisplayPort cable which will wake up my monitor from standby mode, but my Macbook Pro still can't detect it. Display in System Preferences gives me nothing and Options revealing Detect Screen doesn't yield any results either.

I've followed the official troubleshooting (including reset of NVRAM and SMC) without results.

I'm guessing that maybe my cable is defective, but then, why would it wake up the monitor?

This was resolved by buying a new cable. This cable was a USB-C to HDMI.


Connect my Windows XP to Mac OS X Internet Sharing I have Internet Sharing enabled:

The WEP password is aaaaa. I understand that my MacBook Pro now acts as a wireless access point. My Windows XP PC can see this. However, when I enter aaaaa as a password, I can't connect :(

Am I missing something? I've read about WEP being seriously outdated, that WiFi device manufacturers hadn't yet agreed on a unified way to treat passwords through WEP.

So I did some experiments. As a control setup, I'll hold my Mac password to aaaaa or AAAAA at all times. I've tried the following passwords on my Windows:

Mac password: aaaaa
aaaaa - Fail
6161616161 - Fail (61 is the hex ASCII code for a)

Mac password: AAAAA
AAAAA - Fail
4141414141 - Fail (41 is the hex ASCII code for A)

UPDATE

Yes, I also tried using 128-bit WEP, trying out the same experiments above for aaaaaaaaaaaaa and AAAAAAAAAAAAA. It still fails.

WOOHOO! think I finally solved the problem.

From the taskbar I right-clicked on the MacOSX network and hit configure...(which now shows up as properties...) and saw that the security type had defaulted to none even though encryption type was still set to WEP.  I changed the security type to Shared and it now works.  It took a few minutes to register the network and only once I changed it to a home network did the internet connectivity kick in.  A 40bit wep key works fine, ABC12 or 4142433131...


How to resolve the "unable to install update" error for OTA iOS updates? For some reason, I keep getting an error when I try to install an OTA update on my iPad. The update downloads without any issue, and I have over 1 GB of space free. I am currently facing the issue with the iOS 5.1.1 update. Screenshot of error below.

I faced this issue with the 5.1 update as well, and ended up using iTunes for the update. I have the 16 GB wifi model of the iPad 2. Restarting the iPad doesn't help either.

My 3rd gen iPod touch has no issues with the OTA updates. This seems to be a common problem, and people have faced it on different devices as well. No one seems to have found a foolproof solution so far on the net.

Is there any fix for this, as the iTunes route is a much heavier download.

if you download updates very soon after Apple releases them, they can sometimes get corrupted because the server is sending you the individual packages at the same time as it it send them to many other people. You may just need to wait a while and try again.


I cannot activate Setup Assistant Mac OS Catalina 10.15.1 I accidentally deleted my admin account from directory utilities system. Now I'm using my standard account to login, in the system preferences there is no admin account but when I click the lock it requires admin name and password. I did some research and found out that activating Setup Assistant allow me to create my new admin account. I tried many ways but it ended up automatically log in to my current standard account every time I "reboot" my Mac.

When I enter mount -uw / it shows: "volume couldn't be mounted" and "failed with 77"

rm /var/db.AppleSetupDone echoes: "Override root...AppleSetupDone?" and "no such file or directory"

Please help me fix this

You can use an exploit in macOS to re-run Setup Assistant. This will allow you to create a new administrator account, which you can then use to repair your real account.

Restart your Mac while holding down Command+ R. Release the keys when the Apple logo and a progress bar appear. This will boot Recovery Mode.
When the macOS Utilities window appears, select Disk Utility and continue.
Select your startup disk in the pane to the left and take note of its name. (It is usually named Macintosh HD).
  If the name is greyed out, or if you see the text "Not Mounted", click the Mount button. If requested, select your username and enter your password. Make sure that the startup disk is mounted before continuing.
Quit Disk Utility. The macOS utility window should appear.
Go to the top menu bar (where the Apple logo resides) and click on Utilities. Select Terminal from the drop-down menu.
Enter the following command, exactly as shown. Substitute "startup disk" with the actual name of your startup disk.

  rm '/Volumes/Macintosh HD/var/db/.AppleSetupDone'

The command line should return with no response. Restart your Mac and it will launch Setup Assistant. If your Mac has FileVault enabled, you'll need to log in after the restart.

You'll be prompted to create a new administrator account. Give it a separate name to easily distinguish it from your real account. When done, complete the rest of the Assistant. I have done this in Catalina and tested. It works perfectly.


macOS 11 Pyenv Python 3.9.0 Install Error I am trying to install python 3.9.0 on macOS 11.0.1. I have the latest version of brew and the latest pyenv.
sids@Sids-MacBook-Pro ~ % pyenv install 3.9.0
python-build: use openssl@1.1 from homebrew
python-build: use readline from homebrew
Downloading Python-3.9.0.tar.xz...
-> https://www.python.org/ftp/python/3.9.0/Python-3.9.0.tar.xz
Installing Python-3.9.0...
python-build: use readline from homebrew
python-build: use zlib from xcode sdk

BUILD FAILED (OS X 10.16 using python-build 20180424)

Inspect or clean up the working tree at /var/folders/8s/jlqpkvqj21zcq8d5kw_ndz180000gn/T/python-build.20201129164129.61815
Results logged to /var/folders/8s/jlqpkvqj21zcq8d5kw_ndz180000gn/T/python-build.20201129164129.61815.log

Last 10 log lines:
  File "/private/var/folders/8s/jlqpkvqj21zcq8d5kw_ndz180000gn/T/python-build.20201129164129.61815/Python-3.9.0/Lib/ensurepip/__init__.py", line 210, in _main
    return _bootstrap(
  File "/private/var/folders/8s/jlqpkvqj21zcq8d5kw_ndz180000gn/T/python-build.20201129164129.61815/Python-3.9.0/Lib/ensurepip/__init__.py", line 129, in _bootstrap
    return _run_pip(args + [p[0] for p in _PROJECTS], additional_paths)
  File "/private/var/folders/8s/jlqpkvqj21zcq8d5kw_ndz180000gn/T/python-build.20201129164129.61815/Python-3.9.0/Lib/ensurepip/__init__.py", line 38, in _run_pip
    return subprocess.run([sys.executable, "-c", code], check=True).returncode
  File "/private/var/folders/8s/jlqpkvqj21zcq8d5kw_ndz180000gn/T/python-build.20201129164129.61815/Python-3.9.0/Lib/subprocess.py", line 524, in run
    raise CalledProcessError(retcode, process.args,
subprocess.CalledProcessError: Command '['/private/var/folders/8s/jlqpkvqj21zcq8d5kw_ndz180000gn/T/python-build.20201129164129.61815/Python-3.9.0/python.exe', '-c', '\nimport runpy\nimport sys\nsys.path = [\'/var/folders/8s/jlqpkvqj21zcq8d5kw_ndz180000gn/T/tmpqmtz59lr/setuptools-49.2.1-py3-none-any.whl\', \'/var/folders/8s/jlqpkvqj21zcq8d5kw_ndz180000gn/T/tmpqmtz59lr/pip-20.2.3-py2.py3-none-any.whl\'] + sys.path\nsys.argv[1:] = [\'install\', \'--no-cache-dir\', \'--no-index\', \'--find-links\', \'/var/folders/8s/jlqpkvqj21zcq8d5kw_ndz180000gn/T/tmpqmtz59lr\', \'--root\', \'/\', \'--upgrade\', \'setuptools\', \'pip\']\nrunpy.run_module("pip", run_name="__main__", alter_sys=True)\n']' returned non-zero exit status 1.
make: *** [install] Error 1

I am not sure why this error is occurring. Has it got something to do with the second to last line, where it includes: /private/var/folders/8s/jlqpkvqj21zcq8d5kw_ndz180000gn/T/python-build.20201129164129.61815/Python-3.9.0/python.exe It seems as though the .exe is being built, but I'm on macOS.
How do I fix this and install Python 3.9.0?

You should go to python.org and click on the download 3.9.0 link. You'll get an option to load python 3.9.0. Follow the instructions there.


How do I disable App Store notifications when auto-updating software? I have OSX Mavericks installed.

While I actually DO enjoy the notification center feature (and want to keep it turned on), I also am very particular about which notifications I want to see, and how. The notifications area of System Preferences does a great job of handling this the way I'd like it to. However, the App Store doesn't seem to show up there.

I like having my apps automatically updated, and don't want to turn that feature off, but I definitely don't need to be distracted by a banner popup every time an app gets updated. It happens a few times per day, and it's annoying and dilutes the value of notifications that actually ARE relevant (i.e. I start ignoring them because there are low-value notifications popping up all the time).

So, my question is this: How can I turn notifications off for the App Store, and leave the automatic update feature and notification center turned on?

I don't have any apps installed to try this with, but this looked like it might work. The solution is for Mountain Lion, not Mavericks, so it may have changed.

How do I turn off App Store notifications in Mountain Lion

  I just discovered the missing solution here:
  http://osxdaily.com/2012/11/15/stop-software-update-mac-os-x/

  You can selectively disable notifications about specific software
  updates you don't care about (like useless App updates) by
  control-clicking the update inside the App Store to reveal a hidden
  "Hide Update" option.

  This is best for those who want to keep Notification Center active for
  all its other uses (calendar alarms, etc.) and who also want to be
  notified about critical software updates. It should permanently mute
  notifications about certain software updates (until that software
  comes out with a new update).


Is there a Mac OSX equivalent of zenity? I'm porting some simple X windows/bash scripts to Mac OSX, but I cannot find a build of Zenity (a Gnome app for basic GUI dialogs) for OSX. Is there some other command line driven dialog utility I can use? Basic operations:
notification dialog

List item
(i.e. basic title, text, icon, OK button)
error notification
yes/no or ok/cancel prompts
select 1 or n items from a list
input text string

I don't (yet) know AppleScript (but it seems pretty verbose for the file maintenance tasks I'm interested in).

Check out cocoaDialog:

  cocoaDialog is an OS X application that allows the use of common GUI controls such as file selectors, text input, progress bars, yes/no confirmations and more with a command-line application. It requires no knowledge of Cocoa, and is ideal for use in shell and Perl scripts (or Ruby, or Python, or... etc).

It's a pretty simple concept — pass arguments to the executable to create a dialog, and it returns a result string. There are some good examples as well as documentation.


Enable unlimited scrollback with iTerm2 I tried to check Unlimited scrollback option in the iTerm2 settings, however, it doesn't seems to be applied for longer outputs (say couple of thousands lines). The output gets truncated so I can scroll up just to the last 1000 lines or so.

I am running Mojave with ZSH 5.7.1 installed, the HISTSIZE is set to the 100 000 lines (however I don't think that matters to the terminal emulator). So is there something I am missing? Thanks for help

Unlimited scrollback might not work properly as expected, I am not sure why but it is may be because of the config of zsh.

So, I would suggest you specify the scrollback lines like 10000 (in my case) in the textbox and unchecked the "unlimited scrollback buffer" option


Mountain Lion Figlet through MacPorts error? I've just installed Mountain Lion, Xcode 4.4.1 + command line tools, and MacPorts for ML.

It's working for other packages but I can't get figlet to install.

When I use sudo port install figlet in the terminal it stops quickly and outputs:

--->  Building figlet
Error: org.macports.build for port figlet returned: command execution failed
Please see the log file for port figlet for details:
    /opt/local/var/macports/logs/_opt_local_var_macports_sources_rsync.macports.org_release_tarballs_ports_textproc_figlet/figlet/main.log
To report a bug, follow the instructions in the guide:
    http://guide.macports.org/#project.tickets
Error: Processing of port figlet failed

I figured this out by cleaning the port with

sudo port clean figlet

then installing using

sudo port install figlet

According to the Macports ProblemHotList, this error is typical of existing packages that have stored compiler locations that aren't current. Cleaning the package and reinstalling assures the package is rebuilt with the current compiler collection settings for MacPorts.


Zooming in Google Chrome using the mouse wheel? On Windows and, if I'm not mistaken, on Linux, it's possible to zoom in and out in Google Chrome using the mouse wheel. However, this doesn't seem to be working on Mac OS X.

Does anybody know if this feature can be enabled? Or is there any alternative solution (plugin, script, etc.)?

You can pinch to zoom, which will simulate Command ⌘+
and Command ⌘-

You can also try the extension, which was mentioned by in Danijel's answer.

Otherwise, you can hold down Control ^ and the screen will zoom in and out. It ends up looking like this though (which I don't think you want):


Accidentally changed owner of /var system folder recursively to myself Long story short, accidentally I ran

sudo chown -R myusername /var/

and now my mac won't boot anymore (after entering user password for hdd decryption loading bar is slowly filled and after it gets full, nothing happens). I have access to the hdd via the OS X restore utilities (Cmd+R) on startup and managed to mount my hdd using terminal. What should I do to fix this? Should I sudo chown -R root /var/ now?

I also tried fixing the disk using Disk Utilities First aid, but that didnt work.

Since the system isn't bootable (in the normal sense), one easy way forward is to boot to Recovery HD and re-install the OS. There are thousands of files in /private/var that should be owned by root:wheel, _softwareupdate:_softwareupdate, myusername:staff, and hundreds root:admin so carpet bombing one ownership across the directories might lead to even worse breakage.

A reinstallation won't delete anything in the user and application folders but it also may or may not work - depending on if it moves aside /private and makes a new one or if it runs the equivalent of sudo /usr/libexec/repair_packages --repair --standard-pkgs --volume / which is a way to "repair permissions" on El Capitan if you managed to get things running again. If you have a recent backup, you could always just erase and reinstall from that.

I would try this as a first step to see if your system is salvageable. The repair_packages tool will run in single user mode, so that might be a nice thing to try after mounting / as read write (the syntax is provided when you boot). That tool used to be something you could run from Disk Utility, but now it's a command line tool for more specialized use apparently.


iPhone iMessages iRestore Preface

I have an iPhone and am getting my own phone number. I have been warned that a factory reset will take place when installing the SIM card/phone number. I do not have a Mac computer, nor access to one (all of my friends/family use Windows). I want to be able to view my iMessages chat history (at least the text and timestamp, but images, stickers, reactions etc would be nice) after getting the new number. Turning on "Backup iMessages to iCloud" requires setting up 2FA (adding a phone number, which I don't have yet). I am signed into the iPhone with an Apple ID (my_email_handle@gmail.com). The device is not jailbroken.

Question

How can I view my iPhone iMessages chat history after a factory reset (without a Mac computer to first backup the history)?

That's not possible. You should borrow someone's mac to make a backup and restore it after you factory reset it. Or simply fo to an apple store.

That said, I don't really see why adding a SIM card to an iPhone would reset it. Could you source that ?


MacBook not out-putting sound to Bluetooth devices I have a MacBook running macOS Sierra which has been successfully connected to my Logitech Bluetooth audio device.  Recently it stopped working.  Specifically, in sys-prefs/sound it won't select the device.  In other words, the Bluetooth connection is made, but it won't set as a sound device.  I checked this with other Bluetooth sound devices from other manufacturers, so I believe it's a general Bluetooth audio issue.

Does anybody have any insight into this?

Your question doesn't specify what you've tried to resolve this. Have you tried resetting things (or unpairing) and pairing again?

On the MacBook go to System Preferences > Bluetooth and right-click on the Logitech device and select Remove
On the Logitech device, follow the instructions on how to reset it
Now go through the process of pairing them again


Mail showing incorrect number of flagged emails As you can see from the screenshot, Mail has a problem with flagging emails. All emails in here were once flagged, but now only two of them actually are. Yet these emails persist in showing. Sometimes the total count is different to either number.

I have tried the basics: quit Mail, restarted my Mac. Any thoughts?

macOS 10.15.2

•   Quit Mail if it’s open.

•   In ~/Library/Mail/V7/MailData, delete any file that begins with “Envelope Index,” such as Envelope Index or Envelope Index-shm.

•   Your home Library folder is hidden by default. To display it, choose Finder > “Go to Folder” and then enter “~/Library”

•   Open Mail.

•   Mail creates new Envelope Index files. This process may take a few minutes, depending on how many messages Mail is reindexing.

•   It will fix your issue.


Why do ICNS files need to be perfect squares? im able to modify .app icons only when the dimensions are perfectly even (eg. 256x256) but not rectangular shapes.

this website allows for exporting png images as icns files in any dimension but they dont seem to work with .app's?

is it possible to modify an app to use a rectangular .icns?

No, that is not possible. macOS only supports square icons for this purpose.

The size must be either 16 × 16, 32 × 32, 48 × 48, 128 × 128, 256 × 256, 512 × 512, or 1024 × 1024.

Note that even though the physical dimensions of the icons must be square, it is possible to create the illusion of having a non-square icon by making parts of the icon transparent.


Reinstalling OS X server on headless Mac mini I have just started the Mac Server Essentials certification course and I'm stuck at chapter 1!

I have a MacBook Pro, a Mac mini server and a WiFi router as a switch between the two. I don't have it connected to my home network yet because I will be going through a lot of different exercises playing with services, installing/reinstalling etc.

So how do I do a clean reinstall over an existing install of the server OS if I don't have a separate display and keyboard. Every remote solution I can find first involves booting the mini from an external optical or USB drive which requires a keyboard and display attached to the mini.

In reality I could attach them, but I'm trying to learn how to do it in a real life situation where it might not be possible.

Am I missing something?

Start the Mac Mini in Target mode. You'll need a keyboard, hold down the "t" key as it boots.
Connect the mac mini to your MBP with a firewire cable.
Boot the MBP and hold down the option key.
Select the  macmini as the startup disk. You should be able to install and configure the mac mini. Then just shutdown and disconnect everything. then restart the mac mini on its own.

Make sure the mini is set to connect to your wireless. So when you boot the machine on its own it connects right away. Also be sure to enable remote desktop access.

This is how I setup my macmini recently.


Network folder in finder sidebar disappears I have added a couple of network folders to the OS X finder sidebar as a shortcut. This is working great as long as I don't shutdown or restart the system. Once the system has been restarted they are no longer visible in finder sidebar. I have also added a Automator script that auto mounts my afp network drive on startup.

Why do network folders disappear? What can do?

Drag the folder from the share to your desktop (Hold CMD and Alt). Then add that alias to the sidebar


Downloading YouTube music videos Is there a reliable YouTube video converter than can download music videos?

I am a professor teaching overseas and often download music videos for classroom use. For example, gospel songs and Christmas songs for my Intro to the Bible course.

ClipConverter use to download both talking and musical vids, but now blocks musical videos.

If you use command-line (Terminal.app in macOS) or even if you have a passing familiarity with it, youtube-dl is a highly recommended tool.

youtube-dl is available for macOS, Windows as well as Linux. The usage is very simple, just type the following command-line in Terminal (I have used an example video for demonstration purposes. Replace the URL with the appropriate one as desired):

youtube-dl https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgxpBpa9A48

That's it. It will download the video in the best available quality. There are no ads or any questionable content involved. Also there is no risk of downloading any inadvertent software/malware. youtube-dl downloads videos at best available speed for your Internet connection (unlike many other tools). It also supports download resuming (helpful if the connection breaks midway).

youtube-dl is not a built-in command in macOS. The easiest and best way to install it would be via using Homebrew. Follow the instructions on the linked webpage to install Homebrew. Once installed, run the following command to install youtube-dl:

brew install youtube-dl

Using youtube-dl, you can also easily download the video in lower resolution (for e.g. to watch on mobile device or to share over messenger) or just the audio only or video only stream from the video.

To select the download quality or type, simply, execute the command with an additional -F option to list all the available formats as:

youtube-dl -F https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgxpBpa9A48

The output will show all the available formats as:

[youtube] dgxpBpa9A48: Downloading webpage
[youtube] dgxpBpa9A48: Downloading video info webpage
[youtube] dgxpBpa9A48: Extracting video information
[info] Available formats for dgxpBpa9A48:
format code  extension  resolution note
249          webm       audio only DASH audio   50k , opus @ 50k, 3.19MiB
250          webm       audio only DASH audio   79k , opus @ 70k, 4.87MiB
171          webm       audio only DASH audio  112k , vorbis@128k, 6.98MiB
140          m4a        audio only DASH audio  128k , m4a_dash container, mp4a.40.2@128k, 8.70MiB
251          webm       audio only DASH audio  143k , opus @160k, 9.06MiB
278          webm       236x144    144p   83k , webm container, vp9, 30fps, video only, 2.79MiB
160          mp4        236x144    144p  129k , avc1.4d400c, 30fps, video only, 5.18MiB
242          webm       394x240    240p  188k , vp9, 30fps, video only, 4.55MiB
133          mp4        394x240    240p  271k , avc1.4d400d, 30fps, video only, 11.95MiB
243          webm       590x360    360p  347k , vp9, 30fps, video only, 8.06MiB
134          mp4        590x360    360p  487k , avc1.4d401e, 30fps, video only, 9.38MiB
244          webm       786x480    480p  508k , vp9, 30fps, video only, 13.20MiB
247          webm       1180x720   720p  910k , vp9, 30fps, video only, 25.75MiB
135          mp4        786x480    480p  957k , avc1.4d401f, 30fps, video only, 18.18MiB
302          webm       1180x720   720p60 1561k , vp9, 60fps, video only, 28.76MiB
136          mp4        1180x720   720p 1806k , avc1.4d401f, 30fps, video only, 36.16MiB
298          mp4        1180x720   720p60 1973k , avc1.4d4020, 60fps, video only, 37.02MiB
17           3gp        176x144    small , mp4v.20.3, mp4a.40.2@ 24k
36           3gp        320x194    small , mp4v.20.3, mp4a.40.2
18           mp4        592x360    medium , avc1.42001E, mp4a.40.2@ 96k
43           webm       640x360    medium , vp8.0, vorbis@128k
22           mp4        1180x720   hd720 , avc1.64001F, mp4a.40.2@192k (best)

To download the desired variant, simply pass the mentioned format code with -f option, and that particular audio/video stream will be downloaded and saved. For e.g., execute the following command-line to download the medium sized variant, suitable for playback on mobile devices:

youtube-dl -f 18 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgxpBpa9A48

There are many more advanced options like looking up available subtitle files and downloading a specific one. The aforementioned options should suffice for casual usage.

Note: youtube-dl supports downloading from over a 1000 popular streaming websites like Vimeo, Dailymotion etc. apart from YouTube. youtube-dl can be easily installed using Homebrew.


Disk space disappeared, what happened? So yesterday I had to jump through some hoops getting Xcode set up, in the end I had to install it once, uninstall it and then install a different version.

At the start I had ~78GB free.  After the first install it went down to ~75GB as expected.  However when I uninstalled it and installed the other version which requires 10+ GB since it includes the iOS SDK (the version I uninstalled was what came on the disk with my machine).  Now my disk usage reads at ~62 GB, not quite I expect considering my starting amount and the download (4 GB) and the install (10 GB).  My question: is there some cache that just hasn't been cleared yet or is finder just not reporting the disk usage correctly?

Not the final answer but a hint in the right direction: I thoroughly recommend DaisyDisk for identifying disk usage. You can drill down by folder to show what you need. Good luck!


Repeated Corrupt Parallels .PVM file I have a case where my Parallels .PVM file appears to become corrupt.  This has happened 3 times over the past 9 months.  I’m wondering if this is possibly a hardware issue.

Here is the normal course of events:

While working in Parallels the VM freezes and becomes unresponsive. I get the spinning beach ball of death.
Eventually the Mac becomes unresponsive and a forced shutdown must be
performed.
After rebooting the Mac, Parallels does not start.  It
keeps spinning but the VM window never opens.  Any attempt to do
anything in Parallels makes the Mac unresponsive.
After another Mac reboot, attempting to copy the .PVM file to an external hard disk results in “The operation can’t be completed because an unexpected error occurred (error code 100034).”
To fix the problem I have to delete the .PVM file and restore a backup of the file.

After this initially happened I did a complete reformat of the Mac SSD and reinstall of the OS.  But the problem has resurfaced 2 times since.  I now regularly back up my .PVM file to an external SSD so I don’t lose everything.  I do regular backups with Time Machine but the .PVM file is excluded.

Running Disk First Aid shows this error:  “invalid file extent (id 0x….) logical address 193… (expected 192….). It does not provide an option to repair the disk.

This has happened with multiple Parallels versions and multiple Mac OS versions.

I have contacted Parallels support but they have not provided any help.  I’ve searched for answers regarding the 100034 error code when copying the file but can’t determine anything definitive.

Does this sound like a hardware issue with the SSD?  Any other ideas of what might be causing this issue?

MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2017), 16 GB, 500 GB SSD
macOS Mojave 10.14.1
Parallels Desktop v14.1
Guest OS:  Windows 10.

I have seen the exact same issue, just happened again this week, Disk Utility sees an issue in that file (and a file copy isn't able to complete once it's in that state) but Disk Utility isn't able to repair (even when Mac booted to Repair mode), only fix I've seen is to kill/restore the PVM, I also do a reformat of the SSD but don't think it's necessary.

My guess is that it's an edgecase Mac filesystem bug exposed through how Parallels does PVM, perhaps related to Win10 disk mgmt that does interesting things under the covers (defrag etc. is now all hidden and happens behind the scenes).

Similar specs (Parallels 14.1.2, Win10, Mojave (currently 10.14.3), also 500G 16GB Macbook Pro Retina 15 but mine is a late 2013.


tmutil - Failed to delete local snapshot My mbp is stuck on boot and fsck cannot be performed because of:

snap_metadata_val object (oid <aléatoire>): invalid extentref_tree_oid (0x0)

It happens that I have dataless snapshot and if I try to:

tmutil deletelocalsnapshots <date>

I'm getting:

Failed to delete local snapshot '<date>'

I encountered this issue when trying to delete the local snapshot from the Terminal offered by my Mac. The thing is that it booted in "installer" mode and I had to chroot /Volumes/Macintosh HD to be able to run the tmutil commands. The delete however didn't work in this installer mode.

So I had to restart the computer holding Shift to start in safe mode. From there, I could start a Terminal and run the above commands to delete the empty snapshot.


Install Ghostscript on OS X 10.9 using DMG file I want to install Ghostscript on my OS X 10.9 using a valid DMG file, where can i find it?

The program homebrew worked for me on Mac OS10.9.5:

Type the following in the command line:

brew install ghostscript


Bootcamp Bluetooth mouse lagging when WiFi is enabled The problem is very simple but the solution seems not so.
I'm trying to work with my Bluetooth mouse in Bootcamp, but when WiFi is enabled, the Bluetooth mouse is lagging.

I have read these and I applied all necessary changes:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8485451
https://www.drivethelife.com/windows-10/fix-bluetooth-wireless-mouse-lag-windows-10.html

So Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power is unchecked for all Network Adapters, Bluetooth Devices and Universal Serial Bus Controllers.

I have updated the WiFi adapter driver through Apple Software Update to the latest version without any changes to my problem. After some restarts I moved to the previous version of the WiFi driver again to take back the option for Bluetooth Collaboration.

I can't figure out how to solve this problem. Any idea?

I have the MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015)

UPDATE #2 (27/0/2020)
Driver's Version 7.77.119.0 [21/4/2020], also works nicely with Antenna Diversity -> Aux and Bluetooth Collaboration -> Auto.

UPDATE #1 (12/1/2020)
I can confirm that the newer version of the driver (7.77.110.0 [10/10/2019]) also works smoothly without any configuration.

After all, I found the solution here.
I disable the Bluetooth Collaboration option and I change the Antena Diversity property to AUX.
Instructutions:

From Device Mananager (Windox key + X)
Select Network Adapters
Double click your adapter (mine is Broadcom 802.11ac Network
Adapter)
Click Advanced tab
For the property Bluetooth Collaboration select value NO
For the property Antena Diversity select value AUX

Instantly my bluetooth mouse worked smooth alongside my WiFi adapter.

If you don't see the two above properties you may need to downgrade your network's adapter driver.
As I saw those properties are available for:

Broadcom 802.11ac Network Adapter Version 7.35.118.40[7/24/2015]
Broadcom 802.11ac Network Adapter Version 7.35.118.73[7/12/2017]

But NOT in the latest version:

Broadcom 802.11ac Network Adapter Version 7.35.118.83[4/20/2018]

More info here.


"Enter exactly 64 heaxdecimal characters" for WiFi Password So I was having some issues connecting to a WPA2 WiFi network and a prompt showed up asking for me to "Enter exactly 64 hexadecimal characters". I was able to simply hit Cancel and simply reconnect but I was wondering what this was. I have never seen this prompt before and was wondering if anyone could shed some light on how to reproduce it and why it occurred.

You are connecting to a WPA2 network in WPA-PSK (pre-shared key) mode. In this mode, you'll usually be able to authenticate by entering a password as a string of ASCII characters (up to 63 characters). macOS will generate a 256-bit authentication key from the password using a series of manipulations (known as salting and hashing) that ensures that eavesdroppers cannot easily grab your password midair.

However, it is also possible in this mode to authenticate by having the user directly enter the actual authentication key. This can be used if macOS cannot determine with the WiFi access point exactly how those manipulations described above should be done. The user is then prompted to enter exactly 64 hexadecimal characters that is equivalent to a 256-bit authentication key. This method is not commonly used in a home user setting.

I would say that some sort of "glitch" happened - interference, lack of signal, etc. - that made it impossible for macOS at that moment to use the ordinary password authentication, and then prompted you to allow a key authentication instead. When you reconnected, those temporary conditions that allowed for the glitch were gone, and you could authenticate as usual with your password.


Force hibernate (deep sleep) in OSX 10.8(.2) How can you force the computer (in this case a laptop [rMBP]) into the "hibernate" state where it writes the RAM to the HDD/SSD so that the battery can last for the advertised 30 days.

I know that this can be achieved by waiting 70 minutes (4200 secs) after it is in sleep mode (if you haven't adjusted the default time settings), but is there a way to force it into this state?

I am having wake problems, and want to test this state of waking from.

I don't know if it's equivalent to the deep sleep mode, but sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 25 makes computers hibernate immediately when going to sleep.

  hibernatemode = 3 (binary 0011) by default on supported portables. The system will store a copy of memory to persistent storage (the disk), and will power memory during sleep. The system will wake from memory, unless a power loss forces it to restore from disk image.

  hibernatemode = 25 (binary 0001 1001) is only settable via pmset. The system will store a copy of memory to persistent storage (the disk), and will remove power to memory. The system will restore from disk image. If you want "hibernation" - slower sleeps, slower wakes, and better battery life, you should use this setting.


iTerm2 cursor doesn't return to line beginning I'm not sure if I'm missing some sort of configuration here, but occasionally my cursor is unable to return to beginning of line where command starts. If I press FN+leftArrow, it goes few characters after beginning of command, if I press FN+rightArrow, ot goes way behind end of line. It seems like it thinks that whole line is shifted to the right. See screenshots attached. I was unable to reproduce this on purpose. It happens woth all kind of different commands pretty nondeterministically :-(. Any ideas are welcomed, thanks.

Matthew

So our debugging session has determined it is your prompt customization, not iTerm2. You said your prompt customization is:

export PS1="$(tput bold)$(tput setaf 6)\t [\W]$(tput sgr0): "

The simple answer is don't use tput to customize your prompt. It's the sgr0 reset command that's likely doing more than you want it to do and screwing up buffered text movements.

Let's try doing this with ANSI codes directly. If you use an ANSI color scheme setup like this you can try:

export PS1="${normal}${bold_blue}\t [\W]${normal}: "

That works perfectly for me with Fn-arrow combinations for navigating the line.

tput is a neat idea, but it comes from the ncurses package which is a very advanced way of doing UIs in command prompt interfaces by exploiting all kinds of terminal stuff. Best to just stick to ANSI here.


How to unload kernel modules When I run kextstat, it gives me a list of the currently loaded kernel modules. How to I go about using the information gathered from this command to unload a kernel module?

You can unload kernel modules with kextunload either specifying the whole path to the kernel extension as a parameter (they reside in /System/Library/Extensions/) or by specifying the bundle identifier displayed by kextstat, e.g. if you want to unload Fuse for OS X:

sudo kextunload -b com.github.osxfuse.filesystems.osxfusefs

You can then use kextload for loading extension in the same way.

Bonus hint: If you only want to see 3rd party kernel extensions that aren’t from Apple you can use inverse grep:

kextstat | grep -v com.apple


Install ResetMusicAndVideosLibraries Configuration Profile The newest iOS Beta (7.6) says we need to install the ResetMusicAndVideosLibraries Configuration Profile to fix some bug.  How do I install that profile?  I tried dropping it into the Organizer window of XCode, but that didn't seem to do anything.

You can email ResetMusicAndVideosLibraries.mobileconfig on your iPhone and install it from the mail message.

After that:

Tap on Reset Library in Setting -> Music (it'll delete all your contents in Music and Video apps).

Restart your device.

Now you can reinsert your music and video using iTunes.


How do I create a minimal chroot jail in macOS? I am trying to figure out the minimal things I need to do to create a chroot jail in macOS. I have seen a few scripts online (https://github.com/skissane/mkjail, https://github.com/jsarenik/Mac-Hroot), but I am not sure what parts are necessary vs. what parts are required for it to work.

TL;DR I could not get it to work. I have mentioned some ways to setup that might work for some. Will note the errors I faced at the end.

The only thing you need for the most minimal setup is a working shell (like /bin/bash). A curious case of simple but not easy. Here's how it's supposed to be :
Required

mkdir -p /tmp/chroot/bin /tmp/chroot/usr/lib
cp /bin/bash /tmp/chroot/bin

Here, you need some libs for bash to work. There are 4 ways you can go about this:
Route 1

otool -L /bin/bash | sed 1d | awk '{print $1}'
cp 'em over to /tmp/chroot/usr/lib
For every lib above, run 1 (replace /bin/bash) & 2

Perhaps dyld as well, it is not mentioned in shared lib though.
Route 2

cp /usr/lib/dyld /tmp/usr/lib
sudo chroot /tmp/chroot /bin/bash
Above will throw error for some library not loaded, cp it like Route 1.2

Route 3

cp /usr/lib/* /tmp/chroot/usr/lib
cp /usr/lib/system/* /tmp/chroot/usr/lib/system

Very convenient but sorta defeats the purpose
Route 4

Use a script to recursively run otool and cp in Route 1.

This is what the above scripts you mentioned do.
Either way, once you have all necessary libs copied over, chroot should just run.

Why I couldn't get it to run?
% otool -L /bin/bash
/bin/bash:
    /usr/lib/libncurses.5.4.dylib (compatibility version 5.4.0, current version 5.4.0)
    /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1292.60.1)
% ls /usr/lib/libncurses.5.4.dylib
ls: /usr/lib/libncurses.5.4.dylib: No such file or directory
% ls /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib
ls: /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib: No such file or directory

As you can see above, the files simply show up as non-existent. I tried disabling SIP and logging in as root user - no dice. Perhaps someone more knowledgable than me can give some input on why this happens.
Since I have no access to them libs, I simply cannot create a chroot environ. I did try with sh and zsh. I tried 'em scripts in the link as well. Same story.
If it does work for you, do share your method. Btw, those 2 errors you get are missing bin/libs related.
credits


Switching AirPods between Mac and iPhone only works by switching Bluetooth off Once I switch to Mac and then try to switch back to iPhone, it does not automatically connect. I have to turn off Bluetooth and reset. This is very annoying.

Unless you have an underlying issue with the hardware, it should be very simple. As long as you have previous paired with both your iPhone and Mac, then it should just be a case of selecting the AirPods as the sound output source from the respective devices.

What I do on Mac is have my sound settings on my menu bar and just tap, then select my AirPods. On iPhone, you just swipe up to show the media controls, tap the sound output and choose AirPods. Takes a second or two.

There are tons of sites that explain in more detail, but this is a nice site with screenshots: https://www.imore.com/airpods-audio-swap

If this doesn't work for you, update your question with details on what happens when you take these steps so we can help narrow your particular issue down. Good luck!


Ubuntu-like bash completion in Mac OS X? I work in the terminal a fair bit, and one thing I really miss from the servers I usually work on is the comprehensive autocompletion bash provides on Ubuntu servers.

Are there any readymade tools that will add a similar level of completion to my Mac; containing at the very least command line arguments for built-in system utilities and developer tools (like git, xcodebuild, etc.)?

The easiest way is to install bash-completion from homebrew and follow the provided instructions.

Example output:

==> Downloading https://homebrew.bintray.com/bottles/bash-completion-1.3.mavericks.bottle.tar.gz
######################################################################## 100.0%
==> Pouring bash-completion-1.3.mavericks.bottle.tar.gz
==> Caveats
Add the following lines to your ~/.bash_profile:
    if [ -f "$(brew --prefix)/etc/bash_completion" ]; then
        source "$(brew --prefix)/etc/bash_completion"
    fi

The Homebrew bash completion script has been installed to:
    /usr/local/etc/bash_completion.d

Bash completion has been installed to:
    /usr/local/etc/bash_completion.d
==> Summary
  /usr/local/Cellar/bash-completion/1.3: 188 files, 1.1M

Once you are done, you can create your own scripts under /usr/local/etc/bash_completion.d/.


iSpazz 64-bit problem? So there is this iTunes Plugin I wanna install called iSpazz that makes your keyboard backlight flash to the music from iTunes I dragged the file that I downloaded into the iTunes plugin folder and iTunes doesn't load up because the plugin is designated for 32-bit versions of iTunes so I right click on the iTunes app and set it so that it runs on 32-bit mode. It doesn't let me open iTunes and gives me this error

iTunes 12.1.0.50
MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Mid 2014) 2.6 GHz Intel Core i5 8 GB 1600 MHz DDR3 Intel Iris 1536 MB

In short, you're stuck.

iTunes will only run in 64-bit mode Since v11 on Mavericks.

That plugin is from 2007, before 64-bit iTunes was even thought of.

Ne'er the twain shall meet, unfortunately.


Used Air (2010) without OS - how can I get up and running? I've picked up a used 2010 Macbook Air. The previous owner seems to have wiped OS X leaving me with only the 'OS X Utilities' application available. I can't use the install option as I receive the 'This item is not available' after signing into the App Store.

I've tried creating a bootable USB of 10.6 (original OS) and 10.11 (last installed OS) but either get a Kernel Panic or a stop sign respectively. I've also tried the 'Internet Recovery' option, but can't seem to access it on boot - I've heard it may not be installed.

I don't have access to another Mac - only PC.

I'm using TransMac for Windows to create the bootable USB. It initially appears successful at setting up the drive but when booting the errors appear.

How can I set this machine up?

Your help is much appreciated

You can force Internet Recovery mode using the download version instead of the stored version and reset the Mac that way: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201314

Specifically, this method:

  To manually start up from macOS Recovery over the Internet, press and hold Option-Command-R or Shift-Option-Command-R at startup


Accidentally created user with duplicate UID. How to fix? I accidentally created a user with a duplicate UID.  I need advice on how to fix this predicament.

As you can see, running dscl shows two users with the same uid:

dscl . -list /Users uid | sort -nrk 2
jenkins                 9999
original-user           9999

This happened because I was tweaking a package installer script and incorrectly assigned an existing UniqueId when creating a new user.  The UniqueId matches the uid for my own account.  Now when I login to OSX (with my own account), OSX has lost all of my profile settings (ie. Finder shows home for the new user instead of my own, browser has lost my history, etc).

Although OSX shows the profile for the new user, Terminal correctly recognizes the user that I logged in as.  And therefore I'm able to confirm my old files (ie. Document, Downloads) still exist intact.

This is what I ran to get myself in this situation:

uid=9999
gid=$uid
while dscl -search /Groups gid $gid | grep -q $gid; do
    echo "gid $gid is not free, trying next"
    gid=$(($gid + 1))
done
echo "Using gid $gid for jenkins"

dscl . -create /Groups/jenkins PrimaryGroupID $gid

dscl . -create /Users/jenkins UserShell /bin/bash
dscl . -create /Users/jenkins Password '*'
dscl . -create /Users/jenkins UniqueID $uid
dscl . -create /Users/jenkins PrimaryGroupID $gid
dscl . -create /Users/jenkins NFSHomeDirectory "$JENKINS_HOMEDIR"

dscl . -append /Groups/jenkins GroupMembership jenkins

How can I recover?

On Mac OS X, you can change a UID of a local user using System Preferences > Users & Groups.

Open the padlock there to allow changes to be made and then right-click on the user you like to change.

NOTE: You should not be logged in to that account at the time you do the change.

Also, POSIX permissions will follow the UID, so after changing it you may need to change the user ownership for that home folder or you would face not to be able to log in to the changed account.

Command for changing ownership would be:

sudo chown -R <account_name> /path/to/userhomefolder


SCPlugin icons and menu I installed SCPlugin on my mac for subversion. It works fine but I don't see the icons show status of my files. And I don't have SCPlugin's options in my right click menu bar. Any idea how to fix these?

for the menu bar, there is a workaround that you can start from the top bar of your finder window. it's almost as good as with the right-click context menu.

http://scplugin.tigris.org/ds/viewMessage.do?dsForumId=1525&dsMessageId=2441924

Because of the invisible icons I am also searching for help.


In the OS X Contacts app (v7.1) how can I delete a group? I've accidentally created a group in the Contacts app, below 'All Contacts'. How do I delete it?

If I remove the group name it renames itself to 'untitled group'. Here's a screenshot of what I see:

Select the group
Click "Edit" in the menubar
Click "Delete Group"
Click Delete


How can I know external HDD used time? I want to know how long I used my external HDD. The HDD is WD My Book model. How can I know that?

If your disk supports S.M.A.R.T. feature then you can learn it from Disk Utility through clicking to info button after selecting related disk from the disk list.


How common are stuck or dead pixels on the MacBook Pro? I purchased a new Macbook Pro (15.4" with 500GB HDD), and discovered it had a stuck pixel in the centre of the screen. This pixel was always lit green, and any attempts to resolve it myself didn't work. I took it back to the retailer, who happily exchanged it for another one (which had to be ordered). I picked up the replacement yesterday, and to my horror, its screen had the same problem, although this time the pixel was stuck on red, and was in the bottom left hand corner of the screen. Another replacement has been ordered, and I'm now a little concerned that this may have the same problem.

This obviously has me pondering the quality of the latest range of Macbook Pro laptops, and I'm wondering how many of you may have had the same problems with your ones. Please share if you've had a similar issue.

I've had a number of Mac laptops, starting with a PowerBook 100 way back in the dark ages. I've been fortunate, I guess, that I've never had a stuck pixel.

You're fortunate that your retailer is working with you, as Apple considers a single stuck pixel to be within acceptable limits. That is, they don't promise zero stuck or dead pixels, so generally you'd just be out of luck. [Worth noting: ISO 13406-2, the standard for flat panel displays (more analysis here)].

If you find this happening again, though, you might try one or more of the (non-Windows) suggestions at How to Fix a Stuck Pixel on an LCD Monitor.


Connecting ipad to other computers, for importing selected music I have a 1st generation ipad. I want to put selected music on it - not sync my entire collection.

I've managed it before, a year ago but forgotten exactly how and this time I can't get the ipad to appear in iTunes. I've tried to connect from both a Windows XP desktop, from a MacBook running OS X Yosemite 10.10.4, and from an old PowerPC, all 3 of which have the desired music.

How do I trouble shoot this?
Is using iTunes the correct way to go? I seem to remember just doing some kind of basic file copy, previously.

This, apparently, was caused by a faulty USB cable.


Can I delete the Watch app without unpairing Apple Watch? I have an Apple Watch paired to my iPhone. I don't use the apple-watch.app often, so I'd like to remove the app from my Home screen.

Are there any consequences if I remove the apple-watch.app from the Home screen, such as getting my apple-watch unpaired or unable to load iphone-dependent apps?

The apple watch app on your iPhone will not let you remove itself unless you unpair the watch first.

So technically, no. As it is essential for the operation of the watch. What I did was just make a folder named 'Apple' and dump all Apple apps that I don't use often but somewhat essential for some things into that folder, like Weather, etc.


How to download photos from iCloud (iPhone 4) I have an old iPhone 4 that I'm about to ditch. It has a couple of hundred photos on it, and I briefly looked into a way to access them directly from my Xubuntu laptop. (I no longer have Windows or Mac machines.) However, I decided against that route and decided to open an iCloud account, back-up the photos, and download them from iCloud through my browser. No problem, right?

Except that there does seem to be a problem. In iCloud.com it states that my iDevice need to be running iOS 8.x (don't remember the exact sub-version), and my phone is running 7.x, so I guess that's why the photos don't show. So I thought I could get them from the iCloud Drive and download them en masse without the benefits of pretty thumbnails, but there's nothing there either, despite the fact that apparently about 800 MB was uploaded from my phone.

I'm looking for suggestions on how I can get these photos off this ancient iPhone, or out of iCloud if they're in there somewhere. Thanks.

1. I don't know what iOS 7 looks like but you can try sharing the iCloud link with yourself as they are already backed up in the iCloud.

2. Other option can be to save all the photos to iCloud Drive(this is different from the photos thing) (if it is there).

3. One can save them to notes and then wait for it to sync and then download it.

4. See if google photos or drive or Microsoft drive etc can store them.

5.  Firefox send is a good feature and is private too! If the above option makes you think that this is an app, you're wrong, it is a web tool. Go to send.firefox.com

6. This is a new thing I came across recently. Go to Privacy-apple and download all the data. It might take a few in preparing the folder.

I did not remove the options that won't work for you for future readers.

Cheers!


Does disabling "System Integrity Protection" in El Cap cause shutdown/restart/logout issues? I have an older M-Audio Firewire audio interface that I use with my Mid 2011 Mac Mini. It's running OS X El Capitan 10.11.6. M-Audio never made drivers for this version of OS X, so I have to disable "System Integrity Protection" for the audio interface to work. I do this by booting to recovery > Terminal: csrutil disable then rebooting normally.

However, I have an issue where I cannot logout, restart or shutdown "cleanly." What I typically do is run the sudo restart now command to reboot, or sudo pkill loginwindow to log out. EDIT: What I mean here is OS X (El Cap) is getting "stuck" (just hanging indefinitely) when I try to either a.)logout b.)restart or c.)shutdown. It just does not work, so I use terminal commands to force it, but I want to stop having to do this.

Could this issue be related to disabling SIP? EDIT: I have disabled SIP, no change. They are not related.

This was a software issue, after all. Once I upgraded to macOS High Sierra I was once again able to reboot normally, regardless of SIP status.


Is there a keyboard shortcut to shut down OSX? Is there a keyboard shortcut to shut down OSX 10.10.1?

Cmd ⌘   Opt ⌥   Ctrl ⌃   Power ⌽  will perform a standard shutdown, asking to if you wish to save open documents first.

There's a list of OS X shortcuts at Apple KB Mac keyboard shortcuts


Unlocking and locking mac screen via ssh Is there a way to unlock and lock screen from command line, via ssh? I know /System/Library/CoreServices/Menu\ Extras/User.menu/Contents/Resources/CGSession -suspend command, but it doesn't seem to work via ssh. The perfect solution would be a command, that I could type logged via ssh and it would unlock the screen or lock it back again, so I don't need to tell anybody my password, if he wants to use it. Is there any builtin tool, that would provide such functionality?

There are many ways to lock and unlock your Mac via SSH. The easiest and probably the fastest way is to use osascript (applescript).

Locking Mac

To do this, log in via ssh and type in

osascript -e 'tell application "Finder" to sleep'

You can switch Finder for System Events, but that means more characters to type.

Unlocking Mac

To wake your Mac is a little harder.

There are two ways to do this.

You can use osascript again.

osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to key code 123'

This tells it to keystroke the left arrow key which should wake your Mac up from sleep.

You can also use the pmset command.

pmset schedule wake "mm/dd/yyyy 00:00:00"

Use a date and time that has already passed.

Of course you will need to keystroke your password via Applescript, e.g.

osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" keystroke "password"'

An alternative to this could be the Remote Wake Up app for Mac, but I am not sure if you can put a password in.


Is there anything faster than Veency for iPhone? I want to be able to control an iPhone with a PC or Mac—that is, see the iPhone's screen on a computer and control it with my mouse—via either USB or wireless. Are there any solutions faster than VNC Veency? Veency's frame rate isn't good enough, and I need it to show 16-bit color.

I've tried Veency on both an iPhone 3G and an iPhone 4, and that looks to be the fastest possible speed to get out of it. Unless someone rewrites Veency or writes another VNC server, it looks doubtful that speed would get any better.

I've relegated myself to either looking at the iPhone's screen while typing, or pairing a Bluetooth keyboard with the iPhone.

Edit: If you don't mind looking at the iPhone's screen, you could try iSynergyClient, the Synergy+ client for iPhone. Right now it only has mouse support, keyboard support is still in development.


How can I recover a Mac HDD? Should I take it out and put it in a HDD enclosure. assuming its a 2.5" drive, should i buy a HDD enclosure and just slot it in?
Anyone know of a half decent FAQ that will help me with this task.
Finally any special gotchas when reconnecting this external drive to my iMac desktop machine? Do i have to use firewire or can I use USB 2?
Sorry for what seems like lots of questions but they are related.

No special firmware. No gotchas. USB 2 will work 'out of the box'. Just slot it in a 2.5 inch HDD enclosure (assuming it's a 2.5 HDD) and away you go.

The company that makes the external HDD enclosure you choose will provide instructions regarding how to put the HDD in the enclosure.


How to access macOS dictionaries without Dictionary.app In Mac-OS Catilina, how can I convert the included dictionaries (Shorter Oxford English Dictionary etc.) into a format readable without requiring Dictionary.app?

Apple's Dictionaries are compiled data structures, and Apple publishes no documentation on the format.
This blog provides a detailed description of reverse-engineering Apple's dictionaries.
https://josephg.com/blog/reverse-engineering-apple-dictionaries/
(I know it's customary to provide an account of the link, but it's a very detailed and complex process.)
There are of course a wide range of existing open source dictionaries.


How I can set a dot to center of MacBook monitor? Actually, I'm a gamer and for better shooting, I wanna set a dot to the center of my MacBook screen. in some games like Call of duty or CSGO this dot help me to better shoot.

You need a ruler and a Marker.

Measure diagonally and place a Dot with marker in the center, that you can wash off later.


only a few Hex symbols recognized in Mac OSx Pages? I've read many posts here and other web sites but haven't found a solution.  I've enabled hex functionality on my Macbook Pro, (Mohave 10.14.3), and I'm using Pages (7.1).  I pull up the character viewer and use the search function for special characters using a five digit sequence, such as U+1d122, and it instantly displays the corresponding special music symbol as listed in the table Unicode Standard 13.0  This also works for a few others, such as U+1d121, another music symbol.  But the other values in that range block (1d100-1d1ff), even those within the same column, do not result in the musical symbol appearing. Instead it's just blank, like I've typed in some random characters.  The one I wanted was 1d10B, a musical symbol "segno".  Is it reasonable for me to expect that if Pages can return the appropriate symbol for some hex-values, that it should do the same for all of them?  Any ideas on why this is happening, and how to resolve this?   [attempt at humor --->  I want to avoid verbally threatening the computer, but I'm nearing the end of my patience.]
-Mark

Well, you need a font that actually contains all the glyphs.
Which most "generic" fonts (for writing text) probably won't.
The term to search for such fonts is SMuFL. This is standard initiated by Steinberg (and now developed by W3C) to bring music notation fonts to the Unicode era.
The open source "Bravura" font is available in OTF format for Mac at: https://github.com/steinbergmedia/bravura/tree/master/redist/otf
Btw. you don't need to enter the Unicode glyph codes into the Character Viewer search bar. The glyph name, e.g. "Segno", will do as well.
There are some more SMuFL fonts contained in the demo version of Steinbergs Dorico music notation software available at: https://www.steinberg.net/en/products/steinberg_trial_versions/dorico.html


Recipe manager for iOS I am looking for a recipe manager for my iPod Touch and my requirements are:

It must not require online registration and it must be fully functional offline (it's okay if it has "cloud" features, but they must not be required)
It must be either free, or under $3 (I don't do a lot of cooking—I just have some favorite recipes I would like to keep handy—and I'm not willing to invest too much)
Of course, it must allow me to add my own recipes

I don't really need in-app features like shopping list management, timers, etc.

I use PlainText it's free, with a $2 in-app upgrade to remove the ads if you don't like them.

I find that plain text is easy to store (search!) and share my recipes with. I use it on iPad and iPhone and have a reasonable collection of recipes on there. The Dropbox sync makes it easy to add existing recipes from other sources, or to back up.


Where to set AT commands for modem? I'm trying to use a modem with an Apple MacBook Pro running Sierra (10.12.6) and I've been given the following instructions:

The user will have to create a standard 19200bps modem on
the COM port used by the Iridium device with extra
initialization command as: AT+CBST=71,0,1

But don't know where to configure this. I have a phone attached via USB that I can use to dial and connect to an ISP, but can't find anywhere to configure the AT command set.

You have two options to "talk" to your modem on serial ports on macOS:

Minicom
Screen

Screen is built in, and minicom is 3rd party.  Before using either of the tools, you will need to know the device your modem is attached to.  It will be listed in /dev/ttySX where X is the number of the actual device (most likely /dev/ttyS0).  Verify for your machine.
Using Minicom
Minicom is a small, free communications program that's been around for decades and is quite solid.  I personally prefer it over screen.

Homebrew:  brew install minicom
MacPorts:  port install minicom

This assumes you've already installed the Homebrew or MacPorts software.
It's a simple ANSI graphic interface that will allow you to set your serial device, flow control, port speed etc.

Once you have it set, you will be connected to the device on your serial port you can then send your AT commands to your modem by typing AT+CBST=71,0,1

Using Screen
You can use the built in screen to issue the commands (though admittedly, I am not very familiar with the utility as I favor Minicom)
You can connect to your device by issuing the command (assuming your modem/serial port is configured to 115200bps, 8 data bits, no parity bit and 1 stop bit or more commonly known "115200 8N1"):
screen /dev/ttySX 115200,cs8,-parenb,-cstopb,-hupcl

Where /dev/ttySX is the serial device connected to your modem as before.  This example sets the comport to 15200 8N1.
And just like in the Minicom example, once connected, just send your AT commands to the modem.


Force MacBook Pro on MacOS to Sleep So my Mac refuses to goto sleep because I'm running nfsd service (for work). I have verified this by typing pmset -g on cmd line. Here is my question.

Without having to manually stop nfsd, Is there a way to make the auto sleep function on macOS to be more aggressive. I noticed if I manually goto the  -> sleep or hit the shortcut to sleep, it's far more aggressive and goes through the process of shutting down all services and then sleeps.

Any other ideas on how I can get this Mac to auto sleep while running nfsd? Maybe a whitelist of services to ignore while preventing sleep.

No, you can’t make it more aggressive.

nfsd is the NFS server daemon and enabling it,  you’ve effective turned your Mac into a server.  Servers don’t go to sleep because you’ll “kill” services your network clients rely on.  Having this daemon prevent sleep is by design.

If its that important to have file sharing (NFS, SMB, iSCSI, etc.), get a NAS like a Synology Diskstation.  The “entry level” 2 disk models are affordable and extremely reliable.  This will allow you remove your Mac from doing double duty as your daily driver and as a workgroup file server.  It even has power saving settings that will allow it to spin down the drives and even go to sleep after a period of inactivity.


Screwed up my 1TB HD iMac27 - I am running OSX 10.11.5 need to rebuild it in Terminal **

Not sure what I did but I need to regain the space on my 1TB HD. I have made a full back up and need to know the step by step commands in TERMINAL to do this. As you can see I have access to only 120GB. I have attached info/ disc Util info

**

Since you have made a full backup, I recommend a full wipe and restore.

120GB plus CoreStorage plus "I had 1TB before" sounds like this is a fusion drive that you have disconnected.

Reboot the machine in recovery mode (Command-R at power-on) and open Disk Utility. Very easy from there to reformat the internal drives either separately or as a fusion drive again. Then either restore the Time Machine backup or install a new OS and then import your data.

Dealing with core storage volumes in the terminal is very fiddley. Step C depends on the output of step B etc. Quick and easy in Disk Utility.


Dimmed screen that is locked by password So my son was dimming his screen and then he locked his screen with a password. But the screen is dimmed so much it is black and cannot tell when to put in the code? Help

The screen dim controls on the side of the device won't dim the display that much. It might be a backlight failure and the device could need a repair.

You can take the device into a room with a table lamp and usually shine the light on the side to see enough to operate a screen even with the backlight totally failed.

You can unlock the device by connecting it to the computer that it normally syncs to in some cases as well.


El Capitan - when is the last iPhone backup? How do I tell when my last iPhone backup was?

In previous versions of iTunes

there was a info panel available when selecting my mounted iPhone in the left sidebar

this panel showed all kinds of useful information!
for example, when the last sync/backup was!

Now there isn't.  No info.

Q: I've backed up my iPhone by right-clicking and choosing "Back Up."  But how do I tell when the last backup is from?

Q: is there another place (app?) to find the iPhone's status?

For example, Image Capture has basically replaced Photo for managing the photos on the phone.

The panel is still there and hasn't moved.

Select your iPhone in the toolbar.

The latest backup times and locations are shown under Latest Backup.

The version of iTunes is independent of the version of OS X. Image Capture has by no means replaced Photos and was part of OS X long before iPhoto (the predecessor to Photos.app).