Can I use any other PCIe SSD in Macbook Pro 15 (Retina, Late 2013) with or without adapter? I have **Macbook Pro 15 (Retina, Late 2013) ** and want to use any of the following non-expensive but fast and easily available SSD's.

List of SSD's I am looking to purchase.
(1) https://www.ebuyer.com/834850-wd-250gb-black-nvme-m-2-2280-s3-m-pcie-gen3-ssd-wds250g2x0c
(2) https://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-V-NAND-Express-Solid-State/dp/B07CGGP7SV/ref=sr_1_6?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1535977412&sr=1-6&keywords=PCIe+SSD
(3) https://www.ebuyer.com/766048-samsung-500gb-960-evo-pcie-ssd-mz-v6e500bw?mkwid=s_dc&pcrid=51482419619&pkw=&pmt=&gclid=CjwKCAjwt7PcBRBbEiwAfwfVGPjL0wJJ6bT9I4jjX6_jq4RaO2xjojSvH6shGjzW0CQ4Lwz-nP8TyBoCQFcQAvD_BwE

Is it possible to use any of them with proper adapter?
which adapter I will need specifically?
If none of the above will work then which one should I buy (Except OWC)?

Thanks in advance!

No, it is not possible to use any of them with an adapter.

If you specifically do not want the OWC one (you do not say why), you can purchase an Apple original part. That will (ofcourse) work.


How can I add an Old English dictionary to Dictionary? Is there a way to add an Old English dictionary to the Dictionary app?  I would like to three-finger-tap a word that's Old English and have it translate it for me.

For pure adventure I want to read Beowulf in its original Old English form.  I was all excited to use Dictionary to help me through each word, and was kinda surprised when it didn't know practically any word in it at all.

If I open Dictionary and search a word (such as HWÆT), it does actually return some related words because their origin is the Old English word.

Any ideas?

Adding dictionaries is possible.  Finding the one you want may not be.  See

http://clasquin-johnson.co.za/michel/mac-os-x-dictionaries/index.html

For info on creating dictionaries for dictionary.app, see

How can I create a dictionary for Mac OS X?

How to add wiktionary as a source to the default dictionary.app?


MacBook Pro OSX 10.6.8 - iPhone SE I just bought an iPhone SE and I want to synchronize it with my iTunes library but when I connect the iPhone to my Mac I get a message saying that the iPhone can't be used because it requires a later iTunes version. I have iTunes 11.4 and when I check for updates it says it is the latest. I have O.S. 10.6.8 and would like not to upgrade to the next generation as some programs are not compatible any more. Do I have an option? Thank you

According to the Apple Support Site:

  The SE requires iTunes 12.3.3 and in order to get it you will have to
  update OS X to El Capitan. This is how Apple designed it for better or
  worse, sorry.

Your iTunes IS in fact the latest version on THAT OS but not the latest overall.


How to remove all traces of a kext? I am trying to fully remove a kernel extension which I installed by mistake, and I can't figure out how to remove it from the Disabled Software list.  It appears in System Profiler and also in System Preferences security pane.

I have grepped /L/E and /S/L/E and /Library/StagedExtensions and the only result I find is in /System/Library/Extensions/AppleKextExcludeList.kext/Contents/Info.plist

kextutil can't find it:

# kextutil -b cn.com.bwstor.filesystems.enfs
Can't find extension with identifier cn.com.bwstor.filesystems.enfs

Apparently it's in the prelinked kernel:

$ grep -rni bwstor /System/Library/PrelinkedKernels/
Binary file /System/Library/PrelinkedKernels//prelinkedkernel matches
Binary file /System/Library/PrelinkedKernels//immutablekernel matches

So I try to rebuild like this:

# kextcache -system-prelinked-kernel
KernelCache ID: 589C15EF68C8CF9D1C456F8C5E809F74
#
# kextcache -prelinked-kernel
kxld[com.apple.kext.AMDRadeonX6000HWLibs]: The following symbols are unresolved for this kext:
kxld[com.apple.kext.AMDRadeonX6000HWLibs]:  AtiPowerPlayInterface::createPowerPlayServiceFor(PowerPlayCallbacks*)
Link failed (error code 5).
Prelink failed for com.apple.kext.AMDRadeonX6000HWLibs; omitting from prelinked kernel.
KernelCache ID: B8572AE0865E63FD3CE5E2A9014CEA6A

That error seems unrelated, but I get more details anyway:

# kextutil -b com.apple.kext.AMDRadeonX6000HWLibs
Disabling KextAudit: SIP is off
(kernel) kxld[com.apple.kext.AMDRadeonX6000HWLibs]: The following symbols are unresolved for this kext:
(kernel) kxld[com.apple.kext.AMDRadeonX6000HWLibs]:     __ZN21AtiPowerPlayInterface25createPowerPlayServiceForEP18PowerPlayCallbacks
(kernel) Can't load kext com.apple.kext.AMDRadeonX6000HWLibs - link failed.
(kernel) Failed to load executable for kext com.apple.kext.AMDRadeonX6000HWLibs.
(kernel) Kext com.apple.kext.AMDRadeonX6000HWLibs failed to load (0xdc008016).
(kernel) Failed to load kext com.apple.kext.AMDRadeonX6000HWLibs (error 0xdc008016).
Failed to load /System/Library/Extensions/AMDRadeonX6000HWServices.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AMDRadeonX6000HWLibs.kext - (libkern/kext) link error.
Check library declarations for your kext with kextlibs(8).
#
# kextlibs -undef-symbols /System/Library/Extensions/AMDRadeonX6000HWServices.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AMDRadeonX6000HWLibs.kext/
For all architectures:
    com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily = 2.9
    com.apple.kext.AMDRadeonX4000HWLibs = 1.0
    com.apple.kext.AMDRadeonX4030HWLibs = 1.0
    com.apple.kext.AMDRadeonX4050HWLibs = 1.0
    com.apple.kext.AMDRadeonX4070HWLibs = 1.0
    com.apple.kext.AMDRadeonX4100HWLibs = 1.0
    com.apple.kext.AMDRadeonX4200HWLibs = 1.0
    com.apple.kext.AMDRadeonX4300HWLibs = 1.0
    com.apple.kext.AMDRadeonX4400HWLibs = 1.0
    com.apple.kext.AMDRadeonX5000HWLibs = 1.0
    com.apple.kext.AMDRadeonX5100HWLibs = 1.0
    com.apple.kext.AMDRadeonX5400HWLibs = 1.0
    com.apple.kext.AMDRadeonX5700HWLibs = 1.0
    com.apple.kpi.iokit = 18.2
    com.apple.kpi.libkern = 18.2
    com.apple.kpi.mach = 18.2

For x86_64:
    Multiple symbols found among 1 libraries:
    com.apple.kext.AMDRadeonX5000HWLibs

I'm puzzled as to why rebuilding the kernel cache doesn't fix this.  I'm running Mojave 10.14.3 on a MacPro6,1.  I have SIP disabled and I'm using @goalque's patch to use an external Radeon Vega64 GPU.

The latter half of my question turned out to be a red herring.  I ran the same grep on another system which has never had this driver installed and it also appears in the prelinked kernel there.

Anyway, the list of Disabled Software is stored in a SQLite database located at /private/var/db/SystemPolicyConfiguration/KextPolicy.  This file is protected by SIP, so modifying it requires either disabling SIP or booting Recovery mode.  In this case I deleted the entries with this command, and it takes effect immediately.

# sqlite3 /private/var/db/SystemPolicyConfiguration/KextPolicy

To see all the entries of approved and unapproved kexts:

SELECT * FROM kext_policy;

To delete:

DELETE FROM kext_policy WHERE team_id = 'JS776ETM39';


cancelled pdf transfer from yosemite mac to iOS device via airdrop I can send pictures from my mac to my iOS devices via airdrop. But when I try to send a pdf, it is not working. After a while I get a message on the iOS device saying that the transfer has been canceled. On the mac, I get a message saying that the iOS device has refused transfer. Is it normal? Is there a way to send my documents via airdrop (i know I can use dropbox but sometimes I do not have access to internet)?

One way of transferring PDFs directly from a Mac to an iOS device is to drop them into iTunes. Once in iTunes you can transfer the PDFs to the iOS device and they will appear in iBooks on your device.


Is my iMac crashing because of a faulty HD that I'm not using anymore? I have an iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, late 2014). A while back the fusion drive died and I split them and used the SSD for the OS and an external 2TB SSD for storage.
The only issue I have had with the computer from this until now, is that it did not want to go to sleep. It also sounded like the HD kept spinning.
As of today the iMac keeps crashing and rebooting. When it's back up it warns that it can't read a connected drive.
Diskutil overview: https://imgur.com/a/YYsVfFX
I believe ST3000DM001 is the culprit. I can't dismount nor format it.
Crash log: https://gist.github.com/sxaman/39a3edf7b8597460fbb278570d473e2e
Is it reasonable to think the old HDD is making my iMac crash?
If so, would a working fix be to remove power and data cable from the HDD? (I hope that is possible without interfering with the internal SSD.)
Or is there a less intrusive way (without having to take the iMac apart), where I can disable the old HDD completely?
Any help or suggestions are very much appreciated.

I finally build up the courage to try and disconnect the faulty HD. I was sorta successful.
The screen cracked a bit and my iMac is now assembled again with duct tape. But it seems to work. There was no error when starting the iMac, and it has been running now for 30 mins without issues. I will update this if that changes, but I'm having my hopes up.


Is it possible to use MacPorts without Xcode or Apple ID? MacPorts requires XCode. One seems to be only able to install XCode through the App store which requires an Apple Id to install stuff. Is there any way to circumvent this?

Only install Xcode CLI tool, since most of the ports work without Xcode although there's a warning during use.

Quote from Google Summer of Code 2019 for MacPorts

  Phase out dependency on Xcode (done in the main repo)

  MacPorts currently requires a full Xcode installation, even though a lot of ports will install just fine with the Command Line Tools package only. Since we also have a number of ports that need Xcode to build, we cannot completely remove the Xcode dependency. Your task would be to provide a way for maintainers to easily identify ports that depend on Xcode and mark them as such, so MacPorts can warn users without Xcode installed that a port they want to install needs the full Xcode package.

references

Summer of Code for MacPorts


What does it mean when I get a server failure when connecting to a router with DNS protocol I'm currently attempting to debug a Super Duper startup problem where it takes between 10-15 seconds to start up on my machine when wireless/internet is turned on. I have communicated with Dave from Shirt Pocket who advised that Super Duper usually has a lag like this when there are network drives mounted on my machine (i.e. Super Duper would attempt to scan these resulting in the lag). When I turn wifi off, Super Duper starts up immediately.

I don't have any network drives mounted on my machine and so this has all been very mysterious.

Last night, I installed WireShark and tried to see if there's anything interesting going over the wire. I noticed that roughly around the time I start Super Duper up, I see the following in WireShark:

Source    | Destination | Protocol | Length | Info
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My IP     | Router IP   | DNS      | 66     | Standard query 0xd574 A System
Router IP | My IP       | DNS      | 66     | Standard query 0xd574 Server Failure

The server failure is usually returns between 10-20 seconds (hence the correlation with the Super Duper start up lag). The request from my machine to the router sometimes happens repeatedly (i.e. 2 or 3 times) before the notice of failure returns from the router.

I'm not very familiar with using WireShark and reading information off packets in this way (indeed, it's very odd that this is causing any issue with Super Duper at all given that it shouldn't be going out on the network to look for stuff as I don't have any network drives setup at all on my Mac) - my question here is: does anyone know what is happening here and why do I get a server failure from my router? Internet is working with no apparent issues.

In case it becomes relevant: this is on a 2012 MacBook Air with OSX 10.9.4 plus the latest versions of Super Duper and WireShark.

"Server failure" is, according to RFC 1035, an error that means that "The name server was unable to process this query due to a problem with the name server."  That error code doesn't provide enough information to indicate what the problem is; it could be that the router is having a problem, or it could be that the router is talking to some other name server and got an equally mysterious "server failure" error from that server.

What's the host name it's trying to look up?


Unable to add account in Google Hangouts I've been unable to login to Google Hangouts via the iPhone mobile app. I keep getting "Unable to add account". I've tried restarting my phone, nothing changes. If it helps, I am using a legacy business account from Google.

iPhone: 5s
OS: iOS 7.1.2
App: Hangouts from Google Inc, 2.1.0

If the account you're trying to login with us managed with Family Link, then you cannot access Hangouts on an iPad or iPhone. See https://support.google.com/hangouts/answer/2944865

I also tried Google Duo, but that silent fails to login and just boots you back to the login screen.


Looking for a simple file manager for Mac I am looking for a simple file manager for Mac. My requirements are:

support the usual grid view
show the file size of highlighted files
does not truncate long file names - adjusts the grid instead

Something like the example on the bottom right sourced from this question on Ask Ubuntu.

Unfortunately, I only find alternative file managers that use a list view. Is there an file manager that meets these requirements?

I never came across a file manager that adjust the grid for long names. However if you want to go further than the Finder you can give a try at Transmit, Forklift or Commander, they're all great file management tools.


Why does Preview remain active in the background? I have noticed quite a few times that after viewing a particular image and quitting Preview manually, Preview still remains active in the background sucking up huge chunks memory/RAM. It only stops after force quitting it. I don't know why this does happen!

This is by design and expected behavior if your memory pressure is green in activity monitor. Both iOS and macOS will keep some apps resident until compressed memory or paging is called for and then purge them. Changes in the kernel relating to App Nap, sudden termination, background processing allow many more states for applications than just running and quit.

Why do you care whether the process is still in memory?  It's not running.  Preview.app supports Automatic Termination, the system will remove it from memory when it is necessary to to so.


MacBook Pro Late 2011 doesn't upgrade further than 10.13.1 In the App Store > Updates it showed the 10.13.4 update, I did that but About this Mac still shows me 10.13.1.

I would like to download the newest XCode but that reqiures at least 10.13.2
So I went to the Apple download page where it says I should upgrade it in the App store instead of installing it from scrap.
I tried through terminal, it downloaded and installed it, then it said I need to restart and wanted the password. After I typed in the password, the computer shut down and restarted. In the Terminal it said Session restarted, and the MacBook still runs on 10.13.1.
I have 210GB of free storage at the moment.

What could it be? Which further information can I provide to be more precise?
Is it not possible with my model? Is there an older version of XCode I could download?
I am thankful for any tip.

Alright so I did an Internet Recovery and installed the Mac OS from scrap, respectively with cmd + alt + R to have the newest version installed. Finally worked.


Finder view like FTP clients - two columns Is here possible to have OS X (10.10) view like in FTP clients (e.g FileZilla) I mean two columns with list view, and of course without need of opening two seperate windows. I am aware of tabs, but can one show to tabs at once?

No dual mode in OS X Finder

There is no native dual mode in OS X Finder. You can replace Finder with software like 'TotalFinder' (image below). Or you can use window managing software, like ShiftIt or mjolnir, to place your Finder windows side-by-side.

Mjolnir (donation ware) is highly scriptable and should be capable of doing exactly this.

This feature is requested lots of times, but for now we are stuck with the classic Finder as we know it. Besides tabs, the only view options we have are:

Command1 - icons
Command2 - list
Command3 - columns
Command4 - Cover Flow

TotalFinder, dual mode:


Time Capsule & Airport Express Keeps Disconnecting I have a problem setting up the network in my house.
I have a Time Capsule which is connected to a Huawei router, the Time Capsule is set to "Create a wireless network" and router mode to "Off(Bridge Mode)"

It was all working great and I get the 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz networks.

Today I bought an Airport Express so I can extend the wifi signal in new section of the house, I tried to connect it to the Time Capsule as "Extend a Wireless Network" for a while it would connect and everything seems fine and then both TC & AE starts to drop and reconnect again and drop again, the LED lights starts shifts between green and amber every now and then and keep doing that.. The WiFi signals keeps dropping and reconnecting !

I'm not sure whats the problem..! tried to configure it couple of time but nothing seems work.
But once I switch off the AE, the TC starts working fine!

So here is how my network setup should be:

Wall --> RJ11 >-- Huawei --> Ethernet >-- TC   ...> WiFi >... AE

Note: when I connected the AE to TC the 1st time, this diagram was shown in the Airport Utility:

Internet > TC > AE

but it would still drops, after resetting the AE several times and tried to configure it multiple times, now what I see is both are connected to the Internet icon somehow !

Any help !?

i had sounds like the same problem
some how the TC became internally corrupted.
it had worked fine for two years and suddenly I am getting yellow flashing lights on the AE or green lights with connecting and then disconnecting
it was not the source router or the AE. It was the TC. Restoring the TC to factory default and setting it up again fixed the issue.


iTunes full screen movie won't play I'm using iTunes 10.6.3 64-bit on a 13-inch Mid 2010 MBP running Mountain Lion OSX 10.8.1

When I pause a movie in full-screen mode in iTunes, the resume/play button remains greyed out.  The only fix is to exit full screen mode then resume from a regular window, and then switch back to fullscreen.

How can I resume playback when watching fullscreen content?

Why are you using iTunes to play movies?
go to Macintosh HD\Users\USERNAME\Music\iTunes\iTunes Media\Movies
there you have the movies you bought (which is why you are using iTunes?)

you should download VLC player, it plays the movies so much better, and it is pretty much bug free.


spctl "command not found" on Recovery start (mac OS Big Sierra) I've just updated to macOS Big Sur.
The firewall I use, Little Snitch doesn't work with Big Sur natively, and you have to do some stuff (they explain the thing here https://obdev.at/support/littlesnitch/245913651253917):

Start up your computer from macOS Recovery: Restart your computer and hold Command-R during startup.
Open the Terminal application from the Utilities menu in the menu bar.
Enter the following command and press Return:
spctl kext-consent add MLZF7K7B5R

My mac starts on Internet Recovery Mode and everytime I run the command I get the result "command not found"
I tried to look for the command in the route /usr/sbin/ but neither found there.

Any idea of what can i do to run it?
Thanks in advance and regards :)

You seem to have booted into an older version of macOS Recovery (there's an item called "Install OS X Yosemite.app" visible in your screenshot). This is something that can happen with Internet Recovery, depending on the Mac model and OS version.
If you use the regular local Recovery (⌘ R), the spctl command should be available.
If you HAVE to use Internet Recovery, try ⌥ ⌘ R. This should load the latest version of macOS compatible with your Mac.


Connecting to a VPN on the Guest OS I'm trying to connect my Virtual Machine (Windows 10) only to a VPN IPsec server.

I can successfully connect to that VPN (IPSec) through MacOS. I could connect Mac to the VPN and then share the connection with guest. However, my whole system would be connected to the VPN. I'm trying to connect only guest to the VPN.

When I try to connect to the VPN on the Windows VM, however, this happens:

I have contacted Parallels, and they sent me these steps, which I have followed correctly (I think):

  Please perform the following steps,

  1) Open Configuration Editor and create a new Network Adapter using
  "Add" button 2) Set Bridged mode for one of them and Host-only for the
  other.

  Connect to VPN from Windows, using these steps:

  1) Open the Windows Control Panel -> Network Connections. 2) Click
  'Create a new connection' link on the left-hand side of the window. 3)
  Click Next, then choose 'Connect to the network at my workplace' from
  the list and click Next. 4) On the Network Connection page of the
  wizard, choose the 'Virtual Private Network connection' and click
  Next. 5) Enter a name for the new VPN connection in the 'Company Name'
  field and click Next. 6) In the 'Public Network' window: If you choose
  'Automatically dial this initial connection' as default option, the
  VPN connection will always be initiated even when the computer has not
  been connected to Internet yet. If you choose 'Do not dial the initial
  connection', Internet connection will be established before the new
  VPN connection is initiated. Choose one of these options and click
  Next. 7) Enter the name or IP address of the VPN remote access server
  to connect to, and click Next. 8) In the "Connection Availability"
  window you will see two options: 'My Use Only' ensures that Windows
  makes the new connection available only to the currently logged on
  user. 'Anyone's use' option makes the connection available to anyone.
  Choose one of the options and click Next. 9) Click Finish. The new VPN
  connection information has been saved.

  On Mac side use Internet Sharing in System Preferences to share
  Host-guest adapter connection with Mac network interface. Note:
  Firewall should be disabled on Windows side.

Any suggestion?

Solution was editing registry: https://github.com/StreisandEffect/streisand/issues/291


Remote desktop into macOS from Windows I am doing some development on my MacBook and I would like to use my desktop to access it remotely as I have a dual monitor setup. Is there a way to do this? My desktop is Windows and my Mac is a 2015 Retina MacBook Pro.

Download RealVNC Viewer for Windows and move it to the applications folder.

In the macOS open System Preferences > Sharing and enable "Screen Sharing" for either All users or restrict it to your user.

Open RealVNC Viewer and enter the IP or the host name of the Mac and hit the enter key.


Can I use iPad 1 or iPad 2 accessories (such as cases / covers) on the new iPad (3)? Does the new iPad have the same form factor / dimensions as the first two iPads?  Can I re-use accessories from the first two iPads?

It depends. The iPad (3rd Generation) is slightly thicker than the iPad 2, but there are reports that many cases designed for the 2 will work on the new model. Both of these iPads can use the smart cover technology too. Check with the case manufacturer or online forums to be check the compatibility of specific models.

Update: It seems not all Apple Smart Covers are created equal. Early smart covers may not work with iPad (3gen) because Apple changed the polarity of the sleep sensor magnets at some point during the production run.

The original iPad was the thickest of the lot and had no smart cover capability. Most cases (if not all) were not interchangeable between the newer models.

Accessories should work unless they're truly dimension critical or require a technology not present in a previous model.

My inCase Origami case and the Apple Bluetooth Keyboard it protects continues to work with all iPad models, as do my car chargers, video adaptors and the Apple Camera Connection Kit. The OtterBox Defender case on my original iPad won't doesn't work on newer models.


Proper way to sync Google Cal to iCal I have a google calendar and I need to have several iCal sync and pull updates from this Google Calendar. However, I went in and used prefs->add account to setup sync. I was told this was not the correct way to pull calendar data and that I should use the SUBSCRIBE option.

I vaguely remember going in and using the subscribe option to subscribe to the calendar but I never got updates even with a refresh. Did I do something wrong or do updates take time to get updated on googles side?

Really confused as to the differences between the two and the best way to constantly pull updates from the Google Cal to iCal.

I was told this was not the correct way to do.

But does it work?

Generally it sounds like what you did was correct, but just to be sure:

Open System Preferences and select the "Mail, Contacts & Calendar" preference (soon to be more sensible titled "Internet Accounts"
Click the "+" button to add an account.
Select "Gmail" as that account type.
Enter the Credentials for your Google Calendar.
Profit.


Someone in China tried to log into my AppleID account. What should I do? I am a US citizen who volunteers for a human rights organization and noticed my iCloud account had a login attempt by someone in Nanchang, China

I'm not sure if I should fear of my personal safety, or be concerned about the confidentiality of my data.

How can I determine if this is legitimate to protect myself?

Apple recommends you select Don't Allow since that will block this attempt.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201303

The bottom of the page linked above has steps to take (like change your password) if you think the alert is not correct or a result of your actions.

Next, you should check that the email / alert you see is indeed legitimate (i.e. actually sent by Apple's servers). It is common place to receive emails like this that are actually fake.

In any case, there's no need or obligation for you to report this to Apple or Yahoo. It is not an indication that your or their systems have been hacked.

In case of US State / Federal reporting, unless you're employed by these entities and have specifically been bound to report this (very likely you have not), then there's not need to report it to them either.


Macbook Pro 2018 13 inch Partition Won't Delete When I tried to bootcamp today and it failed midway through and wouldn't delete the partition. I've tried deleting the partition manually through disk utility both through the regular desktop and recovery mode. I was unable to delete this partition made by the bootcamp utility and trying to use bootcamp utility to delete yields no results.
This is why my disk utility looks like. Macintosh HD is my main partition that I wish to keep and Container disk1 is the partition that was originally made by bootcamp and that I tried to manually erase but it does not go away.
Attempting to do diskutil list yields:
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                         251.0 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     314.6 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk2         197.0 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         53.6 GB    disk0s3
   4:                 Apple_Boot Boot OS X               134.2 MB   disk0s4

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +53.6 GB    disk1
                                 Physical Store disk0s3
   1:                APFS Volume Preboot                 45.1 MB    disk1s2
   2:                APFS Volume Recovery                20.5 KB    disk1s3

/dev/disk2 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +197.0 GB   disk2
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume Macintosh HD            165.7 GB   disk2s1
   2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 45.2 MB    disk2s2
   3:                APFS Volume Recovery                510.5 MB   disk2s3
   4:                APFS Volume VM                      2.1 GB     disk2s4

Doing diskutil cs list yields "No CoreStorage logical volume groups found"
Please help, I am lost and unsure what to do.

I suppose your System is High Sierra or Mojave.
I'm amazed that Boot Camp Assistant created a container during its installation.
Otherwise, to remove this container, the terminal command is:
diskutil ap deletecontainer disk1

Then to free disk space :
diskutil erasevolume free space disk0s3

and finally add this space to your system container :
diskutil ap resizecontainer disk2 0b

After these operations, give the result of :
diskutil list

There is a partition that seems useless to me:
4: Apple_Boot Boot OS X 134.2 MB disk0s4

Before removing it, are you using Filevault (data encryption)?
Edit : Filevault don't need this partition type. I've try on a Virtual Machine.
You can delete this partition :
diskutil erasevolume free space disk0s4

Then add this space to your system container :
diskutil ap resizecontainer disk2 0b


Sharing only one window or part of a screen in Zoom The following link from a college refers to sharing part of the screen in Zoom  https://www.etsu.edu/helpdesk/documents/zoom-share-portion-of-screen.pdf

However when I click on "Share | Advanced Sharing Options" as follows:

There are no partial screen sharing options available:

So then - how can part of the screen or only one window be shared?
Update  When clicking directly on the green "Share" there are no options at all for customization - not any dialog or any buttons.

There is only this:

Another update OK the issue is that I had sometime in the past set up "Automatically share desktop" in Prefences . I'll make that an answer per @grg

Don’t click the arrow next to the share button — just click the green Share button itself.
‘Advanced’ doesn’t refer to the advanced options dialog, just the tab at the top of the normal window accessed by clicking Share.


Installed new SSD on Macbook Air now won't let me reinstall OS I have a 2012 Macbook Air. It shipped with 64GB SSD but I upgraded it to 240GB using a 3rd party manufacturer. I was planning on doing a clean install on the system but when I checked to make sure if I could download it, the installer failed to verify that I could install it on the machine. It is like the installer isn't recognising it as a Mac. Any advice?

OK so ultimately I was able to solve the problem and here is how.

I noticed that when tried to install OSX straight away it failed but when I selected a drive that had OSX installed on it, it validated successfully. However once I had erased the drive it no longer contained a copy hence validation failed. I still had my old SSD which contained a full copy so when I plugged that in via USB and selected it in startup disk, the installer validated it and allowed me to install OSX on the new drive.


Missing disk space after repartitioning I tried to make a partition and then tried to undo it. Now, I don't know how to get the missing disk space back.

As you can tell, I have 751.28 GB disk. Macintosh HD and Recovery HD have 557.4 GB. About 180 GB are missing. Where did it go? How do I figure out where it went? Most importantly, how do I fix it?

I ran

diskutil list

and it showed

    0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *751.3 GB disk0
    1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
    2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            556.7 GB   disk0s2
    3:                 Apple_Boot                         650.0 MB   disk0s3
    4:                 Linux Swap                         16.4 GB    disk0s4

Edit:

I ran

   sudo gpt -r show /dev/disk0

Output is:

     start        size  index  contents
         0           1         PMBR
         1           1         Pri GPT header
         2          32         Pri GPT table
        34           6
        40      409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
    409640  1087392760      2  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
1087802400     1269536      3  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
1089071936   344263872
1433335808    32049152      4  GPT part - 0657FD6D-A4AB-43C4-84E5-0933C84B4F4F
1465384960     1954819
1467339779          32         Sec GPT table
1467339811           1         Sec GPT header

Booted to Internet Recovery Mode you have to remove the swap partition and then resize your main volume.

Preparation:

Backup your main volume
Restart to Internet Recovery Mode by pressing alt cmd R at startup.

The prerequisites are the latest firmware update installed, either ethernet or WLAN (WPA/WPA2) and a router with DHCP activated.
On a 50 Mbps-line it takes about 4 min (presenting a small animated globe) to boot into a recovery netboot image which usually is loaded from an Apple/Akamai server.

I recommend ethernet because it's more reliable. If you are restricted to WIFI and the boot process fails, just restart your Mac until you succeed booting.

Alternatively you may start from a bootable installer thumb drive (preferably Yosemite or El Capitan) or a thumb drive containing a full system (preferably Yosemite or El Capitan). If you boot to a full system and login as admin you have to prepend sudo to execute some commands like gpt ... or newfs_hfs ...!

Remove the Linux Swap partition

Open in the menubar Utlities->Terminal
Enter diskutil list and gpt -r show /dev/disk0 to get an overview
Remove the Linux partition:

diskutil umountDisk /dev/disk0
gpt remove -i 4 /dev/disk0

Restore the original size of your main volume

Resize your main volume:

diskutil resizeVolume /dev/disk0s2 750g #or 100%

this should also move your Recovery HD to the end of the disk.
verify the volume with diskutil verifyVolume disk0s2
reboot to your main disk


High CPU usage by system I'm having by time to time problems with my OS running really slow because the System uses a lot of CPU (it stays like this ~30min). I've checked different articles on the internet in regard to this issue and none of them worked for me. I also tried to update from Mojave to Catalina in the idea that this might fix the issue.
Does somebody else encounter this issue?
Configuration:
Macbook pro late 2013 with OS 10.15.6 (19G2005)
2.3 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7
16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M 2 GB
Intel Iris Pro 1536 MB
Is there a way of seeing the processes used or what is being done by the system? The Activity monitor or the htop from brew doesn't show what is being done by the system. --
Answer (based on the comment from @At0mic): In order to see all processes including the system ones it possible by selecting in Activity Monitor View -> Show all processes

What you're seeing is not "the system" (as a separate entity) using up your CPU time so that "your programs" are not getting their fair share. This is not what happens.
In order to interpret the screenshot, you'll need to know that modern computers are designed to have their work load split between what is known as "user space" and "system space" (also known as kernel space). This is a form of protection.
The programs you're running will have their code running in "user space" consuming "user CPU time". This would involve the various computations and data juggling that your program does by itself.
However most programs do not live on an island. They need to access privileged resources such as a reading files from a disk, sending information on a network, etc. To do this safely, they need to ask the system to perform these tasks for them. In doing so work is transitioned to "system space" and thus taking up "system CPU time".
Activity Monitor shows you this split of your CPU usage. 70% is used in "system space", 20% in "user space" and approx. 10% "idle" in your case.
This does not mean that "the system" is somehow sucking up 70% of the CPU time taking it away from your programs - rather it means your programs have asked the system to do stuff for them - and that takes 70% of the CPU time.
In the top part of Activity Monitor you'll see the percentages of CPU time that each program has used. This percentage is based on the SUM of the process' usage of both user and system CPU time.


I have reset my iPhone, now many contacts are lost, though I synced them through iCloud. Are they still in an old backup? I reset my iPhone 4 because it was terribly slow after 3 years of continuous usage.

Now it's much faster again, but many of my contacts are lost, although I used to sync them using iCloud and I had them both on my phone and on my Mac. I tried to restore them using TimeMachine, but it seems there are no backups for contacts left from early enough.

Now I wonder whether my contacts still are on an old iPhone backup (which I should have in iTunes from before resetting my iPhone) and so I could get them back.

So my question is: What could have happened that I lost most of my contacts? I indeed deleted a lot of contacts a few days ago, but I for sure didn't delete many of those that are gone, and many that I deleted, are back again.

Not sure what happened but you should be able to restore your iPhone from within iTunes. Depending on when the backup was made that should have everything that was on your iPhone.

If you have no backups in iTunes that work you can check Time Machine for other backups:

/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/

Restore your more recent backup to your local HD and then Option-Click on the restore from backup button in iTunes and select the file you just recovered.

I am doing some of this from memory but that is the general idea.


How do I view full process paths in Activity Monitor? I'm using macOS Big Sur 11.0.1 and the Activity Monitor.app only shows the name of the process, and I can't configure it to show the full process paths via the GUI settings.
Is it possible to show full process paths in Activity Monitor.app? Maybe with a default command to toggle a hidden setting for the app?

One way: select the process, then View -> Sample Process. In a few seconds a window will pop up like:

"Path:" contains the fill path to the executable.


Are HDMI to VGA converters/adapters compatible with Mac? Recently I purchased an HDMI to VGA adapter that actually converts the digital signal to an analog VGA signal to connect a computer to an external monitor. It works perfectly with a Windows PC that I tested, but with my MacBook Pro Retina (early 2013 model), no display is detected. I've tried SMC and PRAM resets, several restarts, and hot plugging both ends of the converter, to no avail.

I read an answer on "graphics limitations" of the Mac but am still wondering how that may be the issue, considering that this is has both passive and integrated graphics, rated better than the PC I tested. I would suspect that it is probably a hardware detail that I don't understand here, but I have been having issues with other display cables (HDMI to HDMI) recently, too. I have noticed specific log messages that appear whenever I attempt to connect the two, which I will add in an update.

It is worth noting that I am regrettably on the Yosemite public beta (10.10.2) and I am checking to see if this is the issue with a Time Machine restore in a bit.

Update: Restored back to Mavericks and the issue persisted. I am thinking it is purely a hardware issue at this point, and not related to other display issues with 10.10.2.

The log messages that I are appearing:

1/3/15 8:09:57.150 PM WindowServer[1460]: Received display connect changed for display 0x42803c2
1/3/15 8:09:57.153 PM WindowServer[1460]: Found 27 modes for display 0x042803c2 [27, 0]
1/3/15 8:09:57.154 PM WindowServer[1460]: Received display connect changed for display 0x3f003f
1/3/15 8:09:57.154 PM WindowServer[1460]: Found 1 modes for display 0x003f003f [1, 0]
1/3/15 8:09:57.154 PM WindowServer[1460]: Received display connect changed for display 0x3f0040
1/3/15 8:09:57.155 PM WindowServer[1460]: Found 1 modes for display 0x003f0040 [1, 0]
1/3/15 8:09:57.155 PM WindowServer[1460]: Received display connect changed for display 0x78c81761
1/3/15 8:09:57.155 PM WindowServer[1460]: Found 1 modes for display 0x78c81761 [1, 0]
1/3/15 8:09:57.155 PM WindowServer[1460]: Display 0x78c81761 changed state to offline

More relevant logs from AmbientDisplayAgent reporting an "invalid display"?

1/3/15 8:09:26.417 PM com.apple.AmbientDisplayAgent[263]: AMBD initializing devices
1/3/15 8:09:26.453 PM com.apple.AmbientDisplayAgent[263]: Set a breakpoint at CGSLogError to catch errors as they are logged.
1/3/15 8:09:26.453 PM com.apple.AmbientDisplayAgent[263]: CGSGetSizeOfDisplayTransfer: Invalid display 0x00000001
1/3/15 8:09:26.455 PM com.apple.AmbientDisplayAgent[263]: CGSSetDisplayIntention: Invalid display 0x00000001
1/3/15 8:09:26.455 PM com.apple.AmbientDisplayAgent[263]: CGSSetDisplayIntention: Invalid display 0x00000001
1/3/15 8:09:26.455 PM com.apple.AmbientDisplayAgent[263]: CGSSetDisplayIntentionWiper: Invalid display 0x00000001
1/3/15 8:09:26.455 PM com.apple.AmbientDisplayAgent[263]: CGSSetDisplayIntentionWiper: Invalid display 0x00000001
1/3/15 8:09:26.471 PM com.apple.AmbientDisplayAgent[263]: AMBD Agent: xpc connection became invalid during event handler

Ive seen elsewhere that Mac HDMI doesn't support VGA, but Mini Display Port does, so the solution would be to get a MDP to VGA adapter


Launch default browser spotlight shortcut? I often switch my default browser between Safari and Chrome. I would like to create a shortcut that will launch the default browser, whatever that may be. This way I don't have to remember what my default browser is and switch between typing "Chr" or "Saf" in spotlight. I would like to type the same word such as "Browser".

What are my options?

I'd make a little AppleScript that does this:

on GetDefaultWebBrowser()
    set _scpt to "export VERSIONER_PERL_PREFER_32_BIT=yes; " & "perl -MMac::InternetConfig -le " & "'print +(GetICHelper \"http\")[1]'"
    return (do shell script _scpt)
end GetDefaultWebBrowser
do shell script "open -a \"" & GetDefaultWebBrowser() & "\""

Replace the URL (in quotes) with your homepage.
The rest of the code serves to figure out what your default browser is, and make it the active application. That part lifted from a Daring Fireball article.

Save it as an app called Browser and put it somewhere. Once Spotlight indexes it, you can type Browser in and hit enter. This will open the URL in your default browser.

Directions:

Open AppleScript Editor from your Applications/Utilities folder (if you have older than 10.6, it will be Script Editor in your Applications folder). Paste that line in. Go to File-> Save As. Set the File Format: menu to Application. Choose a location and save.


Downloads folder shows Access Denied icon Starting this morning Chrome, Safari et all started showing my ~/Downloads with an access denied icon. Finder does not show this icon. I suspect this is something Code42 CrashPlan did overnight (it's a work issued MBP with some pre-installed apps). Now, the question is, how do I make my downloads again available?

adding read/write myself and everyone via chmod +ai
adding read/write myself and everyone via Finder -> file -> Get Info

ls -el shows that ~/Downloads is missing some attributes compared to other folders like ~/Documents:

drwx---rwx+  6 xx  yy   204 Jan 11 19:15 Documents
 0: XX-AE59E7573812 allow list,add_file,search,add_subdirectory,delete_child,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity
drwx---rwx+ 25 xx  yy   850 Jan 27 08:35 Downloads
 0: user:xx inherited allow list,add_file,delete
 1: group:everyone inherited allow list,add_file,delete
 2: group:owner inherited allow list,add_file,delete
drwx---rwx@ 51 xx  yy  1734 Jan 24 16:41 Library
 0: XX-AE59E7573812 allow list,add_file,search,add_subdirectory,delete_child,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity

The existing ACLs on ~/Downloads are the one I added myself. Still, the browsers show it as Access Denied. Attempt to save a download fails silently (no error, but no file either).

OS X El Capitan 10.11.6

Make sure this is your Downloads folder. Click the little upside-down carat next to the "Save As" text field to see an expanded window, press Command-Shift-H to go to your Home folder and then see if the Downloads folder there is still inaccessible.


Is there a keyboard shortcut in OS X Mavericks for quick reply when an iMessage notification appears? I found it not that efficient to move the mouse pointer over the notification and click on the reply button every time.

So I was wondering if there is a hotkey for quick reply instead of using the mouse or the trackpad.

You could assign a keyboard shortcut to a script like this:

tell application "System Events" to click window 1 of process "Notification Center"


watching videolectures.net on mac How can I watch a lecture from videolectures.net on a Mac? I have OSX 10.12.6 and the Flip4Mac is not working/outdated (in particular, this link on the help page has expired. I just downloaded Chrome, so I'm not sure what's going on when I receive the following error message:

Your browser does not support playback of available video formats. Please install Adobe Flash player or upgrade to a more modern browser.

I also tried on Safari and Chromium after downloading Adobe Flash...

Any help would be appreciated!

Note: I originally posted here


AppleScript to Add Multiple Files to VLC From List Results I have a FileMaker Pro database of music files which uses AppleScript to pass it's search results into an iTunes playlist.

I would like to use VLC instead of iTunes to play the audio files since I have a number of FLAC files which iTunes will not play.

I haven't been able to figure out how to pass the AppleScript results to VLC. It's easy to use AppleScript to get VLC to play a folder of music using:

tell application "VLC"
    OpenURL "file:///Volumes/NoDoubt/Music/Rock Pop/PQR/Pink Floyd/Wish You Were Here/"
    play
end tell

However, if I wanted to instead play a mix of songs from a variety of folders I need to be able to insert each file path into the VLC player.

This is what the AppleScript returned search results from FileMaker Pro looks like:

{"NoDoubt:Music:Rock Pop:ABC:The Beatles:Abbey Road:01_come_together_alac.m4a", "NoDoubt:Music:Rock Pop:DEF:Fleetwood Mac:Rumours:01_second_hand_news_alac.m4a", "NoDoubt:Music:Rock Pop:MNO:Van Morrison:hymns_to_the_silence_disc_1:1-02_i'm_not_feeling_it_anymore_alac.m4a", "NoDoubt:Music:Rock Pop:PQR:Pink Floyd:Wish You Were Here:04_wish_you_were_here_alac.m4a"}

How can I pass the search results of these individual tracks to VLC to play?

This AppleScript code works for me using the latest version of macOS Mojave.

As a side note, I understand your list is generated from searching a FileMaker database. However, I do not have that application nor do I know what your code is to search the database file, so I "hard coded" the file list just for example purposes.

set theSongs to {"NoDoubt:Music:Rock Pop:ABC:The Beatles:Abbey Road:01_come_together_alac.m4a", ¬
    "NoDoubt:Music:Rock Pop:DEF:Fleetwood Mac:Rumours:01_second_hand_news_alac.m4a", ¬
    "NoDoubt:Music:Rock Pop:MNO:Van Morrison:hymns_to_the_silence_disc_1:1-02_i'm_not_feeling_it_anymore_alac.m4a", ¬
    "NoDoubt:Music:Rock Pop:PQR:Pink Floyd:Wish You Were Here:04_wish_you_were_here_alac.m4a"}

set theSongsAlias to {}

repeat with thisSong in theSongs
    set end of theSongsAlias to alias thisSong
end repeat

tell application "VLC" to open theSongsAlias


(Lion installed) Can I use Boot Camp to install Snow Leopard? Is it legal? I have suddenly come into a dire need to run PowerPC apps.

My understand is that Lion will never support 32-but PPC code. It seems like the only solution, therefore, is to install Snow Leopard.

My MacBook Pro was the last to come bundled with the Snow Leopard DVDs. Is it possible to use those to install it on a new partition? And if so, can I use Boot Camp?

I know that Boot Camp supports Windows, and I have Windows 7 installed. But I don't know if it supports Snow Leopard. Also, it would be great to know if my Snow Leopard license covers this kind of usage.

Is this on your MacBook Pro? If so, the disks should work both legally and pragmatically. You wouldn't need to use bootcamp though, since bootcamp is designed just for Windows. Nevertheless, it's pretty easy. Here are the basic steps I would follow:

Insert your install DVD. Shutdown your computer.
Start your computer pressing the C key to boot from the DVD.
Once in the installation assistant, go to Disk Utility under Utilities > Disk Utility.
Select your disk. Select the Partition tab and click on the "+" to add a new one. Call it whatever you please, add at least 10GB of disk space (enough to install Snow Leopard), and make sure it's in Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
Apply the settings. Go through the installer like you normally would, though when it asks you where to install it, tell it you want the Snow Leopard to be on your new partition.

This should let you boot on Snow Leopard by pressing the opt/alt key, just like when you boot Windows.

Hope it helps! Any other thing you need fear not comment.


Restored system now some apps won't start I recently restored my 2013 MacBook Pro El Capitan system back to Mavericks from my Time Machine external drive. The restore was successful except a few that wont start: Calendar, Terminal, Messages, App Store. I tried loggin in as guest, same problem.

If these were 3rd party apps I'd say that you need to reinstall them but they aren't so it's a bit... odder...

It may be that the Time Machine restore put back files that were created with a later version of the app that the older version understands. I would start with deleting the preferences files for those apps in ~/Library/Preferences. Look for files that start with "com.apple" and end with the app name. You could also check in /Library/Preferences. Delete the preference file(s) and try the app again.

Apps like Calendar have a file that they automatically open. you may have to just delete the primary calendar 'document' which (I believe) have their own folder in which they reside: ~/Library.

Finally clear the caches folders Delete the contents of /Library/Caches and ~/Library/Caches and reboot.

At least that is my best guess.


Copy and paste image in Safari I have issues copying an image from website into clipboard and then pasting it on another website in Safari (e.g. Messenger or Facebook). When I click on an image with two-click and select Copy image option and then paste it into another place, I'm getting the image URL instead of the image itself.

I found THIS thread, but it does not resolve my issue, since I still face it although having the latest OS (Mojave 10.14.1) installed, as well as the latest Safari (12.0.1).

I would greatly appreciate any help, cause I don't want to switch to another browser.

It's likely that the app or site you're pasting into doesn't support image paste, and so is defaulting to pasting the link.

You can test by copying and then pasting the image into something like Microsoft Word or Pages, where the actual image should appear.


How do I delete these partitions on my iMac? How do I delete the disk0s2 partition (see below) on my iMac's internal drive??

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS HD                      198.0 GB   disk0s2
   3:                        EFI NO NAME                 104.9 MB   disk0s4
   4:                  Apple_HFS Macontish HD            391.0 GB   disk0s5
   5:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s6
   6:       Microsoft Basic Data OSXRESERVED             8.0 GB     disk0s7
   7:       Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP                401.0 GB   disk0s8

/dev/disk1 (internal):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                         24.0 GB    disk1
   1:                        EFI EFI                     314.6 MB   disk1s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Mac OS X Basic          23.0 GB    disk1s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot                         650.0 MB   disk1s3

If you boot up off the Recovery Partition (or internet recovery), you can fire up Disk Utility and use it's Partitioning tool to delete that partition and grow your Macintosh HD.


User changed to 502 on OSX I have a small problem with my permissions. I use rsync frequently on a certain target directory, but one day I by accident I used "sudo rsync", and now all my permissions for the files in the directory have been changed to user 502. Can anyone provide me with a clue as to why this happened, and why user 502? thanks.

When you create an account on a Mac, it is 501.

The 2nd account you create is 502. And so on.

When you use rsync, it copies the files as your User ID because that's all a non-root user can do.

When you ran rsync as 'sudo' it thought you wanted to copy the user as well as the file.

You should be able to fix it with

sudo chown -R $USER /path/to/rsync'd/files/

ps - you can see your user number using the id command in Terminal.


Is the OS X Lion clean installation less stable than the upgrade install? I upgraded to OS X Lion yesterday, everything went fine and I used it for the day without crashes or problems. In the evening, I decided to burn myself a DVD from the installer, and I did a clean install. Am I the only one to notice that the OS X Lion clean install is buggier than the upgrade? Why is that?

Examples of "buggier":

I wasn't able to finish the initial user account set up. At the moment of taking a picture of myself for my account, I got away from my computer 10 minutes, it seemed to go on sleep, and it never woke up.
After that, on the login screen, I entered my pwd, pressed ok, and the wait cursor showed up. I let it spin for 10 minutes, then got tired of it and restarted the computer.
Finally, this morning, after my computer woke from sleep mode, the mail full screen application froze on an administrator login screen.

--EDIT--

After a couple of weeks of using Lion, everything goes smoothly. The issues I had have gone away automatically.

The DVD install is not an official, sanctioned by Apple, way to install the OS. So it's not that surprising that thing don't go as smoothly.

Or maybe it's just bad luck when burning or installing the OS. So you can try to install it once again, even burning another DVD to see if that was the problem.

If you want to do a clean install, there will be official USB key in August. But they'll cost more that two times the price of Lion on the Mac App Store


Brand new MacBook Pro flagship behaving strangely Today i got the newest available MacBook Pro flagship model. After setting up some basics, installing Photoshop, JRE, XAMPP and NetBeans, i started to use the machine a bit, doing some basic coding.

While using Netbeans, the fans rev up in an abnormal fashion. Of course i checked the CPU usage in Activity Monitor, but nothing abnormal showed up - merely just 7%-10% usage varying. There was simply nothing running, that would use up the CPU. I have owned a 2014 model previously and it never showed such behaviour. In fact, unless NetBeans was scanning a huge project and the CPU usage went up to 100%+, the fans were not even noticeable at all.

What i tried

After some research, i reset the SMC, but the issue remained. Instead of working flawlessly, after resetting the SMC and rebooting the machine, then running it for a few minutes and then opening apple.stackexchange.com in Google Chrome, suddenly the entire screen turned white and the only thing that was still there was the mouse pointer, which i could move around, but otherwise the machine was unresponsive.

I rebooted and checked the log, which under System Diagnostic Reports now showed a file prefixed with Kernel which said:

Event: GPU Reset
Application: WindowServer
OS Version: Mac OS X Version 10.10.3 (Build 14D2134)
Graphics Hardware: AMD Radeon R9 M370X
Signature: 0

Followed by a huge chunk of dump data.

Sadness fills my being.

Could this be a hardware issue? Badly applied cooling paste? Would you send it back and buy a new one, or try to get it fixed?

Specs:

MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015), Core i7 2.8 GHz, 16 GB RAM, Intel Iris Pro 1.5 GB + AMD Radeon R9 M370X running Yosemite 10.10.3

If it is a hardware issue, you'll have CPU usage and issues with a stock OS. Back things up and wipe it. Then run the iLife apps like garage band and iMovie and Photos to soak the CPU.

Everything in my experience is you have some software issues that aren't ready for the new API and new CPU/GPU and will have occasional panics as the drivers get updated for non-apple users or the non-apple code gets patched to behave properly.

Adobe is notorious for needing a patch for new HW.
JRE, XAMPP, NetBeans - would depend heavily on your versions
Apple offer free hardware support - why not get them to check things and let you know. Run sysdiagnose each time you get a panic so you have all the diagnostic logs saved if you end up with some pattern of 10 or more KP so that engineering can analyze things. If you have less than a dozen crashes or can't make it happen, realize that you'll likely need to pay someone to analyze those diagnostics as it's time consuming and requires fairly specialized experience to make headway on non-reproducible core dumps and panics.


How to sync up a folder in amazon S3 with people in Austria My business is digital retouching here in the Pacific Northwest, and I have several photographers in Austria who I work with. Typically, both of us have macs running Maverick.

I would like to have one folder for each client that both of us can put images in and  out. I would like to use my Amazon S3 account like dropbox. My file sizes are large, like 20 to 30 gb

How do I go about setting that up with my Amazon S3 account? My level of experience is newbie.

I recommend either 3Hub or Forklift in the App Store. If that is not what you are looking for, I can also use https://github.com/timkay/aws. It is command line only though.


MacOS Catalina 10.15.7 is causing a Kernal Panic - Forced an update to T2 chip by installing Big Sur - My machine is now bricked So only in the last 2 weeks has my Macbook Pro 2018 starting having this kernal panic problem. I was on 10.15.7 and after disabling the power nap and vault encryption suggestions I still had no luck preventing the kernel panic. The firmware of the T2 chip was 17P6610 with Darwin Kernel Version 19.6.0.
I then tried to do a clean install of OSX High Sierra and the issue persisted (The T2 chips firmware was still 17P660 - It didn't roll back). As a last ditch effort I went ahead and installed OSX Big Sur because I though that I might be able to force a firmware update to the chip to a later version but ran into a fatal problem. The install completed just fine but when I restarted my Macbook it turned off and has not turned on since. I can hear the fan spin up quickly and then cut out but nothing happens. It is a complete brick right now. I would not advise anyone to do what I did unless you have a high level of expertise to figure out what might go wrong if you did what I did.
My question is: Has anyone been in the same position as I have and successfully recovered their machine? I am reading up on how to use Apple's Configurator 2 in DFU mode to revive the chip but I have never done this before. Any inputs on where I should go from here? I am saving a trip to the Apple store as the absolute last solution but it feels like I am getting closer to have to do that.

You should use the Configurator to restore the T2 chip. Follow the steps shown here:
Apple Support: https://support.apple.com/guide/apple-configurator-2/revive-or-restore-mac-firmware-apdebea5be51/mac


Can I gather the associated email address from an iMessage that was sent from a phone number? Imagine this:
I exchanged my phone number with a nice lady on the street. I have iMessage activated, so does she (when I text her, I see the "iMessage" text).

An hour later she sends me an email. The email I used as an username when I activated my phone.

Questions:

How did she extract my email from my phone?
Is there a service that I can use to extract email from a phone?
Why can't I extract her email?

BTW, googling the subject gave me nothing - not even another person asking the same question.

I see the mostly likely cause of this being the possibility that your default sending address is set to your email address. I say this because it appears that you initiated the conversation.

You can check (and change) this by going to Settings.app -> Messages -> Send & Receive. Under "Start new conversations from:", observe whether your email address or phone number is selected.

If your email address is selected, this would be an easy explanation as to why this happened.

Otherwise, as far as I know, (and I have just went over this to verify), it is impossible to extract the email address that is associated with an iMessage phone number from just a regular iMessage "text".


If my timemachine was done with lion, but my host is snow leopard, how will it restore? What I want is for my Mac to go back to exactly as it was, which was with lion.

Of course, there's no lion disk, so I've done a clean reinstall with snow leopard (new drive).

Should I restore from a lion timemachine onto snow leopard, or just install snow leopard, re install lion from the Mac store, and then restore from the time machine?

You should be able to point the installer at Time Machine during setup.  This will make the OS you have on there now largely irrelevant.  Just ensure your drive is USB attached, and hold option ⌥ down as you boot, select your installer CD for Snow Leopard, and do it from there.

The following Support Article should help

  Restoring your entire system from a backup

  If you are restoring a backup made by a Mac to the same Mac

  With your backup drive connected, start up your Mac from the Lion
  recovery partition (Command-R at startup) or Mac OS X v10.6
  installation disc. Then use the "Restore From Time Machine Backup"
  utility.

  Note: If "You can't restore this backup because it was created by a
  different model of Mac" appears when restoring a backup that was made
  on a different Mac, follow the onscreen instructions.


Today I've updated a Mac mini and it won't boot even to recovery mode Monitor is switching between being black and turned off. The same when starting with Cmd-R. I clicked update, rebooted computer, and this happened. What can I do? I was updating to newest El Captain, probably, as I already had quite fresh version of it.

After I disconnected power for a longer time (to get the serial number), ~25 minutes, the system started to recovery console, and then started normally. I did SMC reset via 15 second unplug, but apparently this was not enough.


Airport utility: Scan specific channels I am using the Airport utility /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/Current/Resources/airport. With the little program I am able to scan my network for WIFI senders. I do however, want to scan only for specific channels (let's say 6 and 11) to speed up the process. This is possible and seems to be common practise on Linux.

The command (linking to the program mentioned above) I use at the moment which takes 5-10 seconds:

sudo airport -s

Sadly, there is no documentation (I found) about this wonderful little helper. The only help is the help page when using flag -h.

Supported arguments:
 -c[<arg>] --channel=[<arg>]    Set arbitrary channel on the card
 -z        --disassociate       Disassociate from any network
 -I        --getinfo            Print current wireless status, e.g. signal info, BSSID, port type etc.
 -s[<arg>] --scan=[<arg>]       Perform a wireless broadcast scan.
                   Will perform a directed scan if the optional <arg> is provided
 -x        --xml                Print info as XML
 -P        --psk                Create PSK from specified pass phrase and SSID.
                   The following additional arguments must be specified with this command:
                                  --password=<arg>  Specify a WPA password
                                  --ssid=<arg>      Specify SSID when creating a PSK
 -h        --help               Show this help

It seems like the -s parameters takes arg but I can not find any information anywhere in which format I can pass arguments on and which arguments are supported in the first place. Has anyone worked with the tool before? Is there any documentation about this that I missed?

Thanks a lot for any help or pointers.

I don't think the tool does what you wish. It treats scan as "check all channels" and may not even obey restrictions if you set them by hook or crook on which channels are allowed on the interface. It allows you to pre-filter by SSID name as opposed to channel:

airport --scan=whatever

For sniffing, you can use the Wireless Diagnostics application, but it's not command line based/enabled as far as I can tell.

Once you start the program, look in the Window menu for the options available on your OS (the tool is improving over time IMO with more features and capabilities).

You are right and the authors of the airport manual page agree that "airport more information needed here"


Prevent maximum screen brightness in lockscreen? I've set my screen brightness to about 50%. This works fine for me, except that the setting seems to be ignored while displaying the lockscreen while being charged: then it's 100%. I've got a desktop charging stand on my bedside table, and this is exactly the place where I don't need maximum brightness!

How can I make my iPhone respect the brightness setting even when locked and charging?

This is an iPhone 4 with iOS 4.2.1. In an earlier question, I asked about the brightness while charging - but this question is specifically about the lockscreen brightness.

It's already jailbroken so suggestions in that genre are fine too.

Update:
The auto-brightness setting is ON because I like that it dims at night but goes bright during the day; I have tried it OFF but I had to adjust the brightness manually too often during every day. I'm not aware of any jailbreak-specific setting regarding brightness.

iOS 4 and 5 were notorious for having this issue. They frequently ignored the ambient light sensor and were so stubborn, they refused to adjust the screen brightness to compensate. iOS 6 has corrected this issue.


Can video input over thunderbolt connection be used for Facetime and Skype? I have a HD camera. It outputs HDMI to a device (a Blackmagic Intensity Extreme) which then outputs the signal through a thunderbolt cable and into my iMac running Catalina.

I can capture video from the device with the software that comes with the Intensity Extreme device.

Skype detects the camera as Blackmagic Intensity Extreme but I just get a black screen. Facetime and zoom software don't see it at all.

Is there some kind of software I can install to get the video signal recognized by these other applications?

OK, some recent update to Catalina broke things. Fix is here: https://forum.blackmagicdesign.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=110981#p621269 for zoom. I got it working with zoom. Not sure about skype and facetime.


Install nvidia-smi on OSX I tried installing nvidia-smi with home-brew, but it is not working out, this is my output

-bash: nvidia-smi: command not found

I have CUDA 7.5 installed and this is the output of my nvcc -V command

Mine is a 15" Macbook Pro Retina, with Nvidia 750M GPU

  nvcc: NVIDIA (R) Cuda compiler driver
  Copyright (c) 2005-2015 NVIDIA Corporation
  Built on Thu_Sep_24_00:26:39_CDT_2015
  Cuda compilation tools, release 7.5, V7.5.19

Output of kextstat command

    kextstat | grep -i cuda
  140    0 0xffffff7f82675000 0x2000     0x2000     com.nvidia.CUDA (1.1.0) 5AFE550D-6361-3897-912D-897C13FF6983 <4 1>

OS version 10.11.4

In Macs there is no nvidia-smi command that comes with nvidia drivers. However, you could check this open-source alternative : https://github.com/phvu/cuda-smi

Edit in 2020 :
As an alternative to nvidia-smi is Activity Monitor. Search on spotlight (cmd + space) and type Activity Monitor. When the program opens press cmd + 4. This will show you the active usage of GPU(s) on your system.
I think this feature comes with High Sierra 10.13 prior to that there is no option for gpu history.


iPhone 5 my iMessage doesn't work I do not have a SIM card in my phone. Before my iMessage used to work even without a SIM card. But now it doesn't, why?

If you have reinstalled the operating system of Apple just decides to make another change I have not quite figured out yet, I often find myself needing to go in and reenable the iMessage and FaceTime feature. It is fairly straight forward

Go to Settings>Messages and turn off iMessage.
Then go to FaceTime and turn off FaceTime.
Restart your device.
Turn iMessage and FaceTime back on.


Drives not appearing on desktop I have gone into my Finder preferences and selected to show drives, connected servers, etc., on the desktop. They, however, do not appear. I have restarted Finder and rebooted, but they still are not there. Upon further examination, it also appears that when I click on the desktop, finder does not become the active application, clicking the desktop does nothing. It is as though the desktop has ceased to have functionality other then displaying an image.

Any idea how to correct this?

I believe that CreateDesktop is set to false. Try running defaults write com.apple.finder CreateDesktop -bool YES in Terminal (unless you are on Mountain Lion or below, in which case the command is defaults write com.apple.Finder CreateDesktop -bool YES), followed by killall Finder. You should be able to view items on and drag items to your Desktop now, including drives.


How do people who recently bought a Macbook Pro get the free upgrade to Lion? When I bought my Macbook Pro I was told that when Lion came out I could get the upgrade for free.  How do I go about doing this?  I've searched the Apple.com website extensively and can't find information on this.

The Lion up to date program is public. It currently says the deadline to ask for a free copy is August 19, 2011 and macs purchased on or after June 6, 2011 are eligible.

Otherwise, Mac OS X 10.7 Lion will cost you $29.99, and is available on the Mac App Store (link). You can also go to an Apple store to download it (if you have a slow connection), and Apple will be making a version on a USB thumb drive available for $70. (More info here.)


iPhone crashes Dlink DI-624 router regularly I've got an iPhone4 running 4.01 that is connecting to a DLink DI-624. I'm getting intermittent connections. Sometimes these are resolved by rebooting the router, sometimes not. Sometimes rebooting the phone fixes it, sometimes not.

Do people have similar problems with Apple products? What solutions have you found?

You should upgrade to iOS 4.1 as it has several bug fixes, maybe you are experiencing a know problem that has been fixed in the latest release.

All reports from the new iOS 4.1 (made publicly available yesterday through iTunes Update), they always say it's much better, even on my iPhone 3G it's fantastic!


Simple Low-Cost Network Backup System - Drobo? Alternatives? I'm hoping to graduate from manually copying important files to multiple external desk or portable drives; affordably.

We have 3 Macs and an iPad or two. I have just now learned about Drobo, who as I understand it offer a very user-friendly RAID system, which for any uninformed readers is a redundant array of independent discs, so that your data is backed up on at least two discs, interfaced as a single drive (very simplistic explanation/understanding).

It definitely seems more sensible to be purchasing a single "case" for multiple hard drives as opposed to more than one portable drive, and then adding/replacing the functional aspects of the drive as needed.

I'm not looking for full Time-Capsule style OS-system backups here - just reliable back-up of specific files.

The Drobo conversations I'm finding here on Ask Different seem to be a few years old.

Does the Dobro include software as well as hardware. Is it a minimal computer that is specifically for managing a RAID system? Is this kind of like getting a TV with a VCR built in?

A more recent discussion on MacObserver including someone's RAID system in an Other World Computing drive bay.

I'm hoping for some input from the community before making a purchase. What are some of you using and please share experiences/recommendations and any pros and cons that come to mind.

First thing I would like to comment on is "just reliable back-up of specific files." and you asking about Drobo RAID.  RAID is not a BACKUP, RAID protects you against a physical drive failure, it doesn't protect against deletion, corruption, overwrites, etc. Just copying your files to a system with RAID (i.e. Drobo) isn't backing them up, it is just making a copy of them. A true backup solution will let you restore a file to a point in time, reverting changes or restoring it completely if it was deleted.

Now you CAN set this up with an external NAS like the Drobo. For example most of these devices (QNAP, Synology, Buffalo, etc.) have support for TimeMachine (Apple's backup service) on them. I know you said you didn't want OS-system backups but TimeMachine backs up up only a small subset of the OS, it is mainly a user's files and can be configured to ignore directories that you don't care about.

I am currently running a 6 Disk QNAP TS-659 which I have as a TimeMachine target backing up 3 Mac's (1 Mini, 2 MBPs).  My QNAP is then running CrashPlan which backs up the other files from configured network shares on the QNAP to their Internet based service.

If you want to add another device to your network you could just back up directly to CrashPlan, they support individual encryption keys so they can't see your data and their unlimited data, 10 computer family plan is less then $200/year.  I actually purchased it for my family so I have my parents, in-laws and immediate family all backing up to it.

Another option is the CrashPlan free program which can use an external disk to create backups on (not file copies). Though since you are running Mac's this is duplicating TimeMachines functionality.

Now if you want a Drobo or it's like for more then just actual backups and want to use it as a file share between multiple systems then that is a different story. The original Drobo's and OWC's drive bay's (or other's by caldigital, etc.) require a connection to a host computer through USB, FireWire or now Thunderbolt. Then the unit shows up as an external drive to the system. If it's a RAID unit then the primary benefit of it is that you can configure the disk's RAID to provide striping for fast access or RAID5 for lots of storage (not backups).

Newer units from Drobo and ones from QNAP, Synology, Buffalo, etc. are actual NAS's (Network Attached Storage). They are a standalone unit that attaches to your network (wireless or wired depending on model) and then is configured through a web based GUI. You can create separate user accounts on them so multiple people can store their own files on the system and basically run it as a SOHO File/Print server.


How to disable the "Your computer time is almost up." dialog? When parental controls are enabled and computer time setting is set, the controlled user will be shown a dialog 15, 5 and 1 minute(s) before the time is up:

An admin user can add more computer time through this dialog (15 min, 30 min, rest of the day etc.), if he wishes.
Is there a way to disable this dialog? — no mercy!*
I know it's not available through the System Preferences, but is there some sort of hidden setting that can be reached through, e.g. Terminal? Or alternatively, is there a way to automatically send ⌘ + W key combo when a specific dialog appears?
I'm (still) on Snow Leopard, but if some answer would work on Lion, I'm willing to accept it.
*) Actually I've enabled parental controls for my sock–puppet account and, because I know the admin password, adding time through this dialog would be just too easy.**
**) I also know that, being an admin, I could add more time in many different ways and blocking this dialog wouldn't prevent me adding more time in other ways. But—like I said—adding time through this dialog is too easy.

/System/Library/CoreServices/SecurityAgentPlugins/FamilyControls.bundle/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/FamilyControls.nib is a binary XML file that can be opened by TextWrangler or other text editors. This isn't a developed solution (yet), but I'd suggest some well-placed edits to this nib might be able to disable the dialog, perhaps by making buttons disappear. At any rate, this sounds more promising than randomly zeroing out portions of the binary using a hex-editor, which is the other channel I've been exploring.


What to do with outdated hardware in terms of Meltdown and Spectre Apple stated the following in this support article about Meltdown and Spectre:

  All Mac systems and iOS devices are affected, but there are no known
  exploits impacting customers at this time. Since exploiting many of
  these issues requires a malicious app to be loaded on your Mac or iOS
  device, we recommend downloading software only from trusted sources
  such as the App Store. Apple has already released mitigations in iOS
  11.2, macOS 10.13.2, and tvOS 11.2 to help defend against Meltdown.
   [emphasis added] Apple Watch is not affected by Meltdown. In the coming days we plan to
  release mitigations in Safari to help defend against Spectre.

Is it safe to use hardware that cannot be updated to one of these three operating systems? Furthermore, in the case of obsolescent devices, are there significant differences in the safety of old iPhones, Macs, and Apple TVs in terms of these vulnerabilities?

Depends on what your definition of safe is.

If you want to have a guarantee that your computer will not be compromised through the Meltdown/Spectre techniques - no, it is not safe.

If you want to be reasonably sure that the risk of your computer being compromised through the Meltdown/Spectre techniques in the short term is low, then yes it is safe.

Please be advised that even if you do no install new third party programs, you will still be vulnerable through Javascript, Flash and similar on web pages, and through programs that feature auto-updating systems that could potentially download malicious software.

As far as know right know, there is a significant difference between the safety of iOS devices (iPhone/iPad/AppleTV (not first gen)) and Intel Macs. This is due to the fact that the Intel CPUs in the Mac is more susceptible to Meltdown/Spectre than the ARM CPUs in the iOS devices. I.e. more variants of exploits are successful on Intel than on ARM at the moment (considering that you the device is outdated and will not receive any software or firmware updates to mitigate these attacks).


Mac randomly wakes up. Wake reason: (User) My mac randomly wakes up for no reason and says the user is the reason, when it is not. Here's syslog |grep -i "Wake reason":

Feb 25 20:13:44 Garys-MacBook-Pro kernel[0] <Notice>: Wake reason: (User)
Mar  1 17:41:46 Garys-MacBook-Pro kernel[0] <Notice>: Wake reason: (User)
Mar  1 17:51:59 Garys-MacBook-Pro kernel[0] <Notice>: Wake reason: (User)
Mar  1 19:26:43 Garys-MBP kernel[0] <Notice>: Wake reason: (User)
Mar  1 19:28:56 Garys-MBP kernel[0] <Notice>: Wake reason: (User)
Mar  1 22:15:40 Garys-MBP kernel[0] <Notice>: Wake reason: (User)
Mar  1 23:28:37 Garys-MBP kernel[0] <Notice>: Wake reason: (User)
Mar  1 23:35:09 Garys-MBP kernel[0] <Notice>: Wake reason: (User)
Mar  1 23:43:30 Garys-MBP kernel[0] <Notice>: Wake reason: (User)
Mar  2 01:43:36 Garys-MBP kernel[0] <Notice>: Wake reason: (User)
Mar  2 11:26:12 Garys-MBP kernel[0] <Notice>: Wake reason: (User)
Mar  2 13:57:37 Garys-MBP kernel[0] <Notice>: Wake reason: (User)
Mar  2 16:54:12 Garys-MBP kernel[0] <Notice>: Wake reason: (User)

Here's pmset -g and assertions:

Active Profiles:
Battery Power          -1
AC Power          -1*
Currently in use:
womp                 1
halfdim              1
sms                  1
hibernatefile        /var/vm/sleepimage
gpuswitch            2
networkoversleep     1
disksleep            10
sleep                0
hibernatemode        1
ttyskeepawake        1
displaysleep         5 (display sleep prevented by remoting_me2me_)
acwake               0
lidwake              1
Garys-MBP:~ Gary$ pmset -g assertions
2015-03-02 17:47:50 +0000
Assertion status system-wide:
BackgroundTask                 0
ApplePushServiceTask           0
UserIsActive                   1
PreventUserIdleDisplaySleep    1
PreventSystemSleep             0
ExternalMedia                  0
InternalPreventDisplaySleep    1
PreventUserIdleSystemSleep     0
NetworkClientActive            0
Listed by owning process:
   pid 315(remoting_me2me_): [0x0000954900050599] 00:04:44   NoDisplaySleepAssertion named: "Chrome Remote Desktop connection active"
   pid 315(remoting_me2me_): [0x000095490009059a] 00:04:44 UserIsActive named: "Chrome Remote Desktop connection active"
   pid 27(powerd): [0x0000954300100428] 00:04:50 InternalPreventDisplaySleep named: "com.apple.powermanagement.delayDisplayOff"
     Timeout will fire in 298 secs Action=TimeoutActionTurnOff
Kernel Assertions: 0x100=MAGICWAKE
   id=502  level=255 0x100=MAGICWAKE mod=02/03/2015 16:58 description=en0 owner=en0

Edit: I still have the same problem but a different assertions results:

2015-03-03 19:31:47 +0000
Assertion status system-wide:
   BackgroundTask                 1
   ApplePushServiceTask           0
   UserIsActive                   0
   PreventUserIdleDisplaySleep    0
   PreventSystemSleep             0
   ExternalMedia                  0
   PreventUserIdleSystemSleep     0
   NetworkClientActive            0
Listed by owning process:
    pid 225(UserEventAgent): [0x00013ade000b0ac9] 08:35:55 BackgroundTask    named: "com.apple.bird.sync"

You have the Chrome Remote Desktop app installed and active.

That one is waking up your computer as show here:

pid 315(remoting_me2me_): [0x0000954900050599] 00:04:44   NoDisplaySleepAssertion named: "Chrome Remote Desktop connection active"

pid 315(remoting_me2me_): [0x000095490009059a] 00:04:44 UserIsActive named: "Chrome Remote Desktop connection active"

pid 27(powerd): [0x0000954300100428] 00:04:50 InternalPreventDisplaySleep named: "com.apple.powermanagement.delayDisplayOff"

What to do about it read here.

Also you have the MAGICWAKE activated. Disable the Wake on WiFi in your syst pref- Energy to stop that.


What happens to songs improperly marked 'Apple Music'? I have 6,000 songs in my iTunes library and signed up for the Apple Music 3-month trial a while back when it was first offered, including iCloud Music Library.

After matching, about 3,000 of them are marked 'Apple Music' in the 'iCloud Status' column.

This is improper, as most of these were ripped from cds I own, and hundreds of them are actual live recordings I made myself (rehearsal recordings; I'm a songwriter).

Obviously, this is a problem on my iOS devices; they play different songs.

But I'm also concerned about what happens if I cancel my subscription. I've read that songs you've added from the Apple Music service will disappear. Obviously, I don't want my own songwriting recordings to disappear, but I worry they might since they are improperly marked 'Apple Music'. I have them backed up in time machine and elsewhere, but it would still be a huge hassle to audit the results, discover what is and isn't deleted, and add them back in.

I guess my question is twofold:

What happens to songs that are improperly marked 'Apple Music' if you cancel your subscription? If I choose to cancel, what is the best way to ensure all my recordings remain?
If I choose to stay subscribed, for songs that are improperly marked 'Apple Music' and should be 'Uploaded' instead, how can this be repaired? (I've been reluctant to pick 'Update iCloud Music Library' because of all the warnings to back up your library first - is this safe in my case?) What is the best way to repair my library?

Figured I'd answer my own question. I made two attempts to contact Apple Support and another attempt to post to Apple Discussions, with no results.

So I copied my entire iTunes library to a backup disk, and did my best at keeping notes at how many songs I had, which were what status, etc. I knew if things went south, I'd have quite a project in figuring out what songs to restore, but couldn't think of another alternative.

After I finished backing up, I loaded my original desktop iTunes library, and picked "Update iCloud Music Library".

It took about 90 minutes for 6,177 tracks, first analyzing music, and then uploading to iCloud. And the end result is that it looks like it resolved matters perfectly.

I've seen other articles from the past indicating that "Update iCloud Music Library" only led to partial success, and led to people doing long involved processes like opening a new library, deleting all their tracks there, and then going back to their original one to re-analyze and download, but to me that seems more error-prone and unnecessary.

Brief stats: Before I did the update, I had:

Apple Music: 2912
Uploaded: 2486
Matched: 8

After the update, I had:

Apple Music: 43
Uploaded: 3135
Matched: 2228

The rest of my songs stayed consistent in status (Purchased, Ineligible, No Longer Available, Waiting, Error). So far I don't see any songs that are improperly categorized, and all of my personal recordings are properly Uploaded.

I still don't know what would have happened if I had canceled, but matters seem improved now.


Can my iPhone automatically send me an email when I turn it on? I had my iphone repaired by someone advertising on eBay.  I opened the package containing my iPhone 4s and when I turned it on, an email appeared in my gmail account that I sent to myself, which I didn't, that contained information I had in my iPhone notes.  Is it possible that the person who repaired my phone did this?  Now, I cannot find the note that was sent in my "notes."

No, the phone can't email itself. He probably went into your accounts, checked your email address, and made a backup of your notes by emailing the stuff to your email address. That's what people do sometimes to remind themselves about stuff the next day or later when you read your emails.

If he sent it to your email address, and then read his own email, it is flagged as read/seen, and won't appear as a new/unseen email on any other email client. So this means you could have missed the notification, but he sure did email it to your email address from your email from your phone.

Hope this explains it. :)


Can't remove unknown symbol from menu bar I have this symbol in my menu bar, I don't know where it came from. I can't remove it by using Cmd drag, whenever I move the mouse over it the mouse turns into the spinning rainbow wheel. Can anyone help please?

This is the icon for an old version of Adobe Application Manager or Adobe Updater. It wouldn't show up in the standard Force Quit dialog, so I would recommend the following steps:

Open Activity Monitor, either by searching in Spotlight (Command-Space) or opening it from /Applications/Utilities/Activity Monitor.
Search for "adobe".
Select each relevant result and click the "X" octagon in the top left, then confirm with the Force Quit option.
Reopen Adobe Application Manager or Adobe Updater, and use it to update or uninstall the two pieces of Adobe software which need to be updated.


Installing virtualenvwrapper on macOS Sierra - "-bash: /usr/local/bin/virtualenvwrapper.sh: No such file or directory" error I'm a bit of a newbie to Python and definitely to virtual environments and Django. I want to install Django but it first recommends a virtualenv / virtualenvwrapper. A video I am watching recommends installing virtualenvwrapper so I just tried this, following these instructions:

https://virtualenvwrapper.readthedocs.io/en/latest/install.html#basic-installation
and
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/15101559/terminal-where-is-the-shell-start-up-file

I first ran

pip install virtualenvwrapper

which seemed to work fine. It generated some messages, ending with:

Downloading https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/e1/ba/f95e3ec83f93919b1437028e989cf3fa5ff4f5cae4a1f62255f71deddb5b/pbr-4.0.2-py2.py3-none-any.whl (98kB)
100% |████████████████████████████████| 102kB 5.3MB/s
Requirement already satisfied: six>=1.10.0 in /Users/rishi/anaconda3/lib/python3.6/site-packages (from stevedore->virtualenvwrapper)
Installing collected packages: virtualenv-clone, pbr, stevedore, virtualenv, virtualenvwrapper
Successfully installed pbr-4.0.2 stevedore-1.28.0 virtualenv-15.2.0 virtualenv-clone-0.3.0 virtualenvwrapper-4.8.2

I then had to follow the "shell startup" guidelines which mentioned adding these lines to be shell startup file:

export WORKON_HOME=$HOME/.virtualenvs
export PROJECT_HOME=$HOME/Devel
source /usr/local/bin/virtualenvwrapper.sh

I did this. Once I run $ source ~/.bash_profile on terminal, I am presented with this error:

-bash: /usr/local/bin/virtualenvwrapper.sh: No such file or directory

After searching online, a forum post recommended that I run:

which virtualenvwrapper.sh

and this gives me the result:

/Users/rishi/anaconda3/bin/virtualenvwrapper.sh

Note I have Anaconda installed for some (previous) learning. I now want to install/learn Django.

Searching online, one person recommended to copy the virtualenvwrapper.sh from the one directory to the /usr/local/bin/ directory. It also seems like I should have done this with sudo - i.e. should I have run the following?

sudo pip install virtualenvwrapper

I'm super confused - I never was good with server/installing stuff so I'd really appreciate guidance on how/what to install correctly in order to get my virtual environment working, and then hopefully I can use Django.

Perhaps you may recommend

just copying the Anaconda virtualenvwrapper.sh  file as suggested?
Or if I should install again using sudo then please let me know how to uninstall virtualenvwrapper (that I just installed) so I can re-install it,

or please simply let me know the steps I should follow as I don't want to mess anything up, if I haven't already!

UPDATE

I copied the file from Anandonda to the main folder as explained above, and then ran this. The following messages were generated, and now I seem to be good, I can use the workon command for example.

Rishi:bin rishi$ source ~/.bash_profile
virtualenvwrapper.user_scripts creating /Users/rishi/.virtualenvs/premkproject
virtualenvwrapper.user_scripts creating /Users/rishi/.virtualenvs/postmkproject
virtualenvwrapper.user_scripts creating /Users/rishi/.virtualenvs/initialize
virtualenvwrapper.user_scripts creating /Users/rishi/.virtualenvs/premkvirtualenv
virtualenvwrapper.user_scripts creating /Users/rishi/.virtualenvs/postmkvirtualenv
virtualenvwrapper.user_scripts creating /Users/rishi/.virtualenvs/prermvirtualenv
virtualenvwrapper.user_scripts creating /Users/rishi/.virtualenvs/postrmvirtualenv
virtualenvwrapper.user_scripts creating /Users/rishi/.virtualenvs/predeactivate
virtualenvwrapper.user_scripts creating /Users/rishi/.virtualenvs/postdeactivate
virtualenvwrapper.user_scripts creating /Users/rishi/.virtualenvs/preactivate
virtualenvwrapper.user_scripts creating /Users/rishi/.virtualenvs/postactivate
virtualenvwrapper.user_scripts creating /Users/rishi/.virtualenvs/get_env_details

You have a mix of pythons on your machine. I would stick to one.

In this case I would stick to anaconda.

SO edit your path so that anaconda is first on the path before /usr/local/bin and /usr/bin

Test by running

 which python

You should get

/Users/mark/anaconda3/bin/python

If a 2 rather than 3 you have python2,7 and I would switch to 3.

You can now use virtulenv etc as they are part of python 3.6 (the current 3.x version) see the python docs You should use venv now not what your tutorial shows https://docs.python.org/3/library/venv.html

However as you are using anaconda you can use conda insteaf of venv, You will find most things already installed (I use conda as it provides prebuilt C libraries when needed, pip etc can be more complex and also could require Xcode) https://conda.io/docs/user-guide/getting-started.html The django install is at https://anaconda.org/anaconda/django


If i run terminal on rossetta2 then will all the processes run on rossetta 2 itself? Reason i am asking is i want to build some docker images which are not suitable on arm right now .. so i am just wondering If i run terminal on rossetta2 and build docker images. Those images will be built on rossetta2 ?

No, code execution doesn’t work that way on macOS Big Sur.
Rosetta2 automatically translates the app when you install it from an Apple install package or translates on the fly if you otherwise side-load the executable and library code.
It doesn’t virtualize a system - it translates code.
Things like kernel extensions or scripts can not be translated and will fail outright. App developers must make new versions of those extensions and scripts in that case.
The only thing running terminal in Rosetta2 will accomplish is you use the translated M1 instructions and not the optimized ones for the terminal app itself. The shell and things running inside terminal run the same either way.


How can I bulk-change the folder permissions on macOS? I've been using an app called JDisk report which pinpoints the biggest space hogs on my drive. I've been trying to run it on the family iMac but the results are quite inaccurate because the only thing my user account has permission to access (and therefore the only thing it can scan) is my user folder, shared folders and public folders. I tried using the chmod command which I though would change the permissions of the folder to which it was executed on and all folders within, but it only does it per-folder, which makes the process extremely tedious. There must be a better way to do this.

If it helps, I'm running macOS 10.13.6 High Sierra on a mid-2011 iMac (base 500GB model except the RAM has been buffed to 12GB)

chmod has an -R option to apply changes recursively to a whole directory tree but I strongly recommend to not use it for your scenario as you can break quite a lot of things by applying it in places where you shouldn't.

Instead

Log into your Mac as an administrative user and rerun JDisk. Not sure it will solve all your issues though as the tool seems to be cross-plattform and may not be aware of access right handling on macOS
Check out the answers in How can I figure out what's slowly eating my HD space? for other tools


iPod touch, 4th Gen. iHome IP90 I bought a iHome IP90 off a friend for really cheap, and I thought I got a deal. Once I tried to use it my iPod wouldn't connect unless I tilted it towards me, and sometimes it would would say that it wasn't supported. I just would like to know if there is anything I can do to fix this problem?

I was going to suggest a phone restore and then wondered as to how you could do that if the phone would not turn on or charge. The last fix in the attached link below describes connecting the phone with the USB sync cable to your Mac and then entering DFU mode which you may not have tried.